Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors

1. And still it burns. On the day we write this, the authors received yet another expression of outrage from a viewer offended by the endorsement of evolution in our Cosmos television series. “We teach our children that they are descended from monkeys, and then are surprised when they act accordingly,” he writes. “Throw out an absolute standard of morality, make all behavior relative, and the result must be moral chaos.” He offers no critique of the evidence for evolution, but only of its imagined social consequences.Even today, some American high school biology curricula are still giving equal time to special creation (and to a subject oxymoronically called “scientific creationism”). Should time also be devoted in school geography curricula to the evidence for the proposition that the Earth is flat?—a view clearly held by the authors of the Bible and still supported by fringe advocacy groups. Both special creation and the flat Earth hypothesis were reasonable scientific guesses in the sixth century B.C., when Genesis was compiled. They are no longer.Standard works defending creationism include D. T. Gish, Evolution? The Fossils Say No! (San Diego: Creation Life Publishers, 1979), and H. M. Morris, Scientific Creationism (ibid, 1974). Among the many refutations by scientists are A. N. Strahler, Science and Earth History (Buffalo, N.Y.: Prometheus, 1987); D. J. Futuyama, Science on Trial: The Case for Evolution (New York: Pantheon, 1983); G. B. Dalrymple, The Age of the Earth (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1991); Tim M. Berra, Evolution and the Myth of Creationism

(ibid, 1990); and a forthright pamphlet by the National Academy of Sciences, Science and Creationism (Washington, D.C.: National Academy Press, 1984) that describes special creation as “an invalidated hypothesis,” and concludes: “No body of beliefs that has its origin in doctrinal material [such as the Bible] rather than scientific observation should be admissible as science … Incorporating the teaching of such doctrines into a science curriculum stifles the development of critical thinking … and seriously compromises the best interests of public education.” Among the many virtues of Berra’s book is its dedication (“For my mother, who allowed me to read during meals”).In a 1982 Gallup poll, 44% of American respondents supported the statement “God created man pretty much in his present form at one time within the last ten thousand years.” Only 9% supported the statement “Man has developed over millions of years from less advanced forms of life. God had no part in this process.” (Creation/Evolution, No. 10 [Fall 1982], p. 38.)In a 1988 survey of 43 members of the U.S. Congress who chose to answer a questionnaire, 88% felt that “modern evolutionary theory has a valid scientific foundation,” but less than half could say, even roughly, what the basic idea of evolution might be. Only one in three strongly agreed with the statement that the Earth was 4 to 5 billion years old. In an identical survey of a quarter of the members of the Ohio legislature, the corresponding numbers were 74%, 23%, and 23%. (Michael Zimmerman, “A Survey of Pseudoscientific Sentiments of Elected Officials,” Creation/Evolution, No. 29 [Winter 1991/1992], pp. 26–45.)2. Erasmus Darwin, The Botanic Garden, Part II, The Loves of the Plants (1789), Canto III, line 456; in Desmond King-Hele, editor, The Essential Writings of Erasmus Darwin (London: MacGibbon & Kee, 1968), p. 149.3. Dumas Malone, Jefferson and His Time

, Volume One, Jefferson the Virginian (Boston: Little, Brown, 1948), p. 52.4. Gerhard Wichler, Charles Darwin: The Founder of the Theory of Evolution and Natural Selection (Oxford: Pergamon Press, 1961), p. 23.5. London, 1803 (published posthumously). Quoted in Howard E. Gruber, Darwin on Man: A Psychological Study of Scientific Creativity (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1974), p. 50.6. This example is from J. B. S. Haldane, The Causes of Evolution (New York: Harper, 1932), p. 130.7. And in August Weismann’s late-nineteenth-century experiment, five successive generations of mice had their tails cut off with no effect on the progeny. George Bernard Shaw dismissed such examples as missing Lamarck’s point: The mice do not aspire to be tailless, as the giraffes are purported to strive for long necks (Back to Methuselah: A Metabiological Pentateuch [New York: Brentano’s, 1929]). This is magical thinking. Surviving incarnations of Lamarck’s hypothesis include the idea that the disobedience of Adam in the Garden of Eden caused an “original sin” genetically propagated to future generations (accepted by the Catholic Church at the Council of Trent and reaffirmed in a 1950 papal encyclical of Pius XII); and the fraudulent agricultural genetics of Stalin’s favorite pseudoscientist, Trofim Lysenko. Nevertheless, the inheritance of acquired characteristics—while apparently wrong at the level of the organism—may be right at the level of the gene: A mutation is a chemical accident slightly changing the structure of a gene. Descendent genes inherit the accident. But the knife of August Weismann was too blunt to reach into the genes.8. Sir Francis Darwin, editor, Charles Darwin’s Autobiography, with His Notes and Letters Depicting the Growth of the ORIGIN OF SPECIES

(New York: Henry Schuman, 1950), pp. 29, 30.9. Ibid., pp. 34, 35.10. John Bowlby, Charles Darwin: A New Life (New York: W. W. Norton, 1990), p. 110.11. Ibid., p. 118.12. Charles Darwin’s Autobiography, p. 33.13. Ibid., p. 37.14. Stephen Jay Gould, Ever Since Darwin (New York: Norton, 1977), p. 33.15. Charles Darwin, The Voyage of the Beagle

(London: J. M. Dent & Sons Ltd., 1906), p. 18.16. Frank H. T. Rhodes, “Darwin’s Search for a Theory of the Earth: Symmetry, Simplicity and Speculation,” British Journal of the History of Science 24 (1991), pp. 193–229.17. The Autobiography of Charles Darwin (unexpurgated edition edited by Nora Barlow, his granddaughter) (New York: Harcourt Brace, 1958), p. 95.18. Bowlby, op. cit., p. 233.19. Francis Darwin, editor, The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin (London: John Murray, 1888), Volume II, p. 16.20. Ronald W. Clark, The Survival of Charles Darwin: A Biography of a Man and an Idea (New York: Random House, 1984), p. 90.21. Ibid., pp. 90, 91.22. Ibid., p. 105.23. An excerpt from Wallace’s article: