Subject: Darwin Legend

From: "Hiram Caton2" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 9 Apr 2007 07:20:32 +1000

Mr. Robert J. Stevens
Chair
Darwin Day Celebrations

Dear Mr Stevens,

I write to draw your attention to an article of mine that identifies and challenges six key common beliefs about the achievements of Charles Darwin.  The article criticizes the main stream of the common historical understanding of Darwin/Darwinism, which I shall deal with in my book on evolution in the 19th century.  The criticism is based on the large and rich historical literature on Darwin and the history of evolutionary thought.  My contribution is to show that the six common beliefs about Darwin are drastically at odds with this literature.  This poses a challenge to the celebration of Darwin 2009: will we celebrate the man, or the legend?    

We haven't met, so let me briefly introduce myself.  I'm among the cohort of social scientists who, aspiring to introduce biological/evolutionary variables into the social sciences, established in 1980 the Association for Politics and the Life Sciences.  Roger D. Masters, Elliott White, and Al Somit figured prominently in that effort and they have remained long-time colleagues.  My fields are crowd behavior and identity psychology, based on ethological concepts and methods.  I also taught a university-level HPS course, The Darwinian Revolution, prior to my retirement.  My main field, however, is modern European history.  For more about me, see my website, www.grumpyoldeman.com. 

The article was recently published in Evolutionary Psychology 2007. 5(1): 52-69 (www.epjournal.net).  It is also available on my website, www.grumpyoldeman.com.
 
I would appreciate any comments and criticisms that you might make.  

Yours cordially,

Hiram Caton, PhD, DLitt

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Evolutionary Psychology 2007. 5(1): 52-69 (www.epjournal.net)

Getting Our History Right: Six Errors about Darwin and His Influence

Hiram Caton, Griffith University, Nathan 4111, Australia, Email: 
[email-masked]

Abstract: The Darwin Exhibition created by the American Museum of Natural 
History is the centerpiece of the bicentennial of Darwin’s birth. It opened in November 
2005 and will circulate to a number of museums before terminating at the London Natural 
History Museum in February 2009. The Exhibition is also a major contributor to 
online instruction about evolution for schools. The quality of the Exhibition’s narrative is 
accordingly of some significance. This paper argues that the narrative is the legendary 
history that dominates public opinion. The legend has been thoroughly disassembled by 
historical research over recent decades. My criticism is organized as six theses. (1) 
Publication of the Origin was not a sudden (“revolutionary”) interruption of Victorian society’s 
confident belief in the traditional theological world-view. (2) The Origin did not 
“revolutionize” the biological sciences by removing the creationist premise or introducing new 
principles. (3) The Origin did not revolutionize Victorian public opinion. The public 
considered Darwin and Spencer to be teaching the same lesson, known today as “Social 
 Darwinism”, which, though fashionable, never achieved dominance. (4) Many biologists expressed 
significant disagreements with Darwin’s principles. (5) Darwin made little or no 
contribution to the renovation of theology. His public statements on Providence were 
inconsistent and the liberal reform of theology was well advanced by 1850. (6) The so-called 
“Darwinian revolution” was, at the public opinion level, the fashion of laissez-faire 
economic beliefs backed by Darwin and Spencer’s inclusion of the living world in the economic 
paradigm.

Keywords: Darwin Exhibition, Darwin bicentennial, Darwin legend, evolution 
history