Abstract
Charles Darwin believed in biological progress. Yet many modern scholars puzzled over how this belief could be compatible with his theory which, presumably, was based on “evolutionary opportunism.” We hold that the puzzle is even more problematic for the opposite reason: whereas evolutionary opportunism might eventually have found the ways to progress, Darwin ultimately deprived the evolutionary process of flexibility by confining it within the straitjacket of a rigid and pre-established pan-divergent pattern. In addition, having constrained evolution within nearly stable and permanent classes/phyla, Darwin restricted evolutionary motion to lower taxonomic entities, envisioning them as falling under endless cycles of rising and declining forms. At a very fundamental explanatory level, Darwin’s view appealed to an equilibrium system built around devices such as (1) demographic expansion performed at the proportional expense of demographic decline; (2) an evolutionary drive involving related forms that exhausts itself in reverse proportion to their taxonomic ascent; and (3) an evolutionary stalemate maintained between forms interlocked in a mutual adaptive deadlock. The biological progress recognized by Darwin does not ensue from the application of his theory; rather, it is an empirical fact that his theory cannot explain.
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Notes
- 1.
Here, I largely follow Timothy Shanahan ’s useful review of the literature by rearranging his analysis. See Shanahan (2004: 173–195, 285–294).
- 2.
See also Richards (1992).
- 3.
See also Bowler (2003: 12, 146, 164, 169).
- 4.
Darwin (1859: 3, 6, 44, 55, 59, 129, 133, 138, 139, 152, 155, 159, 162, 167, 185, 194, 203, 355, 372, 389, 390, 393, 394, 396, 398, 406, 413, 414, 420, 434, 435, 437, 456, 469, 470, 471, 473, 475, 478, 482, 483, 486, 487, 488).
- 5.
See our analysis in Chap. 5 of this book.
- 6.
- 7.
This theme has been treated more fully in Chap. 2 of this book.
- 8.
It is instructive to contrast what Huxley had to say about his own work and about the work of Darwin. See Huxley, T.H. (1893), Darwiniana: Collected Essays, Vol. 2 (London: Macmillan) and Huxley, T.H. (1898–1902), The Scientific Memoirs of Thomas Henry Huxley, 4 Vols, edited by M. Foster and E. Ray Lankester (London: Macmillan). See also Lyons (1999: 245–250) and Di Gregorio (1984: 57–68).
- 9.
Owen’s text is reproduced in Hull (1973: 175–213) with the quote on pp. 195–196.
- 10.
- 11.
These brief considerations over the Darwin-Huxley-Owen triumvirate would require a much deeper analysis than can be provided here.
- 12.
- 13.
Darwin (1859: 171, 194, 206, 210, 243, 460, 471).
- 14.
See, for instance, Darwin (1859: 77, 81–82, 102–111, 119, 350, 388, 401, 472).
- 15.
See also Darwin , C. (1862), On the Various Contrivances by which British and Foreign Orchids Are Fertilized by Insects, and on the Good Effects of Intercrossing (London: John Murray).
- 16.
- 17.
- 18.
This topic has been analyzed in great depth in Chap. 5 of this book.
- 19.
For a direct reference to Lamarck’s support of an internal drive, see Darwin (1872: 98).
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Delisle, R.G. (2019). Cyclicity, Evolutionary Equilibrium, and Biological Progress. In: Charles Darwin's Incomplete Revolution. Evolutionary Biology – New Perspectives on Its Development, vol 1. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-17203-9_7
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