(x) Preface

"There are, however, stronger reasons for including Darwin in a series on philosophers. His work in itself is something that calls for philosophical analysis and that bears on philosophical issues. Thanks to Darwin, we now know that organisms were not created in six days miraculously, but are the end result of a long, slow, undirected process of natural change – evolution. Such a theory needs examining conceptually, to see how it is structured and how it makes its claims. And since the theory extends to humankind – we were not the result of a burst of creative activity at the end of the divine workweek – Darwin’s thinking must also be explored for its implications for important questions in philosophy, both the theory of knowledge (epistemology) and the theory of morality (ethics)." [mijn nadruk] (x)

[Gelukkig, geen religieus standpunt. Maar zeker eigenwijs: dat hij Edward Osborne Wilson - de vader van de sociobiologie - bedankt als inspiratiebron is minstens opvallend.]

(1) 1 - Charles Darwin

Zijn grootvader Erasmus Darwin was in de 18e eeuw lid van de Lunar Society die elke maand wetenschap en technologie besprak in relatie tot industrialisatie. Zijn vader was arts en werd rijk van slimme geldzaken.

"It is worth emphasizing these points, because at once we can start to put young Charles into context. He was not an aristocrat, but he was a member of the rich, upper-middle classes, the people who had done (and continued to do) very well out of the Industrial Revolution." [mijn nadruk] (2)

De opleiding tot arts lag hem niet en uiteindelijk werd hij een gedreven wetenschappelijk onderzoeker op het vlak van de natuurwetenschappen die zich indertijd net ontwikkelden.

"One should add that, at Cambridge, this was always done in a religious context and generally involved looking at nature to praise the abilities of the Creator. In those days, a professor at an English university (Oxford being the only other) had to be an ordained member of the Church of England (Anglican)."(3)

[Je kwam dus nergens als je geen lid was van die club. Dat je briljant was op jouw terrein deed er niet toe, als je niet gelovig was werd je niet serieus genomen en kreeg je geen enkele kans. Hoeveel talent er op die manier verspild werd / wordt ... Een reeks irrationele ovetuigingen als maatstaf van waaruit mensen beoordeeld en op allerlei maatschappelijke terreinen geaccepteerd werden. Het is niet te geloven. Voor Darwin was dat overigens geen probleem, omdat hij die overtuigingen in zijn jongerre jaren nog onderschreef.]

Succesvolle studie aan Cambridge. Beloond met een reis aan het oorlogsschip HMS Beagle van vijf jaar. Pas in 1836 terug.

"Originally his status on the ship was primarily that of a companion to the captain, but rapidly he became the ship’s naturalist, and spent a considerable time studying the flora and fauna of the lands that he visited, sending massive collections back home for study by the appropriate specialists."(4)

Darwin was in eerste instantie geoloog, in zijn tijd een belangrijk terrein gezien de Industriële Revolutie, de aanleg van de spoorwegen, etc. Grote invloed: Lyell die van opvatting was dat alle geologische veranderingen zoals de vorming van gebergte via heel normale natuurlijke processentot stand kwamen:

"rain, snow, freezing, warming, deposition, erosion, earthquakes, volcanoes, and more – could do everything. Everything, that is, if there were a virtually infinite bank of time on which nature could draw repeatedly."(5)

"Following Lyell, Darwin became fascinated with the distributions of organisms, both through time as shown in the fossil record, and through space as shown by geographical distributions."(7)

Bijvoorbeeld de verschillende soorten schildpadden op de Galapagoseilanden.

"The big conceptual move was made in the spring of 1837. Darwin was back home looking at, and trying to make sense of, his collections. He realized that the only sensible answer to the island differences [onder de schildpadden - GdG] was that original animals had come from the mainland, and once on the Galapagos had changed and evolved after they moved from island to island. Charles Darwin moved across the divide, never again to think that species are fixed, for ever to think that life is in flux. Yet, at the same time, he knew that such a belief would not be viewed with favor by the older members of his group. Hence, Darwin kept very quiet about his thinking, even as he now opened the notebooks in which he began to speculate." [mijn nadruk] (9)

Darwin zocht naar de oorzaken achter die veranderingen. De invloed van Thomas Robert Malthus die het over “struggles for existence” had.

"Darwin seized on the Malthusian ratios, and had there, in his hand, the force behind a natural form of selection. More organisms are born than can survive and reproduce. There is natural variation in populations in the wild. The successful in the struggle (what came to be known as the “fit”) will be different from the unsuccessful, and on average and in general the success will be a function of the different characteristics: the successful will be a bit better camouflaged than the unsuccessful, or a bit stronger, or able to go with less food and water, or whatever. Over time this will lead to full-blown change; change, moreover, of a particular kind, namely that which makes for “adaptations” to organs like the hand and the eye that help their possessors in the struggle to survive and reproduce. So we have the biological equivalent to Newtonian gravitation – natural selection or (as it later was called) the survival of the fittest." [mijn nadruk] (11)

Hij werkt aan die ideeën, maar houdt ze stil. In 1839 trouwt hij met Emma Wedgwood met wie hij tien kinderen kreeg. Ze leven in redelijke welvaart. Darwin wordt steeds meer geplaagd door ziektes.

"Finally, in the 1850s Darwin turned back to the question of organic change, and began writing a huge work on evolution. This was interrupted in the summer of 1858 by the arrival of an essay from a young collector and naturalist, then in the East Indies. Alfred Russel Wallace had hit upon virtually the same ideas as Charles Darwin had found some twenty years before. Quickly, Lyell and Hooker arranged for the publication, by the Linnean Society of London, of Wallace’s essay together with selected pieces from earlier (hitherto private) writings by Darwin. Then Darwin sat down and in fifteen months wrote up what was published towards the end of 1859 as his definitive statement on the subject: On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or, The Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life. After a long, long delay, Darwin’s theory of evolution was there for all to see. An oft-noted but not terribly important point is that Darwin never used the word “evolution” in the Origin. “Evolution” was a term only then coming into use to denote the change of species through time, and its use was confined mainly to the change of the individual embryo as it developed. Many used the term “transformation” to mean what we now mean by “evolution.” Darwin generally wrote of “descent with modification,” although as it happens the last word of the book is “evolved.”" [mijn nadruk] (13)

"We all know that there was a huge row after the Origin was published. But, truly, how successful or unsuccessful was Darwin? This much can be said with near certainty. Very quickly, respectable opinion in Britain and elsewhere in the world (Europe and much of the northern USA, as well as the British Empire) came to accept the evolutionary theory that all organisms, living and dead, are the end results of a long, slow process of law-bound change. (...) It also seems true that evolution was accepted by most segments of society. (...) Moreover, although religious people tended more to caution on these matters, in that quarter also there was considerable acceptance of evolution." [mijn nadruk] (13)

Genetische kennis ontbrak nog grotendeels.

" Most people agreed that natural selection could cause some change. Very few agreed that natural selection could cause all change. There were some serious scientific issues at stake here. In the first place, and most troubling, Darwin had no decent theory of heredity – what we today would call genetics.(...) From detailed study of populations in the wild, not the least of which were his barnacle species, Darwin was convinced that such variation does occur, but he had no real theory to account for why it occurs. Moreover he had no real theory of how such variation gets passed on." [mijn nadruk] (14)

"Darwin’s other major scientific problem concerned the age of the earth. (...) Darwin wriggled as best he could on this question, but here too he recognized that there was a major problem – as, of course, we now know that there was, though it was not Darwin’s. The physicists were ignorant of radioactive decay and its warming effect. Now it is thought that the earth is 4.5 (American) billion years old, and that for about 3.75 billion years it has been sustaining life – quite long enough for even a slow process like natural selection." [mijn nadruk] (15)

"Like Christianity, evolution told of origins, it told of humankind and (in the opinion of Huxley and friends) it put us not only last-appearing but at the top, and for many it offered a kind of up-to-date version of the Sermon on the Mount.(...) In short, far from being a vigorous new branch of science – which had surely been Darwin’s aim when he wrote the Origin of Species – evolutionary theorizing became a part of the social fabric of forward-looking Britain (and America and elsewhere). It was popular, but with hindsight not necessarily for the right reasons or for the right purposes." [mijn nadruk] (17)

(21) 2 - On the Origin of Species

"This chapter will be expository. The next chapter will take up the analysis."(21)

"Darwin started the Origin by turning to the world of the breeders of animals and plants."(21)

"Subtle changes have occurred – under the radar, as it were: breeders have kept their eyes on the main targets, but unplanned shifts have fre- quently occurred. Perhaps even more than active artificial selection, this phenomenon of change without direct intention prepared the way for an understanding of natural selection. Here was change brought on blindly, without any aim of achieving some pre-specified goal, just like the situation in the wild. His observations on unconscious selection underline an important point about the significance of this whole discussion of artificial selection for Darwin."(23)

"Remember that this quotation, like the others, is from the first edition of the Origin. At this point, Darwin did not use the alternative name for natural selection, “survival of the fittest.” This term was invented by his fellow English evolutionist Herbert Spencer and urged on Darwin by Wallace as something with fewer anthropomorphic connections. Darwin introduced the synonym only in later editions of the Origin." [mijn nadruk] (27)

"Another problematic topic that Darwin tackled was the supposed impossibility of the evolution of features that are very complex and seem to work perfectly – the eye, most notably. How on earth could something like this have come about through natural selection?" [mijn nadruk] (34)

[Een erg belangrijk punt, gezien de latere discussies over 'intelligent design'.]

"I should say that in moving the eye sequence from a range through time to a range through space, Darwin was rather cleverly taking a leaf from the non-evolutionist book."(35)

"Darwin would argue that evolution through natural selection explains the facts of biology, and conversely that these facts justify acceptance of evolution through natural selection. Instinct is the first topic up."(36)

"The chapter on instinct starts by affirming an observation that was absolutely central to the Darwinian vision: namely, that the basic building blocks of evolution, the variations, are small. Selection works on the almost minute – individual differences, Darwin called them – rather than the large – saltations."(37)

"Darwin discussed a number of well-known but tricky instances of instinct at work: the cuckoo laying its eggs in the nests of others, the slave-making abilities of certain species of ant, and above all the intricate nest building of the honey bee, which produces combs made from wax in the form of layer upon layer of hexagonal containers, in which eggs are laid and the young reared. How can instincts like these possibly come into being and how in particular can they be produced by selection? Darwin showed that there are other species of bee that produce less intricate and standardized combs and that (as with the eye) it is reasonable to think that through space we see what is presumed to have happened through time." [mijn nadruk] (37-38)

"The two chapters on paleontology are not written in the order that I would have written them. Like the song says, I believe in accentuating the positive. I would have made the case – the very strong case – for the explanation of the fossil record by means of evolution through natural selection and then I would have discussed the problems. Almost certainly because the critics were so loud, Darwin did it the other way around, so that by the time you get to the positive you are a little sand-bagged by the difficulties."(41)

Over de problemen rondom het fossielenbestand.

"Darwin conceded openly the real problem that, as you go down the record, life suddenly appears full-blown; beneath that there is nothing. Where is the evidence of evolution from simpler forms? Perhaps, argued Darwin ingeniously, life first evolved in places now covered by oceans."(42)

"There really are many ways in which organisms can move around the globe."(46)

(54) 3 - One Long Argument

Filosofen vonden Darwins Origin maar niks. Zoals William Whewell, John Herschel. John Stuart Mill (half, half).

"Darwin in his autobiography referred to his work as “one long argument,” and this is the right way to think of it. (...) What is a tad misleading is the almost casual, friendly style of the Origin. One does not think of this as a great work of science – more a popularization or something like it. In part, this comes from Darwin’s inability to put anything in mathematical form, the sure mark today of professional science. In part, it comes from his background.(...) We must be careful not to underestimate the beast beneath the smooth, surface form." [mijn nadruk] (55)

[Wonderlijke opmerking: waarom is argumentatie pas professioneel als je het in wiskundige formules kunt gieten?]

"To start with the most basic question: what kind of theory is Darwin offering us?"(55)

Voldoet het aan de maatstaven voor een hypothetisch-deductief systeem? Ja.

"Judged in these terms, there is overwhelming evidence that Darwin held an H-D picture of theories, if not by this name. Newton was the ideal of theorist and we have seen that this ideal was accepted by Darwin. There is no surprise here, for Darwin was sensitive to scientific method- ology – so much so that there was good reason why he was hurt by the reactions of the philosophers. (...) (Note that, in those days, “natural philosophy” meant “natural science.” “Moral philosophy” was what we mean by “philosophy.”)" [mijn nadruk] (57)

"So what parts of the theory of the Origin are H-D? Well, obviously nothing very much, if you are going to insist on a strict definition. But if you think about the kind of argument Darwin puts forward in the book, good candidates are those passages dealing first with the struggle for existence and then moving on to natural selection."(58)

"But you are certainly not presented with anything like a formal deduction, even though it is clear that Darwin thinks that all of the discussions in the last part of the book are, in fact, related through – and explained by – premises about selection. A sketch, although no more than a sketch.
There is more to discuss about these central arguments. They are supposed to be made up of laws. Is this indeed the case? A lot of people worry that it is not so (Elgin 2006). They point out that the trouble with biology is that every time you try to think up a law, something goes wrong. It is not just Darwin’s problem: it is a general problem. You can never have laws in biology. This, to put it mildly, is a pretty strong charge and needs a reply. So ask first: what is a law?" [mijn nadruk] (59)

"Nomic necessity is not something we find out there in nature. It is more our way of conceptualizing the world. These things come in degrees and we know that some things are less exception prone than others." [mijn nadruk] (60)

"But this said, it does seem to me that Darwin’s claims fall on the side of law. Overall, he based his thinking on generalizations about empirical reality that are true and not just contingent – they are, in some sense, necessary. And this is more or less so, even if there are some real or possible counter-examples. Organisms do have a tendency to go up in numbers geometrically, and food and space do not. There are struggles for existence. As Darwin himself admits, not always or at all times, but generally so." [mijn nadruk] (60)

"But what about natural selection itself? Is it a genuine scientific concept or notion? A lot of people worry about it (Sober 1984)." [mijn nadruk] (61)

"Notice, however, that natural selection does introduce a special way of thinking into biology – namely, statistical thinking. One is now working with groups and averaging over them."(62)

"If natural selection is a force of some kind, it is a cause. It makes other things (effects) happen. But is it a well-established cause?"(64)

"Darwin knew what he was up to. Again and again, he defended the plausibility of his theory on both vera causa grounds."(66)

"The question we want answered now is how successful Darwin was in his strategy. Historically speaking, as we know, only partially. Why was this? Well, for a start, the breeding analogy really did not convince."(67)

"The consilience was clearly more successful. This does seem to have convinced people of evolution. The circumstantial evidence was simply massive. If you were going to accept any kind of naturalistic position – that is, to think that organisms were produced by unbroken law and not by miracles – then Darwin had made the case. It was no longer reasonable to believe otherwise."(67)

"Yet it is clear that the consilience was only partly successful. People agreed that natural selection could do something, but few agreed that it could do as much as Darwin wanted."(67)

"The pertinent historical point is obviously that, although people judged Darwin’s consilience as good enough for evolution, they drew back when it came to his putative cause."(68)

"Was Darwin at fault in using so many metaphors? It cannot be denied that there are those, both scientists and philosophers, who feel uncomfortable about it (Fodor 1996). They look upon metaphor as, at best, shorthand for that which can be said literally and, at worst, a lazy substitute for that which should be said literally. For these critics, perhaps the most satisfactory way of looking at metaphor in science is that it is a sign of immaturity, and that as the science develops and grows to adulthood it will drop the metaphors. So, in the case of natural selection, for instance, one should think of “differential survival” or (even better) “differential reproduction,” which is a non-metaphorical concept and much more precise anyway. Against this, however, there are those – and I am one – who think that this is all a little bit too hasty (Lakoff and Johnson 1980; Ruse 1999). First, even if one could eliminate metaphor, it would be a silly move to make. Second, there are theoretical reasons to think that the metaphors could not go without significantly altering the science itself." [mijn nadruk] (69)

Meer over de voordelen en nadelen van het gebruik van metaforen.

"The point here is not that metaphors always mislead, but that one must be careful to see that they do not mislead."(71)

"What is on the point is that Darwin’s theory is impregnated with design thinking. It is, to use an eighteenth-century term, deeply respectful of “teleology,” the idea that all phenomena in nature are determined by an overall design or purpose. The question we must therefore ask is about the status of this teleology." [mijn nadruk] (72)

(75) 4 - Neo-Darwinism

"I turn now to look at developments in evolutionary thinking since Darwin. My coverage will be ahistorical, focusing not on the order in which discoveries were made and hypotheses proposed but on the order in which ideas and topics are presented in the Origin of Species. This means that I shall start with the empiricist vera causa principle and how selection measures up to this today." [mijn nadruk] (75)

Natuurlijke en kunstmatige selectie

"At the time of writing the Origin of Species, Darwin had no direct evidence of selection. He strikes me as almost casual about the lack of such evidence. I suspect that he was so certain that he had technically satisfied the philosophers’ criteria for vera causa status, he was not much bothered by failing to find selection visibly at work today."(75)

"It was not until the 1930s and 1940s that selection studies really caught fire. If we fast forward to the present, we have instances too numerous to list (Endler 1986; Ruse 2006a)."(77)

Het onderzoek naar motten door Tutt, later bevestigd door vele anderen, waaronder Kettlewell.

"In the 1950s, H. B. D. Kettlewell did massive studies on moths (published in toto in 1973), showing how they are differentially predated by birds, those that are peppered doing well on unpolluted trees, and those that are melanic doing well on polluted trees. Recently this work has been controversial because the American biblical literalists (more on these folk in a later chapter), knowing what a key piece of evidence it is for evolutionists, have seized on Kettlewell’s work as fraudulent. This is simply not true. The work has been analyzed and reanalyzed, using statistical techniques far more powerful than he had in his grasp. The conclusion is unequivocal.
In addition, there have been many repeat experiments confirming Tutt’s original hypotheses. Moreover, similar effects have been found in other organisms. And, to cap it all, one of Tutt’s key predictions – that if and when pollution is tackled and the trees regain their old skins, the moths will reverse the trend and the norm will once again be speck- led – turns out to be true." [mijn nadruk] (78)

[Typisch, dat gedrag van die conservatieve christenen: als iemand dingen beweert die je onwelgevallig zijn en die je niet kunt weerleggen, dan ga je degene die die beweringen doet toch zwart maken? Het is kenmerkend dictatoriaal gedrag van dogmatische mensen, je ziet het altijd weer: dingen beweren tegen alle bevestigde feiten in. Dat gedrag is dan ook totaal onwetenschappelijk.]

"What about artificial selection in action? Again today there are huge numbers of studies on which one can draw."(79)

De interne werking ervan

"We come now to the modern-day equivalent of those parts of the Origin that introduce natural selection and try to show how it works – what you might properly call the heart of the whole theory."(81)

Mendel, de ontwikkeling van de cytologie en genetica. Het belang voor de opvattingen van Darwin.

"In order to start the discussion, we need to recognize that the new theory of heredity owed as much to cytology, studies of the cell, as it did to breeding experiments, the part that feeds directly into genetics."(82)

"We have so far seen that the gene is the unit of function: it is this that brings about (or carries the information to make) the physical body. We have also seen that the gene is the unit of heredity: it is the gene that carries the information from one generation to the next."(85)

Daarnaast hebben we nog het fenomeen van de mutatie.

"... it was necessary to shift the focus of evolutionary theory somewhat, from the individual organism to the gene – in the language introduced above, from the phenotype to the genotype. Darwin’s theory in the Origin talks about finches and ants and wolves and turnips and pigeons and on and on. In modern theory, these do not cease to exist, but now one reconceptualizes things and recognizes that with the coming of genetics what matters in heritable transmission is not so much the individual but the units of heredity, the genes." [mijn nadruk] (86)

"The point is made. Theorizing like this has replaced the original deductions that Darwin gives in the third and fourth chapters of the Origin. Note that our calculations are more formal than Darwin’s, which is what you would expect as a science matures, and (although I am somewhat dubious about the significance of this), for those who care about such things, we can now say that we are dealing with entities (genes) that are not observed directly. We are nevertheless still absolutely and completely dealing with a Darwinian theory. Selection is the big force that changes things." [mijn nadruk] (90)

Bespreking van sikkelcelanemie als voorbeeld. De 'strijd' tussen moleculair biologen en evolutionair biologen.

"Did the coming of the molecules in any sense help evolutionary studies? The answer is that they most certainly did."(95)

"Has the molecular revolution actually made any difference to the theory of modern evolutionary thinking? In some respects it has."(96)

"Enough has been said. The molecular revolution is now welcomed by Darwinian evolutionists. As we shall see in the next chapters, the easy problems having been solved, the molecular biologists are themselves turning to the issues of evolution. They now realize that there is a lot more to the study of whole organisms than stamp collecting."(98)

(99) 5 - The Consilience: One

"We turn now to the other side (the rationalist side) of the vera causa question, and see how the consilience of inductions fares in modern evolutionary theory. I shall follow Darwin’s order of presentation, but shall begin with something entirely missing from the Origin."(99)

"What is the dog in the Origin of Species and why does it not bark? The dog is the discussion of the ultimate origins of life, from non-life."(100)

"But of course the origin of life was a topic that would not go away, and today no discussion of evolution would be complete without it. It has also become a focus of philosophical debate, with those who are not very keen on science and its claims about origins holding up this particular issue as an impassable barrier to the complete success of any naturalistic (that is lawbound) explanation."(101)

"Nobody pretends that we now know the precise ways in which life formed naturally, and indeed at times the problems seem to grow with every day the subject is studied. But progress is being made and the general opinion is that, given we have today the theories and tools of molecular biology enabling us to penetrate right down into the ultimate workings of the living organism, now is precisely not the time to concede defeat and go home. It is certainly not the time to make room for miracles or other non-natural events. In the years since Darwin, probably the most important realization is more philosophical than scientific: it is about the nature of the problem. When we speak of things as living, what precisely do we mean? What is the difference between something living and something not living?" [mijn nadruk] (101)

"It is all very well speaking of a life force, but unless you can identify it and show what it is doing, why bother to take it seriously? There may be little green men standing in the middle of my living room, but if they are invisible and untouchable and un-whatever-elseable, who cares?" [mijn nadruk] (102)

[Mooi gezegd. Zo denk ik er ook over.]

"Even naturalists like Popper (1974) doubted that we would ever crack the mystery of life. “An impenetrable barrier to science and a residue to all attempts to reduce biology to chemistry and physics.” No one has yet shown him wrong, but there are those today – perhaps with hopes of Nobel prizes in their minds – who are working flat out to show that this is a barrier that can be penetrated."(103)

"Now for the first of Darwin’s topics, namely instinct. More generally, in the light of today’s interests, we start with the whole area of which instinct is but a part, and turn to the study, from an evolutionary perspective, of animal social behavior, a field that was given its name in a major survey – Sociobiology: The New Synthesis (1975) – by the Harvard student of the social insects Edward O. Wilson." [mijn nadruk] (104)

"But what about organisms of the same species? Are they always in competition with each other, one against the rest? Sometimes organisms in the same species do compete. That is the whole point of sexual selection, which is always about intra-specific struggle. But must there always be struggle within the group, or can group members sometimes help each other or even work together against the members of other groups? Is selection always focused on the individual as the ultimate unit, or can it sometimes be focused on the group? (Today these are known as “individual” and “group” selection respectively.)" [mijn nadruk] (104)

"There has been much discussion among Darwinians over the origin and maintenance of sex (Ruse 1996). It has advantages from a group perspective – new, favorable mutations can be spread quickly in the population. However, from the individual viewpoint of females it seems disastrous because, as noted above, they tend to do the work. Why propagate someone else’s genes if he makes no contribution to child rearing? Some Darwinians argue that there must be an individual-selection reason for sex." [mijn nadruk] (108)

[Zo lang je niet over mensen praat ... Wat een rare eenzijdigheid, toch, als je dit op mensen zou toepassen. Alsof je als mens seks hebt om genen door te geven. En alsof het 'van nature' zo is dat mannen niet ook zorgen voor de kinderen en zo.]

"Perhaps the most popular and powerful metaphor in modern biology, introduced by the English sociobiologist and popular writer Richard Dawkins (1976), is that of the “selfish gene.” What Dawkins meant to do was to draw attention to the way in which selection promotes the individual over the group. But very readily one starts switching from selfish genes to selfish people. Before long one starts to give content to the suspicion that Darwin and his followers were reflecting less the facts of nature and more their own commitment to a harsh, Victorian, laissez-faire, socioeconomic viewpoint. Everything that we think and do is a matter of self-interest, and since it is natural there is nothing we can do about it. We are not going to end this discussion here. The individual selec- tionists have a good point. Selfish genes do not necessarily equal selfish people." [mijn nadruk] (109)

[Ruse neemt hier geen helder standpunt in over Dawkins' 'selfish gene', vind ik. Die hele tegenstelling individuele selectie / groep selectie lijkt me trouwens nogal overtrokken.]

"What is really puzzling is that the acceptance of evolution made so little difference to the actual practice of paleontology. Rarely if ever in the fossil record did one get a smooth transition from one form to another. It was almost always a jump, big or small, from one form to another. Hence, people dug out fossils and tried to see which forms were most alike and which came together in the record." [mijn nadruk] (110)

"What is going on here? It really looks less like a scientific shift and more like a metaphysical one. People were turning from a worldview that allowed interventions by the Creator – in fact, demanded such interventions as forms changed from one to another – to a worldview that refused to allow the Creator any direct role – in other words, a naturalistic world picture. Gaps in the fossil record were explained first as genuine, and reflective of the Creator’s actions, and then as the product of incomplete fossilization as organisms evolved. But really, one might think, this was essentially a metaphysical shift, from supernaturalism to naturalism." [mijn nadruk] (111)

"Today, over and above any connection between reading the fossil record in an evolutionary fashion and a commitment to naturalism, the record itself, from the post-Cambrian on, has filled up in ways that strengthen the link empirically. Impressively, there are many, many examples of links between major groups of organisms." [mijn nadruk] (127)

"Not to mince words, the past fifty years have seen cross talk, misunderstanding, and even outright hostility between paleontologists and other evolutionists (Ruse 2000; Sepkoski and Ruse 2008). The chip-on-the-shoulder resentment is still there – with some justification. Paleontologists point to facts that simply cannot be established from micro-studies, and that surely should be considered if we are into macro-studies of the full sweep of evolution. For instance, we are now aware of many evolution- affecting events unconnected with the organic processes themselves. From the point of view of selection, they are random if not uncaused. (...)
Paleontologists rightly argue that other evolutionists must think about these sorts of phenomena, or respect those who do. Earth-history events are an essential part in the completion of the story of life on earth. Perhaps a less justified aspect of the paleontological attitude is the con- tinued envy of those who work at the cutting edge of causal studies." [mijn nadruk] (119)

"The key to evolution is: one little bit at a time. Gaps in the fossil record, therefore, must be the result of missing links rather than indicative of real jumps or leaps. The crux of the Eldredge–Gould claim – their notorious claim – was that the fossil record is a lot more complete than most Darwinians suppose. Hence its jerky and rapid-change character reflects what really happened. In other words, traditional thinking stands in need of significant revision." [mijn nadruk] (120)

(122) 6 - The Consilience: Two

"Biogeography looks at the distributions of organisms across the globe and seeks the underlying causes. It combines ecology – the short-term movements and interactions of organisms today and in the past – and evolution – the heritable changes that occur to organisms in the long term."(122)

"Biogeography was one of the areas of greatest support for Darwin in his own time and it continues to have that role today. We have already examined the sickle-cell anemia distribution and seen why it maps the instances of the disease malaria. There are many, many other similar cases. One of the most famous in the history of evolutionary theory is that made much of by Ernst Mayr in his classic Systematics and the Origin of Species, first published in 1942." [mijn nadruk] (123)

"For now, we can move on to note that if we are talking about evolutionary theory as such, it is simply not true that it is never experimental or predictive. The alcoholic fruitflies give the lie to this argument."(126)

"There is no great surprise that geology enters into biogeographical explanations. It has always been so. Darwin, following Lyell, saw biogeography as intimately related to geology. A topic of some interest, therefore, is the extent to which biogeography connects with, or reflects, the most important event in geology in the twentieth century: the discovery of plate tectonics, pointing to and explaining continental drift." [mijn nadruk] (127-128)

Die laatste verklaart veel over de spreiding van fossielen over de landmassa.

"Is the Darwinian committed to absolutely everything being constantly adapted? Stephen Jay Gould was one who argued that Darwinism over- does the reliance on adaptation. He claimed that much in the organic world is really spandrel-like." [mijn nadruk] (146)

"Gould was a master of rhetoric. Although no one would deny that sometimes evolutionists do get carried away with enthusiasm for their theories, the force of his charge is another matter. The background, as has been stressed already, is that there is massive evidence for the ubiquity of adaptation and that Darwinians are not being foolish or non-scientific in expecting complex or strange features to have been produced by selection." [mijn nadruk] (148)

"No Darwinian is saying that everything is necessarily adaptive all of the time."(150)

"Things have changed. In the past two or three decades, embryology has really picked up again, as molecular biologists have become interested in development, tracing the journeys from the DNA to the finished organism (Carroll 2005; Carroll, Grenier, and Weatherbee 2001). And what incredible, unexpected findings they have unearthed!"(154)

"We have here the strongest possible evidence for evolution. Anyone who says that our thinking about evolution today is not scientific is simply speaking from ignorance or prejudice. We have just the sort of phenomenon that Whewell identified as the defining mark of the best kind of consilience. Does this speak also to the theory of natural selection? Some enthusiastic workers think not." [mijn nadruk] (155)

"Darwinian theory is a vigorous, forward-looking part of science. It is not complete, and almost daily there are extensions and revisions. This is a mark of strength not weakness. The best science gives its researchers more problems at the end of the day than there were at the beginning. The best science is dynamic, not static; exciting not boring; challenging not easy. On all of these counts, Darwinism today earns a high grade." [mijn nadruk] (157)

[Dat is een goede aanduiding van hoe wetenschap werkt en hoe wetenschappelijke kennis zich ontwikkelt. Ruse ziet het darwinisme van tegenwoordig als wetenschappelijk verantwoord.]

(158) 7 - Humans

"If one believes in God and the possibility of miracles of one sort or another, they cannot enter into the discussion of the origins and nature of humankind. Notions like the soul, even if they make sense and are real things, are not part of the scientific discourse. Nature must stand on its own." [mijn nadruk] (158)

[Beetje rare zin. Zijn de begrippen nu 'real things' of de dingen waarnaar die begrippen verwijzen?]

Bespreking van Darwins The Descent of Man.

"In the Descent, Darwin was already starting to lag behind the work of others, and much that he offered was a digest of, and commentary on, what others had done. From before the publication of his Evidence as to Man’s Place in Nature in 1863, Thomas Henry Huxley and others had been working on humans and their evolution – not to mention their cultures – and Darwin picked up and synthesized their work. Also (for all that he had originally intended otherwise) Darwin was much more ready in the Descent to fall in with the popular, almost religion-substituting, nature of evolutionary thinking as it had grown and developed after the Origin. In the Origin, Darwin tried to stay strictly away from value judgments. In the Descent, there was nothing like this careful (implicit) acknowledgment that the job of science is to describe and explain, no suggestion that prescription is to be left to others. In the Descent there was, for instance, approbation of capitalism, with great beneficiaries like Darwin himself given a pass from the cares and trials of ordinary people." [mijn nadruk] (160)

[En dat is heel jammer. Vooral ook omdat Darwin mensen hier neerzet als een dier en alle mogelijke culturele en maatschappelijke fenomenen begint neer te zetten als voortkomend uit de natuur, als een noodzakelijk gevolg van natuurlijke selectie. Over infanticide bijvooebeeld op p. 364: "In most cases a larger number of female than of male infants are destroyed, for it is obvious that the latter are of more value to the tribe, as they will, when grown up, aid in defending it, and can support themselves." Mannen zijn fysiek groter en sterker dus meer waardevol. Hoe simplistisch is dat soort denken.]

"The one thing that did distinguish Darwin from all of the others was his commitment to selection, and (as mentioned earlier) it was in the Descent that sexual selection really came into its own.(...) But Darwin thought that Wallace had a good point in highlighting such phenomena as human intelligence and human hairlessness as being difficult to explain by natural selection. So, whatever the motive, Darwin felt he had to give a response, and the response was framed in terms of the importance of sexual selection."(162)

"Obviously much that Darwin was writing at this stage of the Descent was more a reflection of Victorian standards than disinterested science. His thinking was virtually guaranteed to appeal to his contemporaries – with the exception of J. S. Mill ..." [mijn nadruk] (164)

"Darwin’s thinking, conversely, was virtually guaranteed to upset many today: “The Origin provided a mechanism for converting culturally entrenched ideas of female hierarchy into permanent, biologically determined, sexual hierarchy” (Erskine 1995, 118). The Descent apparently used that mechanism." [mijn nadruk] (164)

[Precies. Ruse komt er op terug na wat geschiedenis over de ontwikkeling van mensen uit dieren.]

"Thanks to the greatest hoax in the history of science – Piltdown man – the search for human ancestors went badly off track in the first decades of the twentieth century."(166)

"What do we know today of human evolution? There are still large numbers of gaps, but the overall knowledge of our past is really quite complete (Wong 2003a). Much of this is based on fossil discoveries but, in the past three or four decades, molecular techniques have become increasingly important."(166)

Over de oorzaken wordt nog veel gespeculeerd. Waarom gingen mensen rechtop lopen? Waarom kregen ze grotere hersenen en intelligentie?

"As we have just seen, biological opinion is that selection of one sort or another was very important in producing human beings. But has it left its mark? The general assumption by social scientists, happily endorsed by most people in the humanities – with many philosophers in the forefront – is that biology matters little if at all. Whatever may have happened in the past, humans through their culture have escaped their animal origins. Today we are different and, with respect to the effects of selection, autonomous. There are exceptions to this way of thinking. I am one. We shall encounter some others in subsequent chapters. We are in a minority, and, without seeming unduly paranoid, generally those of us (coming from areas like philosophy) who think that the genes, as chosen by natural selection, still play a significant role in human beliefs and actions, have been criticized strongly." [mijn nadruk] (171)

[Ik hoor niet bij die minderheid, maar bij die meerderheid. En als je het volgende argument ziet weet je waarom:]

"One suspects that deep down in the minds of those who deny our animal nature lies a little residue of that form of Judeo-Christianity that sees humans as special, made in the image of God, and believes that this implies distinctive creative forces."(171)

[Je hoeft die 'dierlijke natuur' echt niet te ontkennen - en al helemaal niet om religieuze redenen - om bezwaren aan te tekenen bij een al te simpel beroep op natuurlijke selectie in de verklaringen van menselijk gedrag en zo.]

"Most evolutionary biologists today, particularly those who work on the evolution of human social behaviour, human sociobiologists, would beg to differ. They think that Darwin was absolutely right in his approach – his approach, not necessarily his prejudices. Virtually no one wants to endorse the rather crude assumptions made by Darwin about male–female differences. Anyone who thinks that males are innately more intelligent than females should step inside undergraduate classrooms at universities today in North America. On average, the women outnumber the men by 60:40. But this is not to deny that biology has left its mark. Without at all endorsing the boorish behavior of fraternity jocks, there would be general agreement that male and female mating inclinations and practices really do differ, and that biology is at the root of these differences." [mijn nadruk] (172)

[Waarom zouden we dat soort afleidingen niet moeten maken voor de verschillen tussen mannen en vrouwen, maar wel voor hun 'mating inclinations and practices'? Het idee erachter is hetzelfde: dat 'mannen en vrouwen van nature' etc. etc. vul zelf maar in. Het is hetzelfde biologische deteminisme zonder besef van maatschappelijke context. Het hele idee dat mensen er 'van nature' op uit zijn om zich op de meest gunstige (?) wijze voort te planten is totaal belachelijk, vind ik, zeker in een tijd dat mensen seks hebben voor de lol en nauwelijks meer seks hebben om zich voort te planten. Er zit stiekem conservatisme achter dat soort opvattingen. Kijk maar:]

"Males, and this includes human males, produce lots of sperm and potentially they can have many offspring. Just as potentially, if there is competition for mates, males might end up with no offspring at all. Females, and this includes human females, produce a limited number of eggs and equally their potentiality for reproduction is more limited. They will also have the burden of childrearing, so the nature of the sperm producer that fertilizes them is going to be of some concern."(172)

[Dat is nu weer zo'n voorbeeld. Alsof mensen koolmeesjes zijn die niet anders kunnen dan wat ze doen. Waarom zouden vrouwen als vanzelfsprekend die last van het grootbrengen van de kinderen moeten hebben? Als er iets maatschappelijk gereguleerd is, dan is het dat wel. Ook het latere voorbeeld dat kinderen die bij stiefvaders wonen een 100x grotere kans hebben op misbruik etc. dan kinderen die bij hun natuurlijke ouders wonen zit vol met maatschappelijke invloeden in de vorm van waarderingen van ouder-kind-relaties, specifiek met de overwaardering van de biologische band tussen ouders en kinderen. En ook daar zit stiekem dus het conservatieve idee achter dat het biologische kerngezin de ideale omstandigheden bieden voor het grootbrengen van kinderen en dat alle samengestelde of gebroken gezinnen daar niet aan kunnen tippen.]

"A major reason why biologists – human sociobiologists, or as they are often called today “evolutionary psychologists” – think that biology might be important in the violence case, as in the polygamy case, is that this is an instance of a phenomenon already well recorded in the animal world: a phenomenon with a ready selective explanation.(...) But it is to say that the way in which humans behave today, even in so-called civilized societies, might show traces of that very Pleistocene ancestry about which Sterelny is so dismissive."(174)

[Dat terugredeneren naar dieren zegt dus helemaal niets. Mensen zijn geen dieren. Sterelny heeft gelijk: wat moeten wij mensen van nu met het pleistoceen?]

"Darwin is surely right. Biology does matter. Yet – as we shall see later – in many respects, Sterelny and fellow thinkers are also surely right. Humans are more than inherited biology. Let us leave it at that, without estimating who is more right than the other. In following chapters, we shall be returning to some of these issues, as we wrestle with the importance of biology for human knowledge and morality." [mijn nadruk] (175)

[Je zou eens een duidelijk standpunt innemen ... ]

"But before we can do this, we must turn to a major philosophical issue that lies always behind discussions about the evolution of humans (Ruse 1996). Was our appearance somehow necessary, or at least to be expected – if not exactly as we are, then at least with consciousness? And is it correct to judge conscious beings like us humans as superior to all others? In other words, is evolution progressive and have we won? For all of the diversions and regressions, is not the story of evolution one of upward climb, somehow something that was bound to be? And did humans come top? As the paleontologist G. G. Simpson used to say, if others think that they have won then why don’t they speak up and say so?" [mijn nadruk] (175)

"Darwin was certainly keen to avoid suggestions that nature naturally and necessarily leads upward to perfection.(...) There is too much of an odor of a kind of philosophical or theological necessity that was alien to the empiricism of the British."(177-178)

"Is not the non-directedness of mutation another nail in the coffin of progress? How can you have upward direction if the building blocks go every which way? Again, history trumps concepts! Mendelism proved no barrier at all to thoughts of progress. Evolutionists – Darwinians – went right on believing in upward progress and that humans have won the prize."(179)

"Where do we stand today on the question of biological progress? Some of today’s most distinguished Darwinians are ardent for the topic."(180)

"Richard Dawkins tries to give a more general account of progress, continuing and refining the arms race approach. Like Wilson he is a committed progressionist"(181)

[Waarom vinden mensen het zo belangrijk dat er sprake is van vooruitgang - wat dat ook is? Het is een waardengeladen woord. En ook: Waarom vinden mensen het zo belangrijk dat de mens op de hoogste trede staat van alle levende wezens? Wat een zelfoverschatting! Als je ziet wat mensen de natuur en andere mensen allemaal aandoen krijg je niet erg de indruk van iets / iemand aan de top, nietwaar? Evolutionair zijn mensen niet erg aangepast en ik vermoed dan ook dat ze op den duur van de aarde zullen verdwijnen.]

"With all of this enthusiasm for progress, you might think that progress is the end of matters. Be not so quick. There have always been dissenters, starting with Thomas Henry Huxley, who swung from enthusiasm to doubt. (...) More recently, Stephen Jay Gould was a strong critic of the notion of progress, speaking of it as “a noxious, culturally embedded, untestable, nonoperational, intractable idea that must be replaced if we wish to understand the patterns of history” (Gould 1988, 319). It is a delusion engendered by our refusal to accept our insignificance when faced with the immensity of time (Gould 1996)." [mijn nadruk] (185)

[Ik ben het dus erg met Gould eens op dit punt.]

"If you sense that I am severely conflicted on the subject of progress, then you sense correctly. I shall have more to say about progress when I get to the discussion of religion. For now, I have to say that I find the notion of biological progress attractive but I cannot see any basis for it." [mijn nadruk] (190)

[Dat kun je wel zeggen, ja. Waarom is dit zo moeilijk? Hij heeft het antwoord ervoor al gegeven: het is een waardengeladen discussie, er is geen wetenschappelijke basis voor de stelling dat er 'vooruitgang' is of voor dat 'de mens de kroon op de schepping' is. Er zijn mensen die dat om allerlei (vaak bijzonder slecht onderbouwde) redenen geloven, dat is alles. ]

(191) 8 - Knowledge

"If, indeed, we humans were not created miraculously on the sixth day, but are the end products of a long, slow process of evolution, then one would expect this to have some implications for the big questions of philosophy: “What can I know?” and “What should I do?” Charles Darwin himself certainly thought it did, and so have others in the years since the Origin. In this and the next chapter we are concerned with the thinking of Darwin and his successors first about the theory of knowledge (epistemology) and then the theory of morality (ethics)." [mijn nadruk] (191)

Volgt een bespreking van het pragmatisme en van vertegenwoordigers ervan.

"The highly influential Bertrand Russell was a leader in condemning America’s contribution to epistemology, not just as a false theory of knowledge, but also as a corrupt ideology leading to power. Even worse, it left the way open for religion: “In a chapter on pragmatism and religion he [James] reaps the harvest. ‘We cannot reject any hypothesis if consequences useful to life result from it.’ ‘If the hypothesis of God works satisfactorily, on the whole, in the widest sense, it is true’ ” (Russell 1945, chap. 29)." [mijn nadruk] (195)

[Wat een onzin is dat inderdaad. Russell heeft gelijk. Het is totaal onduidelijk waarom Ruse hier mee bezig is trouwens. De ontwikkeling van kennisverwerving en wetenschap in een evolutionair perspectief plaatsen, wat is het nut ervan? Ook al zijn er uiteraard biologische grondslagen voor kennen, wat heeft dat te maken met de opvattingen over wetenschap en zo die mensen er op na houden? Waar is dan de maatschappelijke context?]

"All of this suggests that, although it is surely true to think of the course of science as developmental – evolutionary if you will – it is a development very different from that to be found in biology."(199-200)

[Precies.]

"Building on suggestions like these, and encouraged by the developments in evolutionary biology – especially the rise of human sociobiology – a number of people, including myself, tried to go all the way in putting together a theory of knowledge that started with the evolutionary legacy informing the way we think and act (Ruse 1986). In my own case, using a term introduced by Edward O. Wilson (writing with a young physicist, Charles Lumsden (1981)), I suggested that thinking follows biologically backed “epigenetic rules”, although today I would perhaps prefer to use the simpler and more informative “innate dispositions” or “innate capacities.”" [mijn nadruk] (205)

[Waarom zou je dat willen? Wat is het nut van dat idee?]

"Augmenting Locke, we have at a minimum not only the basic rules of arithmetic and logic, but these are supplemented by what philosophers call “epistemic norms” or values, like consistency, simplicity, that which leads to predictive ability, and so forth (McMullin 1983). Consilience or unificatory power would rate highly here." [mijn nadruk]

[Ik vind dit hoofdstuk geen zinvolle bijdrage aan opvattingen over kennisverwerving of wetenschap.]

(215) 9 - Morality

Darwin heeft de insteek van het utilitarisme: je handelt moreel juist als je met je handelen het grootste geluk voor de meeste mensen nastreeft. En vraagt zich uiteraard af hoe de moraal zich heeft ontwikkeld.

"Essentially, Darwin was thinking in terms of a kind of [door de Engelse middenklasse - GdG] generally accepted, normative morality. He saw religion as having a role in enforcing morality, so one suspects that he would have happily endorsed many if not most of the dictates of the New Testament." [mijn nadruk] (216)

"The moral sense (as we might call it) is a product of evolution, primarily evolution through natural selection. Darwin devoted much time to showing how this social sense is something possessed by the animals and so might have been expected to evolve. But Darwin did not think that humans are just animals. We are fully moral – uniquely moral – because we have the ability to think about our actions, to judge them, to try to influence ourselves with respect to future behavior." [mijn nadruk] (217)

"As in the case of epistemology, I think that Darwin was thinking and writing more in the tradition of David Hume than of any continental thinker, which is, of course, what one might expect."(218)

"Spencer is well known, some would say notorious, for his tough stand on social issues, and these – commonly known as “laissez-faire” – seem to be a straight transfer from biology and the Darwinian process of struggle and selection."(220)

"Echoes, and more, of this can be found in the thinking of Spencer’s many followers, including those in America. Certainly, in the New World, one could find people who were happy to read their brutal industrial practices as manifestations of the evolutionary process and hence in some sense natural. Yet, here too one needs to take care."(221)

"More generally, an ethics backed by evolution became a crucial part of what I have referred to as the turn of evolutionary thinking from straight science towards its late-nineteenth-century status as a kind of secular religion. And as we find disputes and differences in more conventional religions – today’s evangelicals are against homosexuality, whereas more liberal groups like the Unitarians and Quakers find it morally unproblematic – so we find that there were strong differences between evolutionary ethicists in the years after Darwin."(221)

Heel verschillende ideologieën - kapitalisme, socialisme, anarchisme, voorstanders van competitie en oorlog tegenover voorstanders van solidariteit en samenwerking - meenden dat hun opvattingen verankerd waren in de natuur.

"Let me mention one other topic of great interest to the late Victorians – again a subject on which Darwinians divided: the nature and status of women."(224)

"The Social Darwinism movement had a bad odor by the beginning of the twentieth century: too often it was linked to harsh and cruel moral prescriptions, and so generally people denied connection with it. But it did continue to flourish, under other names or no names at all. Eugenics, the attempt to improve humankind by selective breeding or to prevent degeneration by barring some breeding, throve in many parts of the world, especially America, and then, with truly vile consequences, in Germany. More enlightened attempts at improving the lot of humans on evolutionary principles perhaps got less notice, but they too existed." [mijn nadruk] (225)

[Alleen vind ik het voorbeeld van Huxley hierbij dan weer nietszeggend.]

"I suspect most people today do deplore the loss of the rain forests, but what does evolution have to do with justifying prescriptions about proper action with respect to the rain forests? The answer of philosophers to this question – the metaethical question of the way in which evolution justifies normative ethics – has been resoundingly negative. (...) You cannot derive moral statements, statements about values, from factual statements, statements about the way that the world is." [mijn nadruk] (226)

[Werd dat laatste inzicht maar eens serieus genomen. Wilson doet dat duidelijk niet en ziet evolutie op zichzelf al als vooruitgang (dus: 'alles wordt beter', het eerder besproken waardeoordeel):]

"Agreed, says Wilson, but there is one exception to all of this – evolution! Generally, you cannot go from the way things are to the way things ought to be, but in the case of evolution you can. It is permissible to go from “this is the way that evolution has made things or drives things” to “this is the way that it should be” (Wilson 1984, 2006)." [mijn nadruk] (227)

"So the question really is whether we can show that individual selection can promote moral-like abilities in animals, humans specifically, or if for some reason group selection (which no one wants to say is contradictory) can operate and produce morality."(228)

"Moving on to the present: what can we say today about the biology of morality? One has to cut through the thickets a little at this point, because there is no one, definitively accepted position. However, all would agree that Darwin’s thinking holds up surprisingly well."(231)

"Hence, although morality to the Darwinian is simply an adaptation, it is an adaptation of a very particular kind. And that is a good point on which to end the discussion."(240)

[Ik vind ook dit hoofdstuk vaag en weinig zinvol. Allerlei opvattingen naar voren brengen zonder duidelijke conclusie helpt niet echt. ]

(241) 10 - Religious Belief

"Let us begin with Charles Darwin’s own religious views, then move on to the relationship between Darwinism and Christianity, and conclude with looking at some of the historical and contemporary issues that have emerged from the Origin and its ideas."(241)

"None of this should be taken to imply that Darwin at once became an atheist. He never felt an atheist or argued for atheism. Later in life, he did become an agnostic – a skeptic – like just about everyone else in his scientific set. But, by the mid-1830s, Darwin is best described as a deist, one who thinks of God as unmoved mover, who, having set the world in motion, now lets all unfurl according to unbroken law."(242)

"Completing the story down to the present, it was this centrality of design explanation (or, if you prefer, design-like explanation) that gave Darwin’s theory a logical structure different from that of the physical sciences. Darwinians are with Kant in thinking that final-cause explanations are meaningful and essential." [mijn nadruk] (244)

"If you combine this with the way in which, after the Origin, evolution took on the role of a secular religion – a story of origins, progress, humans at the top – you start to see why it is that I claim that Darwinism is the offspring of Christianity. A bastard offspring, if you insist, fathered by the Enlightenment, but an offspring nevertheless."(245)

[Kan zijn, maar wat zegt dat?]

"It is hardly surprising that after the Origin many found Darwin’s theory to be unacceptable. What is surprising is how many found it acceptable and how many of these were religious people (Roberts 1988; Numbers 1998)." [mijn nadruk] (245)

"If Christians did accept Darwin’s ideas, why then was there such a massive row, and why even today is there opposition to Darwinism by religious people? The most obvious answer is that Darwinism is in theory opposed to Christianity. And the most obvious point of conflict is the clash between the story of creation as given by Genesis, the opening chapter of the book that Christians think infallible, and the story of creation as given by Darwinism." [mijn nadruk] (246)

"The coming of the Protestants generated enthusiasm for literal readings of the Bible. For mainstream Protestants – Luther and Calvin – the Bible takes the place that tradition and the church have for Catholics."(247)

"Although, at the time that Darwin wrote, there were some literalists in Britain, they were considered outside the fold. General opinion, even among catastrophists, was that the earth is very old, and that the six days of creation are either long periods of time or that the Bible does not mention long periods of time that occurred between the (literal) days of creation. The supposed worldwide flood, associated in the Bible with Noah, was also now being read as some- thing more limited." [mijn nadruk] (247)

"If, then, Christianity did have a tradition of biblical interpretation, including allegorical and metaphorical readings of passages that seem to conflict with science, why was it that after the Origin so many people – especially so many people in America – wanted to reject Darwinism on the grounds that it conflicted with Genesis? Why was it that in 1925 in the state of Tennessee, a young schoolteacher – John Thomas Scopes – was prosecuted for teaching evolution (and found guilty and fined)? The real answer is bound up with American social history." [mijn nadruk] (248)

"Literalists, once known as Fundamentalists and more recently as Creationists, are opposed to modern society and its customs as much as to modern science and its claims." [mijn nadruk] (249)

"Summing up. There is no tradition in Christianity that mandates the literal reading of the Bible and much to suggest that the Christian is obliged to think allegorically or metaphorically when science so dictates. In America to this day, Creationist opposition to evolution is strong, but it is as much cultural and social as it is theological. Genesis need not be in opposition to Darwinism."(149)

[Niet als je de tekst niet letterlijk wilt nemen en metaforisch wilt zien.]

"But there were big problems with the design argument. In his Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, published posthumously in 1779, David Hume had pointed to these. So much of the world seems ill designed – the pains and agonies that all creatures have to endure – that it really does not seem as if a good God could have designed and made things."(253)

[Terechte scepsis, vind ik.]

"It is well known that today there are those whom the traditional answers do not satisfy. The Intelligent Design (ID) theorists, as they like to call themselves – the Intelligent Design Creationists as their opponents call them – argue that one must allow divine interventions into the normal course of nature, if one is to explain the existence of organisms (Johnson 1991). Regular blind law is not enough. Although the ID theorists pretend at times that this intervener could be natural, in truth they do not think this. The designer is not some bright grad student on Andromeda, manipulating the human race to complete his PhD. The designer is the Christian God; the Logos of the first verse of St. John’s Gospel, to adopt a favorite way of expressing it." [mijn nadruk] (257)

"The general critique of arguments like Behe’s is that you should not presume to say what is or is not irreducibly complex – that is, unproducible by selection – just by looking at the finished product."(259)

"Perhaps most worrying about the ID position is that it is a science stopper, and its true purpose is theological. Its supporters want a world of miracles, a world where God is always on call and active, a world where – even though many ID supporters are not biblical literalists – the simple, evangelical-Protestant world picture stays in play. One of the most important ID supporters, mathematician and philosopher of science William Dembski, is open about feeling a strong emotional alignment with traditional “young earth” Creationists."(260)

"IDT is not science, whatever is being said, but an appeal to ignorance to bolster a religious position. Scientists, including scientists who are Christians, have every right to be suspicious of it."(260)

"For me, the biggest problem with ID theory is theological. If God was prepared to get involved to create the irreducibly complex, why was he not also prepared to get involved to prevent the horrendously simple? Many of the worst genetic diseases involve a very minor change at the molecular level. Why did an all-loving, all-powerful God not stop such changes?"(260)

[Wat een ongelooflijk zinloos geleuter toch weer. Waarom zou je je verantwoorden tegenover mensen die een religieus geloof aanhangen dat immuun is voor kritiek en dogmatisch is? Waarom praten over iets - god - wat niet bestaat? Waarom al die aandacht voor een boek - de bijbel - dat gewoon historisch gegroeid is en door mensen is samengesteld?]

(265) 11 - The Origins of Religion

" ... today there is a huge amount of interest in the putative evolutionary origins of religion, so to omit all discussion would be unduly to truncate the overall picture of Darwinism today"(266)

[Maar dat zou zo kort kunnen zijn als: het ontstaan van religie heeft helemaal niets te maken met evolutie, religie bij mensen is er niet 'van nature'. ]

Bespreking van Hume.

"Hume drew a firm line between belief in a divinity and moral behavior. If anything, there seems to be an inverse ratio, with greater intensity of belief leading to greater inclination to commit moral atrocities. People reason that being onside with God gives them license to do what they will." [mijn nadruk] (267)

"For all of my caginess about direct links between Hume and Darwin, in the matter of religion and its putative natural origins, the case for an immediate Humean influence is strong."(268)

"What is striking about Darwin’s discussion of religion is how brief it is, especially when compared to the detailed discussion that he gave of the origins and nature of morality. There are at least two reasons for this. First, by the 1870s, in the eyes of Victorians like Darwin, the battle for religion was over and God had lost. The problem now was to maintain morality in the face of nonbelief." [mijn nadruk] (268)

"His own belief may have gone, but by nature and class he was instinctively against religion-bashing. He had grown up with and in the church."(268)

"Like Hume, Darwin saw a move from primitive religion, through polytheism, and on to monotheism. And, completing the story still in the vein of the Scottish philosopher, Darwin saw religion as connected with vile superstitions and practices, which only the rise to reason could conquer and prevent."(270)

"Given the time that Darwin spent showing that morality is something deeply connected to natural selection, it is noteworthy that he did not at all attempt this in the case of religion. One presumes that since he thought it false – at least not proven in its essentials, and false in many details – he did not think that religion could be promoted by selection. It does not give us insights into reality, or (even if false) help us better to survive and reproduce. Nor did Darwin want to argue for religion as a byproduct of selection, or as something that might be promoted by selection but that lacked direct adaptive significance for survival. For Darwin, religion seems to be almost accidental, and brought about by animal features or powers that are simply misdirected." [mijn nadruk] (271)

"It was not until the 1970s that we see a genuine revival of attempts to explain religion in terms of modern evolutionary biology. Great credit must go to Edward O. Wilson, whose sociobiological synthesis made religion a central object of study; he discussed it in detail in his Pulitzer Prize-winning On Human Nature (1978)."(272)

[Als je dat kunt zeggen dan ben je zelf ook iemand die dat belangrijk vind. Ik vind het tijdverlies. Het is een van de vele pogingen van (de voorgangers van) evolutionair psychologen om gedrag van mensen terug te voeren op biologische processen, in dit geval om te kunnen zeggen dat religieus zijn 'hardwired' is. Niets is minder waar. Het barst werkelijk van de stiekeme waardenoordelen en het wetenschappelijk gehalte ervan is nul. ]

"The point I am making is that you cannot just isolate one bit of history, one place in time and space, and think you have the basis for a universal theory. You have got to spread your grasp much more broadly and confront the difficult cases, the examples that contradict your argument. This comment applies particularly to Americans – Edward O. Wilson and Daniel Dennett come at once to mind – who start with assumptions about the universal appeal and force of religion. By any measure, given its anti-Enlightenment obsession with religion, America is a very peculiar country, at least compared to the rest of the First World. " [mijn nadruk] (282)

"The point is made. The biology of morality has and is making significant strides. One cannot really say the same about the biology of religion." [mijn nadruk] (282)

[Hear hear ... Maar dan toch weer doorzeveren over religie:]

"Suppose, however, for the sake of argument, that there is something to the naturalistic Darwinian approach to religion, its history and its nature. What philosophical implications does this have? What does this tell us about God, his nature and his existence?"(283)

[En weer een aantal bladzijden zinloos geklets.]

(287) 12 - The Darwinian Revolution

"Today, a lot of people wonder if there was a Darwinian Revolution at all, and if so what one can and should say about it. Drawing together many of the threads of this present book, I will now turn to this issue, and ask three questions. First: was there a Darwinian Revolution – meaning, something that counts as a revolution – or is this kind of talk unhelpful? Second: was there a Darwinian Revolution – meaning, what role did Darwin himself play in any such revolution? Third: was there a Darwinian Revolution – meaning, what would be the nature, especially the philosophical nature, of any events that occurred in the nineteenth (and other) centuries that are linked with the name of Charles Darwin?"(287)

[Wat die eerste vraag betreft geeft hij al meteen een samenvatting van het antwoord. En hij had er aan kunnen rtoeveogen dat het woord 'revolutie' een waardengeladen woord is dat we daarom moten vermijden. Meer is niet nodig. Dat is het. Toch volgen weer vele bladzijden ... ]

[Wat de tweede vraag betreft iets dergelijks. Natuurlijk is Darwin belangrijk geweest voor het evolutiedenken. Maar even vanzelfsprekend is dat hij een context had en beïnvloed werd door anderen. Open deuren.]