Charles Darwin's theory of evolution was driven by passion to end slavery

[struggle4progress]

January 25th, 2009 - 1:53 pm ICT by ANI

London, Jan 25 (ANI): ... <In> a new book .... Darwin’s Sacred Cause, science historians Adrian Desmond and James Moore have gathered evidence that shows Darwin was passionately opposed to slavery and that was the prime reason he embarked on his famous research.

The pair uncovered private notes and letters, which reveal that Darwin’s opinions on slavery were far stronger than had previously been believed.

The scientist’s notebooks from his five year voyage on HMS Beagle, during which Darwin first began to form his famous theories on natural selection, reveal his disgust at the slavery in South America. Desmond and Moore have also discovered letters written by Darwin’s sisters, cousins and aunts, which show that his family consisted of highly active abolitionists ...

In the book they have claimed that one of the reasons that Darwin chose to highlight the common descent of man from apes, was to show that all races were equal ...

http://www.thaindian.com/newsportal/health/charles-darwins-theory-of-evolution-was-driven-by-passion-to-end-slavery_100146840.html

[Demeter]

1. Regardless, Slavery is Wrong and Darwin's Theory of Evolution is Right

Showing that a man can have two good ideas that are mutually reinforcing. That used to be called Thinking, even Genius. Maybe someday it will be admired again. And the Era of Error and cognitive dissonance will be at an end.

[GOPBasher]

2. Exactly. n/t

[skepticscott]

3. Sounds more like a case of

confusing correlation with causation. I'm not sure how accurately the article reflects the book, but it's very shaky to say that "Darwin was passionately opposed to slavery and that was the prime reason he embarked on his famous research." He didn't exactly "embark" on his research with the intention of discovering the mechanisms by which life came to be the way we see it, the evidence simply accumulated to overwhelming weight during the course of his study and collection of specimens. And if he was so passionately determined to use his findings to provide an argument against slavery, he certainly took his time about it. If it hadn't been for Alfred Russell Wallace forcing his hand, The Origin of Species would have been even longer in the making than it actually was.

I suppose we'll have to wait for the book, but Darwin's life and career have already been studied as minutely as just about any scientist's in history. It'll take a lot of evidence to convince people that this is something new and valid.

[DCKit]

5. Agreed. That's the kind of thinking that landed U.S. in Iraq....

and the same way fundamentalists interpret (conveniently, for any situation) their Holy writings.

[struggle4progress]

9. I haven't read the book. But it doesn't seem impossible to me that

Charles Darwin might originally have had philosophical reasons for an interest in evolutionary ideas and that subsequently his scientific conscience required him to be thorough in his examination of biological fact

His contribution was not to invent the notion that evolution might occur: that idea was in circulation at least fifty years before Origin was published. His contribution was to make a rather exhaustive case for the possibility, based on multiple lines of evidence, and to suggest in outline a mechanism that could drive the change

I don't know what the historical record actually shows regarding the early development of Charles'ideas -- but it is known that his grandfather Erasmus had advanced some of the ideas that Charles later examined in more detail, and it is likely that he and his contemporaries speculated about the ethical implications of such ideas

[skepticscott]

10. Well, he certainly knew

that the notion of evolution by natural selection would be a hot topic in Victorian England and elsewhere, which is why he was perhaps overly careful to be sure he had overwhelming evidence before publishing his conclusions. But scientists and historians of science have been over his career with a fine-toothed comb, and it seems unlikely that, if there were evidence of anti-slavery sentiments strongly motivating his work, no one would have discovered it before now. If nothing else, creationists would have touted that long ago as evidence that his conclusions were motivated by something other than objective scientific evidence, and that hasn't happened that I know of. While it's not that hard to believe that these authors discovered some previously unknown letters and documents written by Darwin, it's hard to swallow that evidence of strong anti-slavery underpinnings to his work would be found only in these new documents and nowhere else in his writings that have already been examined exhaustively.

[struggle4progress]

11. Read some Darwin: he's painstaking. Whether he did, or did not, have

some philosophical motive when beginning to investigate in detail questions raised by his grandfather, no one can complaiun of the quality of the work he actually did

And, of course, since the Empire abolished slavery halfway through Darwin's Beagle voyage, it would be ridiculous to claim that Darwin's scientific work, after he returned, was motivated by domestic politics

Darwin is known to have held strong anti-slavery views:

http://www.public.asu.edu/~jacquies/darwin-slavery.htm
http://74.125.77.132/search?q=cache:7dYs21zqFAQJ:www.ncat.edu/~univstud/Charles%2520Darwin%2520on%2520Slavery.pdf+darwin+slavery&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=9&gl=us&client=opera

[DavidDvorkin]

4. Darwin's family were strongly progressive on many fronts

His grandfather, Erasmus Darwin, supported both the American and French Revolutions and corresponded with revolutionary leaders and intellectuals in both of those countries. Along with the Wedgewoods, who were linked with the Darwins by marriage and friendship, they were active in various progressive causes of the time.

Charles was of course a product of all of that and of the turmoil of the times, including the near revolution in England in the 1840s. But his theory emerged from his study of the data and was part of a great intellectual undertaking that was already well underway when he joined it. Geologists had been working on explaining the physical evolution of the Earth, and biologists were trying to work out the meaning of fossil discoveries and the changes and ages of various species.

[LiveLiberally]

6. I welcome this book....

if for no other reason that it provides a much needed corrective to the common conflation of Darwinism (e.g. Darwinian theory of evolution etc...) and popular racist and imperialist misappropriations of his ideas which historians term "social Darwinism" (e.g. late 19th century beliefs that races and nations must compete to survive, with the "fittest" race or nation coming out on top.) Irrespective of how I try in lectures to make sharp distinctions between the two, inevitably there are students who assume Darwin was a racial supremacist.

[skepticscott]

7. One of the motivations behind the book

may indeed be to try to defang that particular argument, often leveled against Darwin's ideas. If that's the case, we can only hope that the factual underpinnings of the book are solid. Having it look like you're stretching the truth or ginning up evidence to win an argument can be more damaging than never having made the argument in the first place.

[uberllama42]

8. I know that Darwin met a man on the Beagle

who was originally from the Tierra del Fuego. Jemmy Button, as the British had named him, was very intelligent and proved to have a more 'civilized' temperament than any of the British men on the ship. When the Beagle reached the Tierra del Fuego, he rejoined his compatriots, who had a reputation as savages.

To Darwin, seeing a man behave very differently under different circumstances indicated that there was no racial difference between the British and the native Fuegians, but that environment played a large role in one's behavior. Despite his documented beliefs, many still claim that Darwin's work was racist because it has been appropriated by racists.

[bhikkhu]

12. and yet he would have abandoned the idea if the evidence was against it

which is what made him a scientist, not an ideologue.

I have to say books like the one above are another reason we (as a culture) seems to have entirely lost the concept of what science is in the last couple of generations.