Criticism on The origin of species

Louis Agassiz Contributions to Natural History: Essay on Classification, p.

Have they geologists found fossil remains which they can prove to belong to the progenitors of the eagle, or of the horse, or of the donkey, or the whale--of any creature, in short from a mouse or a mole up to a man? I am aware, indeed, that fossil remains of animals thought to resemble the horse have been found, but Mr.

Darwin might as easily prove that the donkey is descended from the dromedary, as that the horses of the present day are descended from the Hippotherium They know that existing facts would not bear them out. Hence they grope their way, by the aid of fossil bones, millions of ages back into the past; and there, amid its pitchy darkness, they fancy they see the desired transformations taking place. What, then, is the sum of the changes which Mr. Darwin is able to point to within the historic period as tending to prove his hypothesis? It amounts absolutely to nothing.

Darwin show, then, in the case of any one of them, that, by successive variations accumulated during 3, generations, it has sensibly advanced towards some higher form? Can he show that 3, generations have, in any instance, done aught towards proving the truth of his hypothesis? It appears that he cannot point to a single such case as yielding him support.

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Darwin's account of the descent of man must accept along with it not a little that is, if possible, even more incredible. For example, while a certain monkey race has, by a series of insensible gradations, occurring during a period of enormous length, developed into man, other monkey races, during a yet longer period, have remained monkeys, making no progress whatever! Darwin, I presume, would maintain that at least half a million of years have passed since man emerged into humanity from the last of his ape-like progenitors How far remote, then, must be the time when the ape from which man has descended, branched away from the stem of the Old World monkeys!

But during this period - so long that, to us, it is practically an eternity--Old World monkeys have remained Old World monkeys, with the solitary exception of that wonderful member of the ancient series of the Primates, with his plastic frame, of which Mr. Darwin catches "an obscure glance" through the dim vista of ages.

Criticisms on "The Origin of Species" by Thomas Henry Huxley

Lyon, William Penman, Home? Examination of Statements Recently Published by Mr. Darwin Regarding the Descent of Man. London, Hamilton, Adams and Co. It affirms, in effect, that living beings created themselves, which is, in essence, a metaphysical claim Thus, in the final analysis, evolutionism is in truth a metaphysical doctrine decked out in scientific garb. Lynn Margulis says that history will ultimately judge neo-Darwinism as "a minor twentieth-century religious sect within the sprawling religious persuasion of Anglo-Saxon biology.

Like the Genesis based cosmology which it replaced, and like the creation myths of ancient man, it satisfies the same deep psychological need for an all embracing explanation for the origin of the world which has-motivated all the cosmogenic myth makers of the past, from the shamans of primitive peoples to the ideologues of the medieval church.

The truth is that despite the prestige of evolutionary theory and the tremendous intellectual effort directed towards reducing living systems to the confines of Darwinian thought, nature refuses to be imprisoned.

Richard Owen's review of the Origin of Species

In the final analysis we still know very little about how new forms of life arise. The "mystery of mysteries" - the origin of new beings on earth - is still largely as enigmatic as when Darwin set sail on the Beagle. Are all the recognised organic forms of the present date, so differentiated, so complex, so superior to conceivable primordial simplicity of form and structure, as to testify to the effects of Natural Selection continuously operating through untold time?

The most numerous living beings now on the globe are precisely those which offer such a simplicity of form and structure, as best agrees, and we take leave to affirm can only agree, with that ideal prototype from which, by any hypothesis of natural law, the series of vegetable and animal life might have diverged. In many species nature has superadded to general health and strength particular weapons and combative instincts, which, as, e. In such peculiarly gifted species we have the most favourable conditions for testing one of the conclusions drawn by Messrs.

Darwin and Wallace from this universally recognised 'struggle for the preservation of life and kind. The element of 'natural selection' above illustrated, either is, or is not, a law of nature. If it be one, the results should be forthcoming; more especially in those exceptional cases in which nature herself has superadded structures, as it were expressly to illustrate the consequences of such 'general struggle of the life of the individual and the continuance of the race.

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Is it then a fact that the fallow-deer propagated under these influences in Windsor Forest, since the reign of William Rufus, now manifest in the superior condition of the antlers, as weapons, that amount and kind of change which the succession of generations under the influence of 'natural selection' ought to have produced? Do the crowned antlers of the red deer of the nineteenth century surpass those of the turbaries and submerged forest-lands which date back long before the beginning of our English History?

It was the best of times and the worst of times for Charles Darwin. The book attracted enormous attention, much of it admiring. A century and a half later, in a book called Darwin's Dangerous Idea, the philosopher Daniel Dennett called evolution by natural selection acting upon random mutation "the single best idea anyone has ever had", but the proposition of evolutionary change was not new, even in The book appeared in a Christian world that was already aware - 50 years of debate and research by some of Darwin's critics had helped - that the Book of Genesis might not be taken literally.

Lamarck, Wallace and Darwin all tackled the interesting question of why giraffes had long necks and the public took an interest. A popular song of sums it up:. A deer with a neck that was longer by half Than the rest of his family's try not to laugh By stretching and stretching became a Giraffe Which nobody can deny.

Darwin's version of the great giraffe argument made a splash, it made money - Darwin, says his biographer Janet Browne, was one of the first Victorians to negotiate what is now known as an advance against royalties - and it attracted interest far beyond the scientific community. Darwin received immediate support from that energetic churchman, naturalist and novelist Charles Kingsley, and later an admiring letter from Karl Marx.

Origin was a bestseller. The publisher John Murray ran off 1, copies and took orders for 1, even before the publication day, including for a circulating library. A month later, he produced another 3, copies. Darwin helped sales along by a tactic now routinely employed by modern authors: Altogether, before the copyright expired in , the publishers had printed 56, copies in the original format and another 48, in the cheap edition.

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This was not bad for a big fat volume that apart from one diagram failed the Alice in Wonderland test for a useful book: On the other hand, the storm it provoked alarmed Darwin. The first had scientific reservations, the second religious scruples. Lyell maintained his loyalty to Darwin, and Huxley became Darwin's most ferocious supporter. Darwin certainly needed his support. One cruel review was published anonymously - by convention reviews were then unsigned - but the Darwin camp quickly identified the hand of Richard Owen, the titan of palaeontology.