`Dr. Pusey was mistaken in imagining that I wrote the 'Origin ' with any relation whatever to Theology' (Darwin) #2

Continuing from part #1 with this second part of my multi-part post about Darwin's dishonesty when it came to protecting his theory,

[Left: The Straw Man Argument, University of Michigan]

in his claim that: 1) "Dr. Pusey [in his 1878 sermon, "Un-Science, Not Science, Adverse To Faith"] was mistaken in imagining that I wrote the 'Origin ' with any relation whatever to Theology" and 2) "when I was collecting facts for the 'Origin,' my belief in what is called a personal God was as firm as that of Dr. Pusey himself" (my emphasis).

First, as I pointed out in part #1, in actual fact Darwin used the word "creation" (or its cognates) in his 1872 final edition of his Origin of Species at least 109 times, and almost always in a pejorative sense, including eleven instances where Darwin attacked what he claimed was the then "ordinary view" of creation (my emphasis).

Second, as Dr. Pusey quoted in his sermon, Darwin in his Descent of Man (1871) wrote that his primary objective in his earlier Origin of Species (1859) was "to shew that species had not been separately created" and even if it turned out that his theory of natural selection was false (i.e. Darwin "having exaggerated its power, which is in itself probable"), Darwin hoped that he had "at least, as I hope, done good service in aiding to overthrow the dogma of separate creations" (my and Pusey's emphasis).

That is, as Pusey correctly pointed out, "It was then so far, with a quasi-Theological, not with a scientific object, that he [Darwin] wrote his book", i.e. "He wished `to overthrow the dogma of separate creations" (my emphasis). :

"Mr. Darwin urges this in self-defence against critics of his book. `I may be permitted to say, as some excuse, that I had two distinct objects in view; firstly, to shew that species had not been separately created, and secondly, that natural selection had been the chief agent of change, though largely aided by the inherited effects of habit, and slightly by the direct action of the surrounding conditions. I was not, however, able to annul the influence of my former belief, then almost universal, that each species had been purposely created; and this led to my tacit assumption, that any detail of structure, excepting rudiments, was of some special, though unrecognised, service. Any one, with this assumption in his mind, would naturally extend too far the action of natural selection, either during past or present times. Some of those who admit the principle of evolution, but reject natural selection, seem to forget, when criticising my book, that I had the above two objects in view; hence, if I have erred in giving to natural selection great power, which I am very far from admitting, or in having exaggerated its power, which is in itself probable, I have at least, as I hope, done good service in aiding to overthrow the dogma of separate creations.' [Darwin, the Descent of man, P. 1. c. 2. p. 61.] It was then so far, with a quasi-Theological, not with a scientific object, that he wrote his book. He wished `to overthrow the dogma of separate creations.' Why? With the all-but-infinity of creation, which the telescope unfolds, what are we, that we should object to any mode of creation, as unbefitting our Creator? A result, which is arrived at under a bias, lies under a suspicion as to its validity. People catch at what seems to them evidence, on what seems to them previous probability. The reproach is cast upon Theologians; it is not likely to belong to them alone." (Pusey, E.B., "Un-Science, Not Science, Adverse To Faith: A Sermon Read by H.P. Liddon at the University of Oxford, 3 November 1878, James Parker & Co: Oxford, 1878, pp.25-26. Emphasis original).

Therefore it was a blatant falsehood for Darwin to claim that he "wrote the 'Origin ' with any relation whatever to Theology" (my emphasis)!, when: 1) in it he attacked "creation" at least 109 times (including what he claimed was "the ordinary view of ... creation" 11 times ); and 2) he had already admitted seven years before in his Descent of Man (1871) and repeated in the Second Edition (1874), that in his Origin of Species he "had two distinct objects in view"; "firstly," religious "to shew that species had not been separately created, and secondly," scientific "that natural selection had been the chief agent of change" (my emphasis):

"I may be permitted to say as some excuse, that I had two distinct objects in view, firstly, to shew that species had not been separately created, and secondly, that natural selection had been the chief agent of change, though largely aided by the inherited effects of habit, and slightly by the direct action of the surrounding conditions. Nevertheless I was not able to annul the influence of my former belief, then widely prevalent, that each species had been purposely created; and this led to my tacitly assuming that every detail of structure, excepting rudiments, was of some special, though unrecognised, service. Any one with this assumption in his mind would naturally extend the action of natural selection, either during past or present times, too far. Some of those who admit the principle of evolution, but reject natural selection, seem to forget, when criticising my book, that I had the above two objects in view; hence if I have erred in giving to natural selection great power, which I am far from admitting, or in having exaggerated its power, which is in itself probable, I have at least, as I hope, done good service in aiding to overthrow the dogma of separate creations." (Darwin, C.R., "The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex," John Murray: London, First Edition, 1871, Vol. 1, pp.152-153)

Therefore Pusey was correct in his observation that:

"It was then so far, with a quasi-Theological, not with a scientific object, that he wrote his book. He wished `to overthrow the dogma of separate creations.'" (my emphasis)

Note that the above does not depend on whether Darwin was right in his 109+ attacks on what he called the "ordinary view" of creation. My argument only is that Darwin was dishonest in privately denying Pusey's claim that "It was ... with a quasi-Theological, not with a scientific object, that he wrote his book" and claiming that, "Dr. Pusey was mistaken in imagining that I wrote the 'Origin ' with any relation whatever to Theology'" (my emphasis).

However, in fact Darwin's claimed "ordinary view of each species having been independently created" was "merely a straw man-set up only to be knocked down," as even Darwinist historian Barry G. Gale acknowledged:

"Darwin's contrast of the explanatory powers of his theory with the Creationist, especially in the areas of geographical distribution, morphology embryology, and rudimentary organs, represents, I think, the strongest line of arguments in the Origin. ... Yet even here, where Darwin's arguments are strongest, nagging questions remain. For example, a reader of the Origin might be justified in wondering what Creationist view Darwin is referring to. Perhaps this is a problem more for the present-day reader. Darwin's contemporaries may have known exactly what he meant, though I doubt it. Often the Creationist position seems merely a straw man-set up only to be knocked down. The constraints on space in the Origin, which led Darwin to abandon his original intention of arguing on both sides of the mutability issue, add to this feeling. The result is that the Creationist position is never clearly defined in the Origin." (Gale, B.G., "Evolution Without Evidence: Charles Darwin and The Origin of Species," University of New Mexico Press: Albuquerque NM, 1982, p.139)

The fact is, as Oxford theologian Aubrey L. Moore (1848-1890) pointed out, Darwin did not get his "ordinary view of each species having been independently created" from "Augustine nor Aquinas nor Bacon" nor "the Bible, nor the Fathers, nor the Schoolmen" but from the poet John "Milton, whose description of the creatures emerging fully-formed from the earth"in Paradise Lost "was Darwin's favourite reading in his youth, and always accompanied him on his excursions from the `Beagle':

"It was odd, Moore felt, that the question between the mutability or immutability of species should ever have appeared to be a religious question at all. Who invented the doctrine of immutability? not Augustine nor Aquinas nor Bacon; the true culprits were Milton, Ray and Linnaeus-and especially Milton, whose description of the creatures emerging fully-formed from the earth had been accepted as authoritative. Since we know that Milton was Darwin's favourite reading in his youth, and always accompanied him on his excursions from the `Beagle', let us remind ourselves of the picture of creation given in Paradise Lost. It is that which Darwin spent the next twenty years in trying to blot out from his imagination:

[on the sixth day of creation God bids the earth bring forth beasts, each after his kind]

                         The Earth obey'd, and straight
Op'ning her fertile womb team'd at a birth
Innumerous living creatures, perfect forms,
Limb'd and full grown....
The grassy clods now calv'd; now half appear'd
The Tawny-lion, pawing to get free
His hinder parts, then springs as broke from bonds,
And rampant shakes his brinded mane; the ounce,
The libbard, and the tiger, as the mole
Rising, the crumbl'd earth above them threw
In hillocks; the swift stag from under ground
Bore up his branching head; scarce from his mould
Behemoth biggest born of earth upheav'd
His vastness; fleec't the flocks and bleating rose
As plants; ambiguous between sea and land
The river horse and scaly crocodile.
                         Book VII, 453 ff.

If then, neither the Bible, nor the Fathers, nor the Schoolmen support it, why should modern Christians feel obliged to defend an exploded scientific theory? [Moore, A.L., "Science and the Faith," Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co: London, 1887, pp.178ff.]" (Willey, B., "Darwin's Place in the History of Thought," in Banton, M.P., "Darwinism and the Study of Society: A Centenary Symposium," Quadrangle Books: Chicago IL, 1961, pp.8-9).

In fact Darwin was well aware (and therefore was additionally dishonest for pretending otherwise) that there was in his day a range of creationist positions (as there are today), some of which did not claim that "each species ha[d] been independently created," but in fact accepted universal common ancestry (as I do) but argued that God had guided and/or supernaturally intervened at strategic links in the chains of descent.

Indeed Richard Dawkins says there were "many Victorians [who] thought that the deity had intervened repeatedly, at crucial points in evolution" and in fact Darwin in October 1859, a month before he published his Origin of Species, had written about their position, tacitly acknowledging that there could have been "miraculous additions at any one stage of descent" but rejecting that outright on naturalistic philosophical (i.e. "non-miraculous") grounds:

"The Duke of Argyll, for instance, accepted the evidence that evolution had happened, but he wanted to smuggle divine creation in by the back door. He wasn't alone. Instead of a single, once and for all creation in the Garden of Eden, many Victorians thought that the deity had intervened repeatedly, at crucial points in evolution. Complex organs like eyes, instead of evolving from simpler ones by slow degrees as Darwin had it, were thought to have sprung into existence in a single instant. Such people rightly perceived that such instant 'evolution', if it occurred, would imply supernatural intervention: that is what they believed in. .... Darwin perceived this too. He wrote in a letter to Sir Charles Lyell, the leading geologist of his day: `If I were convinced that I required such additions to the theory of natural selection, I would reject it as rubbish...I would give nothing for the theory of Natural selection, if it requires miraculous additions at any one stage of descent.' [Darwin, C.R., Letter to C. Lyell, October 11, 1859, in Darwin, F., ed., "The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin," [1898], Basic Books: New York NY, Vol. II., 1959, reprint, pp.6-7]. This is no petty matter. In Darwin's view, the whole point of the theory of evolution by natural selection was that it provided a non-miraculous account of the existence of complex adaptations. For what it is worth, it is also the whole point of this book. For Darwin, any evolution that had to be helped over the jumps by God was not evolution at all." (Dawkins, R., "The Blind Watchmaker: Why the Evidence of Evolution Reveals a Universe Without Design," W.W Norton & Co: New York NY, 1986, pp.248-249. Emphasis original)

To be continued in part #3 with Darwin's second claim that:

"... when I was collecting facts for the 'Origin,' my belief in what is called a personal God was as firm as that of Dr. Pusey himself" (Darwin, C.R., Letter to C. Ridley, November 28, 1878, in Darwin, F., ed., "The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin," [1898], Basic Books: New York NY, Vol. II., 1959, reprint, pp.411-412).

Stephen E. Jones, BSc. (Biology).

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Exodus 10:1-20. ¹Then the LORD said to Moses, "Go to Pharaoh, for I have hardened his heart and the hearts of his officials so that I may perform these miraculous signs of mine among them ²that you may tell your children and grandchildren how I dealt harshly with the Egyptians and how I performed my signs among them, and that you may know that I am the LORD." ³So Moses and Aaron went to Pharaoh and said to him, "This is what the LORD, the God of the Hebrews, says: 'How long will you refuse to humble yourself before me? Let my people go, so that they may worship me. ⁴If you refuse to let them go, I will bring locusts into your country tomorrow. ⁵They will cover the face of the ground so that it cannot be seen. They will devour what little you have left after the hail, including every tree that is growing in your fields. ⁶They will fill your houses and those of all your officials and all the Egyptians-something neither your fathers nor your forefathers have ever seen from the day they settled in this land till now.' " Then Moses turned and left Pharaoh. ⁷Pharaoh's officials said to him, "How long will this man be a snare to us? Let the people go, so that they may worship the LORD their God. Do you not yet realize that Egypt is ruined?" ⁸Then Moses and Aaron were brought back to Pharaoh. "Go, worship the LORD your God," he said. "But just who will be going?" ⁹Moses answered, "We will go with our young and old, with our sons and daughters, and with our flocks and herds, because we are to celebrate a festival to the LORD." ¹⁰Pharaoh said, "The LORD be with you-if I let you go, along with your women and children! Clearly you are bent on evil. ¹¹No! Have only the men go; and worship the LORD, since that's what you have been asking for." Then Moses and Aaron were driven out of Pharaoh's presence. ¹²And the LORD said to Moses, "Stretch out your hand over Egypt so that locusts will swarm over the land and devour everything growing in the fields, everything left by the hail." ¹³So Moses stretched out his staff over Egypt, and the LORD made an east wind blow across the land all that day and all that night. By morning the wind had brought the locusts; ¹⁴they invaded all Egypt and settled down in every area of the country in great numbers. Never before had there been such a plague of locusts, nor will there ever be again. ¹⁵They covered all the ground until it was black. They devoured all that was left after the hail-everything growing in the fields and the fruit on the trees. Nothing green remained on tree or plant in all the land of Egypt. ¹⁶Pharaoh quickly summoned Moses and Aaron and said, "I have sinned against the LORD your God and against you. ¹⁷Now forgive my sin once more and pray to the LORD your God to take this deadly plague away from me." ¹⁸Moses then left Pharaoh and prayed to the LORD. ¹⁹And the LORD changed the wind to a very strong west wind, which caught up the locusts and carried them into the Red Sea. Not a locust was left anywhere in Egypt. ²⁰But the LORD hardened Pharaoh's heart, and he would not let the Israelites go.