Arguably the most important non-religious book ever written was published this week (Nov. 24) in 1859. “On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection” by British naturalist Charles Darwin changed forever the way we think about biology, nature and even religion.
But first some background.
Darwin developed his passion for science, especially botany, while at Christ’s College, Cambridge, although he spent more time in the field than in the classroom.
Then he met an Anglican clergyman, the Rev. John Stevens Henslow, a botany professor at Cambridge who inspired him to immerse himself in the study of the natural sciences.
Seeing promise in Darwin, Henslow recommended him to Robert FitzRoy, who commanded the HMS Beagle, and who needed a naturalist for an expedition he was leading to chart the coastline of South America.
It was on this voyage that Darwin first conceived his theory of natural selection, which said that organisms that genetically adapt better to their environment will propagate more descendants than organisms of the same species that lack that adaptability, thereby influencing the genetic makeup of that species.
Or as Darwin put it, “As many more members of a species are born than can possibly survive, and given that there is a constant struggle for existence, it follows that if any being vary, however slightly, in any manner profitable to itself, under the complex and sometimes varying conditions of life, it will have a better chance of surviving, and thus be naturally selected.” Additionally, it will pass this advantage on to its progeny.
Although Darwin developed his theory during his South American voyage, he was also deeply influenced by the population theories of Thomas Malthus. Malthus had posited that species increase “geometrically,” while their food supply only increases “arithmetically.” In other words, species breed beyond available resources, which keeps populations in check. Darwin saw that this resulted in a “warring of the species,” or struggle for survival, in which the fittest — those that have evolved in a manner “profitable to itself” — will last, while those that have not evolved will die out. The eventual result is the formation of a new species altogether.
But this only made sense if the world was not 6,000 years old, as the Creationists believed, but had been created billions of years ago. As such, while most scientists hailed publication of Origin of the Species as the solution to many of the puzzles of biological science that then existed, Orthodox Christians condemned the work as heresy.
Which leads to an interesting irony. It was the Anglican reverend, John Henslow, who — at the famous Anglican college, Christ’s College, Cambridge — taught Darwin and helped make possible his seminal work — a work that undermined Henslow’s Anglican faith.
Bruce G. Kauffmann’s e-mail address is bruce@historylessons.net.
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BRUCE'S HISTORY LESSONS: ‘On the Origin of Species’ published
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