Empedocles

Anticipations of Darwin

entirelyuseless History, Metaphysics, Science, Uncategorized , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

I noted here that long before Darwin, there was fairly decent evidence for some sort of theory of evolution, even evidence available from the general human experience of plant and animal life, without deep scientific study.

As said in the earlier post, Aristotle notes that Empedocles hypothesized something along the lines of natural selection:

Wherever then all the parts came about just what they would have been if they had come to be for an end, such things survived, being organized spontaneously in a fitting way; whereas those which grew otherwise perished and continue to perish, as Empedocles says his ‘man-faced ox-progeny’ did.

Since Aristotle is arguing against Empedocles, we should be cautious in assuming that the characterization of his position is entirely accurate. But as presented by Aristotle, the position is an argument against the existence of final causes: since things can be “organized spontaneously” in the way “they would have been if they had come to be for an end,” there is no reason to think they in fact came to be for an end.

This particular conclusion, namely that in such a process nothing comes to be for an end, is a mistake, based on the assumption that different kinds of causes are mutually exclusive, rather than recognizing that different kinds of causes are different ways of explaining one and the same thing. But the general idea regarding what happened historically is correct: good conditions are more capable of persisting, bad conditions less so, and thus over time good conditions tend to predominate.

Other interesting anticipations may be found in Ibn Khaldun‘s book, The Muqaddimah, published in 1377. For example we find this passage:

It should be known that we — may God guide you and us — notice that this world with all the created things in it has a certain order and solid construction. It shows nexuses between causes and things caused, combinations of some parts of creation with others, and transformations of some existent things into others, in a pattern that is both remarkable and endless. Beginning with the world of the body and sensual perception, and therein first with the world of the visible elements, (one notices) how these elements are arranged gradually and continually in an ascending order, from earth to water, (from water) to air, and (from air) to fire. Each one of the elements is prepared to be transformed into the next higher or lower one, and sometimes is transformed. The higher one is always finer than the one preceding it. Eventually, the world of the spheres is reached. They are finer than anything else. They are in layers which are inter­connected, in a shape which the senses are able to perceive only through the existence of motions. These motions provide some people with knowledge of the measurements and positions of the spheres, and also with knowledge of the existence of the essences beyond, the influence of which is noticeable in the spheres through the fact (that they have motion).

One should then look at the world of creation. It started out from the minerals and progressed, in an ingenious, gradual manner, to plants and animals. The last stage of minerals is connected with the first stage of plants, such as herbs and seedless plants. The last stage of plants, such as palms and vines, is connected with the first stage of animals, such as snails and shellfish which have only the power of touch. The word “connection” with regard to these created things means that the last stage of each group is fully prepared to become the first stage of the next group.

The animal world then widens, its species become numerous, and, in a gradual process of creation, it finally leads to man, who is able to think and to reflect. The higher stage of man is reached from the world of the monkeys, in which both sagacity and perception are found, but which has not reached the stage of actual reflection and thinking. At this point we come to the first stage of man after (the world of monkeys). This is as far as our (physical) observation extends.

It is possible that he makes his position clearer elsewhere (I have not read the entire work.) The passage here does not explicitly assert that humans arose from lower animals, but does suggest it, correctly associating human beings with monkeys in particular, even if some of his other connections are somewhat strange. In other words, both here and elsewhere, he speaks of one stage of things being “prepared to become” another stage, and says that this transition sometimes happens: “Each one of the elements is prepared to be transformed into the next higher or lower one, and sometimes is transformed.”

While Ibn Khaldun is at least suggesting that we notice a biological order that corresponds to some degree to an actual historical order, we do not see in this text any indication of what the mechanism is supposed to be. In contrast, Empedocles gives us a mechanism but no clarity regarding historical order. Admittedly, this may be an artifact of the fact that I have not read more of Ibn Khaldun and the fact that we have only fragments from Empedocles.

One of the strongest anticipations of all, although put in very general terms, can be found in David Hume’s Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, in the following passage:

Besides, why may not motion have been propagated by impulse through all eternity, and the same stock of it, or nearly the same, be still upheld in the universe? As much is lost by the composition of motion, as much is gained by its resolution. And whatever the causes are, the fact is certain, that matter is, and always has been, in continual agitation, as far as human experience or tradition reaches. There is not probably, at present, in the whole universe, one particle of matter at absolute rest.

And this very consideration too, continued PHILO, which we have stumbled on in the course of the argument, suggests a new hypothesis of cosmogony, that is not absolutely absurd and improbable. Is there a system, an order, an economy of things, by which matter can preserve that perpetual agitation which seems essential to it, and yet maintain a constancy in the forms which it produces? There certainly is such an economy; for this is actually the case with the present world. The continual motion of matter, therefore, in less than infinite transpositions, must produce this economy or order; and by its very nature, that order, when once established, supports itself, for many ages, if not to eternity. But wherever matter is so poised, arranged, and adjusted, as to continue in perpetual motion, and yet preserve a constancy in the forms, its situation must, of necessity, have all the same appearance of art and contrivance which we observe at present. All the parts of each form must have a relation to each other, and to the whole; and the whole itself must have a relation to the other parts of the universe; to the element in which the form subsists; to the materials with which it repairs its waste and decay; and to every other form which is hostile or friendly. A defect in any of these particulars destroys the form; and the matter of which it is composed is again set loose, and is thrown into irregular motions and fermentations, till it unite itself to some other regular form. If no such form be prepared to receive it, and if there be a great quantity of this corrupted matter in the universe, the universe itself is entirely disordered; whether it be the feeble embryo of a world in its first beginnings that is thus destroyed, or the rotten carcass of one languishing in old age and infirmity. In either case, a chaos ensues; till finite, though innumerable revolutions produce at last some forms, whose parts and organs are so adjusted as to support the forms amidst a continued succession of matter.

Suppose (for we shall endeavour to vary the expression), that matter were thrown into any position, by a blind, unguided force; it is evident that this first position must, in all probability, be the most confused and most disorderly imaginable, without any resemblance to those works of human contrivance, which, along with a symmetry of parts, discover an adjustment of means to ends, and a tendency to self-preservation. If the actuating force cease after this operation, matter must remain for ever in disorder, and continue an immense chaos, without any proportion or activity. But suppose that the actuating force, whatever it be, still continues in matter, this first position will immediately give place to a second, which will likewise in all probability be as disorderly as the first, and so on through many successions of changes and revolutions. No particular order or position ever continues a moment unaltered. The original force, still remaining in activity, gives a perpetual restlessness to matter. Every possible situation is produced, and instantly destroyed. If a glimpse or dawn of order appears for a moment, it is instantly hurried away, and confounded, by that never-ceasing force which actuates every part of matter.

Thus the universe goes on for many ages in a continued succession of chaos and disorder. But is it not possible that it may settle at last, so as not to lose its motion and active force (for that we have supposed inherent in it), yet so as to preserve an uniformity of appearance, amidst the continual motion and fluctuation of its parts? This we find to be the case with the universe at present. Every individual is perpetually changing, and every part of every individual; and yet the whole remains, in appearance, the same. May we not hope for such a position, or rather be assured of it, from the eternal revolutions of unguided matter; and may not this account for all the appearing wisdom and contrivance which is in the universe? Let us contemplate the subject a little, and we shall find, that this adjustment, if attained by matter of a seeming stability in the forms, with a real and perpetual revolution or motion of parts, affords a plausible, if not a true solution of the difficulty.

It is in vain, therefore, to insist upon the uses of the parts in animals or vegetables, and their curious adjustment to each other. I would fain know, how an animal could subsist, unless its parts were so adjusted? Do we not find, that it immediately perishes whenever this adjustment ceases, and that its matter corrupting tries some new form? It happens indeed, that the parts of the world are so well adjusted, that some regular form immediately lays claim to this corrupted matter: and if it were not so, could the world subsist? Must it not dissolve as well as the animal, and pass through new positions and situations, till in great, but finite succession, it falls at last into the present or some such order?

Although extremely general, Hume is suggesting both a history and a mechanism. Hume posits conservation of motion or other similar laws of nature, presumably mathematical, and describes what will happen when you apply such laws to a world. Most situations are unstable, and precisely because they are unstable, they will not last, and other situations will come to be. But some situations are stable, and when such situations occur, they will last.

The need for conservation of motion or similar natural laws is not accidental here. This is why I included the first paragraph above, rather than beginning the quotation where Hume begins to describe his “new hypothesis of cosmogony.” Without motion, the situation could not change, so a new situation could not come to be, and the very ideas of stable and unstable situations would not make sense. Likewise, if motion existed but did not follow any law, all situations should be unstable, so no amount of change could lead to a stable situation. Thus since things always fall downwards instead of in random directions, things stabilize near a center, while merely random motion could not be expected to have this effect. Thus a critic might argue that Hume seems to be positing randomness as the origin of things, but is cheating, so to speak, by positing original stabilities like natural laws, which are not random at all. Whatever might be said of this, it is an important point, and I will be returning to it later.

Since his description is more general than a description of living things in particular, Hume does not mention anything like the theory of the common descent of living things. But there is no huge gulf here: this would simply be a particular application. In fact, some people have suggested that Hume may have had textual influence on Darwin.

While there are other anticipations (there is one in Immanuel Kant that I am not currently inclined to seek out), I will skip to Philip Gosse, who published two years before Darwin. As described in the linked post, while Gosse denies the historicity of evolution in a temporal sense, he posits that the geological evidence was deliberately constructed (by God) to be evidence of common descent.

What was Darwin’s own role, then, if all the elements of his theory were known to various people years, centuries, or even millennia in advance? If we look at this in terms of Thomas Kuhn’s account of scientific progress, it is not so much that Darwin invented new ideas, as that he brought the evidence and arguments together in such a way as to produce — extremely quickly after the publication of his work — a newly formed consensus on those ideas.

Earth By Earth

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In an earlier post I quoted Empedocles:

For ’tis by Earth we see Earth, by Water Water,

By Ether Ether divine, by Fire destructive Fire,

By Love Love, and Hate by cruel Hate.

I argued in that post that the mind does have something in common with what is known, and that this common thing is the form of the thing known. However, I took for granted that Empedocles is mistaken in assuming that the thing itself must be in common in order to be known.

I did not directly say why he is mistaken. If form makes a thing what it is, and the form of a thing known is in the mind, why does the mind not become that thing? If the form of earth is in your mind, then why is your mind not literally earth?

We will naturally be inclined to say that the form in your mind is apart from its proper matter, and that you need both form and matter to make a thing. And there is nothing wrong with this answer, as far as it goes, but it seems insufficient. Suppose you have a gold coin: what is its matter? The gold coin is presumably made out of atoms of gold, and since these atoms are not in your head, you do not see gold by gold. The problem is that atoms of gold also have some form, since this is just to say there is an answer when we ask, “What is this?”, and this will be true of anything whatever that you call matter. And there is nothing to prevent you from knowing that thing as well. There is nothing to prevent you from knowing the nature of gold atoms. And thus it seems that the matter will be present, and thus there should be actual gold in your mind.

Perhaps an Aristotelian will suggest that it is prime matter that is missing. But this answer will not work, because humans have this sort of matter in common with other things. And in any case, nothing is meant by “matter” in this sense except the ability to have the form. And since the knower can have the form, they have the ability to have the form, and thus matter. So nothing is missing, and the thing known should be literally in the knower.

Thus it appears that we have a reductio. Either my account of knowledge is mistaken, or earth should actually by known by earth, which it obviously is not.

The conclusion is only apparent, however. We can resolve it by going back to what I said about form in that post and the following one. Form is a network of relationships apt to make something one. But being one not only includes internal unity, but also separation from other things. For example, suppose we now have three gold coins, instead of one: each coin is one coin, and this depends on its parts being together, rather than in a loose heap of gold dust. But the fact that the coins are three depends on their separation from one another, and thus also the fact that each coin is “one” depends on that separation.

In other words, the form of a thing includes not only internal relationships, but also external relationships. This implies that to know the nature of a thing, one must know its external relationships. And to know a thing perfectly would require knowing both its internal and external relationships perfectly.

Now one of the things to which it is related is the very one who knows it. Thus, if the knower is to know the thing perfectly, they must perfectly understand the relationships between themselves and the thing. But this is not possible, for reasons explained in the post on self-reference. The person who attempts to know something perfectly is in the situation of someone attempting to draw a picture of themselves drawing a picture: to make a perfect copy of the gold coin, it is necessary to copy its context, which includes the knower. But this cannot be done; therefore perfect knowledge of the coin is impossible.

A different way to state the same analysis: “perfect copy” is a contradiction in terms, because such perfection would imply identity with the original, and thus not being a copy at all. In other words, perfect knowledge of a thing is impossible because perfect knowledge would imply, as in the argument of Empedocles, that one’s knowledge would literally be the thing known, and thus not knowledge at all.

Form and Reality II

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This is a followup to this earlier post, but will use a number of other threads to get a fuller understanding of the matter. Rather than presenting this in the form of a single essay, I will present it as a number of distinct theses, many of which have already been argued or suggested in various forms elsewhere on the blog.

(1) Everything that exists or can exist has or could have some relationship with the mind: relationship is in fact intrinsic to the nature of existence.

This was argued here, with related remarks in several recent posts. In a sense the claim is not only true but obviously so. You are the one who says or can say “this exists,” and you could not say or understand it unless the thing had or could have some relationship with your mind.

Perhaps this seems a bit unfair to reality, as though the limits of reality were being set by the limits of the thinker. What if there were a limited being that could only think of some things, but other things could exist that it could not think about? It is easy to see that in this situation the limited being does not have the concept of “everything,” and so can neither affirm nor deny (1). It is not that it would affirm it but be mistaken. It would simply never think of it.

Someone could insist: I myself am limited. It might be that there are better thinkers in the world that can think about things I could never conceive of. But again, if you have concept of “everything,” then you just thought of those things: they are the things that those thinkers would think about. So you just thought about them too, and brought them into relationship with yourself.

Thus, anyone who actually has the idea of “everything,” and thinks about the matter clearly, will agree with (1).

(2) Nothing can be true which could not in principle (in some sense of “in principle”) in some way be said to be true.

Thesis (1) can be taken as saying that anything that can be, can also be understood, at least in some way; and thesis (2) can be taken as saying that anything that can be understood, can also be said, at least in some way.

Since language is conventional, this does not need much of an argument. If I think that something exists, and I don’t have a name for it, I can make up a name. If I think that one thing is another thing, but don’t have words for these things, I can make up words for them. Even if I am not quite sure what I am thinking, I can say, “I have a thought in my mind but don’t quite have the words for it,” and in some way I have already put it into words.

One particular objection to the thesis might be made from self-reference paradoxes. The player in the Liar Game cannot correctly say whether the third statement is true or false, even though it is in fact true or false. But note two things: first, he cannot do this while he is playing, but once the game is over, he can explicitly and correctly say whether it was true or false. Second, even while playing, he can say, “the third statement has a truth value,” and in this way he speaks of its truth in a generic way. This is in part why I added the hedges to (2), “at least in some way”, and “in principle.”

(3) Things do not have hidden essences. That is, they may have essences, but those essences can be explained in words.

This follows in a straightforward way from (1) and (2). The essence of a thing is just “what it is,” or perhaps, “what it most truly is.” The question “what is this thing?” is formed with words, and it is evident that anyone who answers the question, will answer the question by using words.

Now someone might object that the essence of a thing might be hidden because perhaps in some cases the question does not have an answer. But then it would not be true that it has an essence but is hidden: rather, it would be false that it has an essence. Similarly, if the question “where is this thing,” does not have any answer, it does not mean the thing is in a hidden place, but that the thing is not in a place at all.

Another objection might be that an essence might be hidden because the answer to the question exists, but cannot be known. A discussion of this would depend on what is meant by “can be known” and “cannot be known” in this context. That is, if the objector is merely saying that we do not know such things infallibly, including the answer to the question, “what is this?”, then I agree, but would add that (3) does not speak to this point one way or another. But if it is meant that “cannot be known” means that there is something there, the “thing in itself,” which in no way can be known or expressed in words, this would be the Kantian error. This is indeed contrary to (3), and implicitly to (1) or (2) or both, but it is also false.

People might also think that the essence cannot be known because they notice that the question “what is this?” can have many legitimate answers, and suppose that one of these, and only one, must be really and truly true, but think that we have no way to find out which one it is. While there are certainly cases where an apparent answer to the question is not a true answer, the main response here is that if both answers are true, both answers are true: there does not need to be a deeper but hidden level where one is true and the other false. There may however be a deeper level which speaks to other matters and possibly explains both answers. Thus I said in the post linked above that the discussion was not limited to “how many,” but would apply in some way to every question about the being of things.

(4) Reductionism, as it is commonly understood, is false.

I have argued this in various places, but more recently and in particular here and here. It is not just one-sided to say for example that the universe and everything in it is just a multitude of particles. It is false, because it takes one of several truths, and says that one is “really” true and that the other is “really” false.

(5) Anti-reductionism, as it is commonly understood, is false.

This follows from the same arguments. Anti-reductionism, as for example the sort advocated by Alexander Pruss, takes the opposite side of the above argument, saying that certain things are “really” one and in no way many. And this is also false.

(6) Form makes a thing to be what it is, and makes it to be one thing.

This is largely a question of definition. It is what is meant by form in this context.

Someone might object that perhaps there is nothing that makes a thing what it is, or there is nothing that makes it one thing. But if it is what it is of itself, or if it is one of itself, then by this definition it is its own form, and we do not necessarily have an issue with that.

Again, someone might say that the definition conflates two potentially distinct things. Perhaps one thing makes a thing what it is, and another thing makes it one thing. But this is not possible because of the convertibility of being and unity: to be a thing at all, is to be one thing.

(7) Form is what is in common between the mind and the thing it understands, and is the reason the mind understands at all.

This is very distinctly not a question of definition. This needs to be proved from (6), along with what we know about understanding.

It is not so strange to think that you would need to have something in common with a thing in order to understand it. Thus Aristotle presents the words of Empedocles:

For ’tis by Earth we see Earth, by Water Water,

By Ether Ether divine, by Fire destructive Fire,

By Love Love, and Hate by cruel Hate.

On the other hand, there is also obviously something wrong with this. I don’t need to be a tree in order to see or think about a tree, and it is not terribly obvious that there is even anything in common between us. In fact, one of Hilary Lawson’s arguments for his anti-realist position is that there frequently seems to be nothing in common between causes and effects, and that therefore there may be (or certainly will be) nothing in common between our minds and reality, and thus we cannot ultimately know anything. Thus he says in Chapter 2 of his book on closure:

For a system of closure to provide a means of intervention in openness and thus to function as a closure machine, it requires a means of converting the flux of openness into an array of particularities. This initial layer of closure will be identified as ‘preliminary closure’. As with closure generally, preliminary closure consists in the realisation of particularity as a consequence of holding that which is different as the same. This is achieved through the realisation of material in response to openness. The most minimal example of a system of closure consists of a single preliminary closure. Such a system requires two discrete states, or at least states that can be held as if they were discrete. It is not difficult to provide mechanical examples of such systems which allow for a single preliminary closure. A mousetrap for example, can be regarded as having two discrete states: it is either set, it is ready, or it has sprung, it has gone off. Many different causes may have led to it being in one state or another: it may have been sprung by a mouse, but it could also have been knocked by someone or something, or someone could have deliberately set it off. In the context of the mechanism all of these variations are of no consequence, it is either set or it has sprung. The diversity of the immediate environment is thereby reduced to single state and its absence: it is either set or it is not set. Any mechanical arrangement that enables a system to alternate between two or more discrete states is thereby capable of providing the basis for preliminary closure. For example, a bell or a gate could function as the basis for preliminary closure. The bell can either ring or not ring, the gate can be closed or not closed. The bell may ring as the result of the wind, or a person or animal shaking it, but the cause of the response is in the context of system of no consequence. The bell either rings or it doesn’t. Similarly, the gate may be in one state or another because it has been deliberately moved, or because something or someone has dislodged it accidentally, but these variations are not relevant in the context of the state of system, which in this case is the position of the gate. In either case the cause of the bell ringing or the gate closing is infinitely varied, but in the context of the system the variety of inputs is not accessible to the system and thus of no consequence.

A useful way to think about Lawson is that he is in some way a disciple of Heraclitus. Thus closure is “holding that which is different as the same,” but in reality nothing is ever the same because everything is in flux. In the context of this passage, the mousetrap is either set or sprung, and so it divides the world into two states, the “set” state and the “sprung” state. But the universes with the set mousetrap have nothing in common with one another besides the set mousetrap, and the universes with the sprung mousetrap have nothing in common with one another besides the sprung mousetrap.

We can see how this could lead to the conclusion that knowledge is impossible. Sight divides parts of the world up with various colors. Leaves are green, the sky is blue, the keyboard I am using is black. But if I look at two different green things, or two different blue things, they may have nothing in common besides the fact that they affected my sight in a similar way. The sky and a blue couch are blue for very different reasons. We discussed this particular point elsewhere, but the general concern would be that we have no reason to think there is anything in common between our mind and the world, and some reason to think there must be something in common in order for us to understand anything.

Fortunately, the solution can be found right in the examples which supposedly suggest that there is nothing in common between the mind and the world. Consider the mousetrap. Do the universes with the set mousetrap have something in common? Yes, they have the set mousetrap in common. But Lawson does not deny this. His concern is that they have nothing else in common. But they do have something else in common: they have the same relationship to the mousetrap, different from the relationship that the universes with the sprung mousetrap have to their mousetrap. What about the mousetrap itself? Do those universes have something in common with the mousetrap? If we consider the relationship between the mousetrap and the universe as a kind of single thing with two ends, then they do, although they share in it from different ends, just as a father and son have a relationship in common (in this particular sense.) The same things will be true in the case of sensible qualities. “Blue” may divide up surface reflectance properties in a somewhat arbitrary way, but it does divide them into things that have something in common, namely their relationship with the sense of sight.

Or consider the same thing with a picture. Does the picture have anything in common with the thing it represents? Since a picture is meant to actually look similar to the eye to the object pictured, it may have certain shapes in common, the straightness of certain lines, and so on. It may have some colors in common. This kind of literal commonness might have suggested to Empedocles that we should know “earth by earth,” but one difference is that a picture and the object look alike to the eye, but an idea is not something that the mind looks at, and which happens to look like a thing: rather the idea is what the mind uses in order to look at a thing at all.

Thus a better comparison would be between the the thing seen and the image in the eye or the activity of the visual cortex. It is easy enough to see by looking that the image in a person’s eye bears some resemblance to the thing seen, even the sort of resemblance that a picture has. In a vaguer way, something similar turns out to be true even in the visual cortex:

V1 has a very well-defined map of the spatial information in vision. For example, in humans, the upper bank of the calcarine sulcus responds strongly to the lower half of visual field (below the center), and the lower bank of the calcarine to the upper half of visual field. In concept, this retinotopic mapping is a transformation of the visual image from retina to V1. The correspondence between a given location in V1 and in the subjective visual field is very precise: even the blind spots are mapped into V1. In terms of evolution, this correspondence is very basic and found in most animals that possess a V1. In humans and animals with a fovea in the retina, a large portion of V1 is mapped to the small, central portion of visual field, a phenomenon known as cortical magnification. Perhaps for the purpose of accurate spatial encoding, neurons in V1 have the smallest receptive field size of any visual cortex microscopic regions.

However, as I said, this is in a much vaguer way. In particular, it is not so much an image which is in common, but certain spatial relationships. If we go back to the idea of the mousetrap, this is entirely unsurprising. Causes and effects will always have something in common, and always in this particular way, namely with a commonality of relationship, because causes and effects, as such, are defined by their relationship to each other.

How does all this bear on our thesis (7)? Consider the color blue, and the question, “what is it to be blue?” What is the essence of blue? We could answer this in at least two different ways:

  1. To be blue is to have certain reflectance properties.
  2. To be blue is to be the sort of thing that looks blue.

But in the way intended, these are one and the same thing. A thing looks blue if it has those properties, and it has those properties if it looks blue. Now someone might say that this is a direct refutation of our thesis, since the visual cortex presumably does not look blue or have those properties when you look at something blue. But this is like Lawson’s claim that the universe has nothing in common with the sprung mousetrap. It does have something in common, if you look at the relationship from the other end. The same thing happens when we consider the meaning of “certain reflectance properties,” and “the sort of thing that looks blue.” We are actually talking about the properties that make a thing look blue, so both definitions are relative to the sense of sight. And this means that sight has something relative in common with them, and the relation it has in common is the very one that defines the nature of blue. As this is what we mean by form (thesis 6), the form of blue must be present in the sense of sight in order to see something blue.

In fact, it followed directly from thesis (1) that the nature of blue would need to include something relative. And it followed from (2) and (3) that the very same nature would turn out to be present in our senses, thoughts, and words.

The same argument applies to the mind as to the senses. I will draw additional conclusions in a later post, and in particular, show the relevance of theses (4) and (5) to the rest.

Origin of Species

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As we noted previously, Philip Gosse published his book attempting to reconcile geology and Scripture just a few years before Charles Darwin published his book On the Origin of Species.

In that previous post, I quoted Gosse’s summary of the state of geology. It would be useful to look again at several particular statements taken from that summary:

6. A series of organic beings appears, lives, generates, dies; lives, generates, dies; for thousands and thousands of successive generations. Tiny polypes gradually build up gigantic masses of coral,—mountains and reefs—microscopic foraminifera accumulate strata of calcareous sand; still more minute infusoria—forty millions to the inch—make slates, many yards thick, of their shells alone.

7. The species at length die out—a process which we have no data to measure, though we may reasonably conclude it very long. Sometimes the whole existing fauna seems to have come to a sudden violent end; at others, the species die out one by one. In the former case suddenly, in the latter progressively, new creatures supply the place of the old. Not only do species change; the very genera change, and change again. Forms of beings, strange beings, beings of uncouth shape, of mighty ferocity and power, of gigantic dimensions, come in, run their specific race, propagate their kinds generation after generation,—and at length die out and disappear; to be replaced by other species, each approaching nearer and nearer to familiar forms.

…

9. Millions of forest-trees sprang up, towered to heaven, and fell, to be crushed into the coal strata which make our winter fires. Hundreds of feet measure the thickness of what were once succulent plants, but pressed together like paper-pulp, and consolidated under a weight absolutely immensurable. Yet there remain the scales of their stems, the elegant reticulated patterns of their bark, the delicate tracery of their leaf-nerves, indelibly depicted by an unpatented process of “nature-printing.” And when we examine the record,—the forms of the leaves, the structure of the tissues, we get the same result as before, that the plants belonged to a flora which had no species in common with that which adorns the modern earth. Very gradually, and only after many successions, not of individual generations, but of the cycles of species, genera, and even families, did the vegetable creation conform itself to ours.

10. At length the species both of plants and animals grew,—not by alteration of their specific characters, but by replacement of species by species—more and more like what we have now on the earth, and finally merged into our present flora and fauna, about the time when we find the first geological traces of man.

Careful analysis of the rocks reveals an order of time, and that order of time reveals a history of life on earth. In that history, life was at first very different from its present form, and approached more and more closely to its present form over time, reaching that present form more or less with the existence of man. When we consider this together with the idea of what happens when imperfect copies are made repeatedly over time, we can see that this is very good evidence for the theory of evolution, considered as a theory of the common descent of living things. Gosse in fact vaguely suggests such a theory himself, when he suggests that the relationship of various species is much like the relationship of one individual to another.

Charles Darwin begins the introduction to his work:

When on board H.M.S. Beagle, as naturalist, I was much struck with certain facts in the distribution of the organic beings inhabiting South America, and in the geological relations of the present to the past inhabitants of that continent. These facts, as will be seen in the latter chapters of this volume, seemed to throw some light on the origin of species–that mystery of mysteries, as it has been called by one of our greatest philosophers. On my return home, it occurred to me, in 1837, that something might perhaps be made out on this question by patiently accumulating and reflecting on all sorts of facts which could possibly have any bearing on it. After five years’ work I allowed myself to speculate on the subject, and drew up some short notes; these I enlarged in 1844 into a sketch of the conclusions, which then seemed to me probable: from that period to the present day I have steadily pursued the same object. I hope that I may be excused for entering on these personal details, as I give them to show that I have not been hasty in coming to a decision. My work is now (1859) nearly finished; but as it will take me many more years to complete it, and as my health is far from strong, I have been urged to publish this abstract. I have more especially been induced to do this, as Mr. Wallace, who is now studying the natural history of the Malay Archipelago, has arrived at almost exactly the same general conclusions that I have on the origin of species. In 1858 he sent me a memoir on this subject, with a request that I would forward it to Sir Charles Lyell, who sent it to the Linnean Society, and it is published in the third volume of the Journal of that Society. Sir C. Lyell and Dr. Hooker, who both knew of my work–the latter having read my sketch of 1844–honoured me by thinking it advisable to publish, with Mr. Wallace’s excellent memoir, some brief extracts from my manuscripts.

As indicated by Gosse’s summary, by this time geology had basically reached the state where the idea of evolution was a very natural understanding of the history of life on earth. Consequently Darwin was not inventing some strange and marvelous idea, but simply drawing out the implications of what was already present in the science of geology. As he indicates here, he was not alone in doing that, and he was not alone in doing it at the time.

Darwin discusses natural selection in chapter four of his book:

How will the struggle for existence, briefly discussed in the last chapter, act in regard to variation? Can the principle of selection, which we have seen is so potent in the hands of man, apply under nature? I think we shall see that it can act most efficiently. Let the endless number of slight variations and individual differences occurring in our domestic productions, and, in a lesser degree, in those under nature, be borne in mind; as well as the strength of the hereditary tendency. Under domestication, it may truly be said that the whole organisation becomes in some degree plastic. But the variability, which we almost universally meet with in our domestic productions is not directly produced, as Hooker and Asa Gray have well remarked, by man; he can neither originate varieties nor prevent their occurrence; he can only preserve and accumulate such as do occur. Unintentionally he exposes organic beings to new and changing conditions of life, and variability ensues; but similar changes of conditions might and do occur under nature. Let it also be borne in mind how infinitely complex and close-fitting are the mutual relations of all organic beings to each other and to their physical conditions of life; and consequently what infinitely varied diversities of structure might be of use to each being under changing conditions of life. Can it then be thought improbable, seeing that variations useful to man have undoubtedly occurred, that other variations useful in some way to each being in the great and complex battle of life, should occur in the course of many successive generations? If such do occur, can we doubt (remembering that many more individuals are born than can possibly survive) that individuals having any advantage, however slight, over others, would have the best chance of surviving and procreating their kind? On the other hand, we may feel sure that any variation in the least degree injurious would be rigidly destroyed. This preservation of favourable individual differences and variations, and the destruction of those which are injurious, I have called Natural Selection, or the Survival of the Fittest. Variations neither useful nor injurious would not be affected by natural selection, and would be left either a fluctuating element, as perhaps we see in certain polymorphic species, or would ultimately become fixed, owing to the nature of the organism and the nature of the conditions.

This is probably the most important aspect of Darwin’s contribution to biology and geology. The fact that one species is descended from another was already becoming clear enough. But Darwin offers an explanation for why certain changes take place rather than others. We pointed out earlier that Empedocles anticipated this idea, but he did not combine it with the idea of common descent. Darwin actually mentions the passage, but mistakes it for Aristotle’s own view.

Darwin also attempts to organize the geological and biological evidence in general, and to answer objections to his theory. I will not do that here, since many others have done it elsewhere, and including a great deal of more recent evidence that could not be included by Darwin, as for example here. However, I will discuss one particular objection to his theory, as well as his solution.

In the final chapter he discusses why we do not find many more intermediate forms than we do, both living and dead:

As according to the theory of natural selection an interminable number of intermediate forms must have existed, linking together all the species in each group by gradations as fine as our existing varieties, it may be asked, Why do we not see these linking forms all around us? Why are not all organic beings blended together in an inextricable chaos? With respect to existing forms, we should remember that we have no right to expect (excepting in rare cases) to discover DIRECTLY connecting links between them, but only between each and some extinct and supplanted form. Even on a wide area, which has during a long period remained continuous, and of which the climatic and other conditions of life change insensibly in proceeding from a district occupied by one species into another district occupied by a closely allied species, we have no just right to expect often to find intermediate varieties in the intermediate zones. For we have reason to believe that only a few species of a genus ever undergo change; the other species becoming utterly extinct and leaving no modified progeny. Of the species which do change, only a few within the same country change at the same time; and all modifications are slowly effected. I have also shown that the intermediate varieties which probably at first existed in the intermediate zones, would be liable to be supplanted by the allied forms on either hand; for the latter, from existing in greater numbers, would generally be modified and improved at a quicker rate than the intermediate varieties, which existed in lesser numbers; so that the intermediate varieties would, in the long run, be supplanted and exterminated.

On this doctrine of the extermination of an infinitude of connecting links, between the living and extinct inhabitants of the world, and at each successive period between the extinct and still older species, why is not every geological formation charged with such links? Why does not every collection of fossil remains afford plain evidence of the gradation and mutation of the forms of life? Although geological research has undoubtedly revealed the former existence of many links, bringing numerous forms of life much closer together, it does not yield the infinitely many fine gradations between past and present species required on the theory, and this is the most obvious of the many objections which may be urged against it. Why, again, do whole groups of allied species appear, though this appearance is often false, to have come in suddenly on the successive geological stages? Although we now know that organic beings appeared on this globe, at a period incalculably remote, long before the lowest bed of the Cambrian system was deposited, why do we not find beneath this system great piles of strata stored with the remains of the progenitors of the Cambrian fossils? For on the theory, such strata must somewhere have been deposited at these ancient and utterly unknown epochs of the world’s history.

I can answer these questions and objections only on the supposition that the geological record is far more imperfect than most geologists believe. The number of specimens in all our museums is absolutely as nothing compared with the countless generations of countless species which have certainly existed. The parent form of any two or more species would not be in all its characters directly intermediate between its modified offspring, any more than the rock-pigeon is directly intermediate in crop and tail between its descendants, the pouter and fantail pigeons. We should not be able to recognise a species as the parent of another and modified species, if we were to examine the two ever so closely, unless we possessed most of the intermediate links; and owing to the imperfection of the geological record, we have no just right to expect to find so many links. If two or three, or even more linking forms were discovered, they would simply be ranked by many naturalists as so many new species, more especially if found in different geological substages, let their differences be ever so slight. Numerous existing doubtful forms could be named which are probably varieties; but who will pretend that in future ages so many fossil links will be discovered, that naturalists will be able to decide whether or not these doubtful forms ought to be called varieties? Only a small portion of the world has been geologically explored. Only organic beings of certain classes can be preserved in a fossil condition, at least in any great number. Many species when once formed never undergo any further change but become extinct without leaving modified descendants; and the periods during which species have undergone modification, though long as measured by years, have probably been short in comparison with the periods during which they retained the same form. It is the dominant and widely ranging species which vary most frequently and vary most, and varieties are often at first local–both causes rendering the discovery of intermediate links in any one formation less likely. Local varieties will not spread into other and distant regions until they are considerably modified and improved; and when they have spread, and are discovered in a geological formation, they appear as if suddenly created there, and will be simply classed as new species.Most formations have been intermittent in their accumulation; and their duration has probably been shorter than the average duration of specific forms. Successive formations are in most cases separated from each other by blank intervals of time of great length, for fossiliferous formations thick enough to resist future degradation can, as a general rule, be accumulated only where much sediment is deposited on the subsiding bed of the sea. During the alternate periods of elevation and of stationary level the record will generally be blank. During these latter periods there will probably be more variability in the forms of life; during periods of subsidence, more extinction.

With respect to the absence of strata rich in fossils beneath the Cambrian formation, I can recur only to the hypothesis given in the tenth chapter; namely, that though our continents and oceans have endured for an enormous period in nearly their present relative positions, we have no reason to assume that this has always been the case; consequently formations much older than any now known may lie buried beneath the great oceans. With respect to the lapse of time not having been sufficient since our planet was consolidated for the assumed amount of organic change, and this objection, as urged by Sir William Thompson, is probably one of the gravest as yet advanced, I can only say, firstly, that we do not know at what rate species change, as measured by years, and secondly, that many philosophers are not as yet willing to admit that we know enough of the constitution of the universe and of the interior of our globe to speculate with safety on its past duration.

That the geological record is imperfect all will admit; but that it is imperfect to the degree required by our theory, few will be inclined to admit. If we look to long enough intervals of time, geology plainly declares that species have all changed; and they have changed in the manner required by the theory, for they have changed slowly and in a graduated manner. We clearly see this in the fossil remains from consecutive formations invariably being much more closely related to each other than are the fossils from widely separated formations.

Darwin makes a number of good points here, as for example that intermediate forms, when they are found, are likely simply to be interpreted as new species. However, it seems likely that his explanation is insufficient. The geological record is surely very imperfect, but it is not clear at all that the record as he presents it match what we would naturally expect from an imperfect record with random sampling.

But let us consider another case, one where it is an undoubted fact that our record was produced by a process of historical descent with modification. There can be no reasonable doubt that the Romance languages have descended from Latin, and by a process of gradual diversification much like the process of evolution. This was surely a nearly continuous process, with children always speaking a language nearly identical to the language of the parent. So there were a nearly indefinite number of forms of languages descended from Latin, with an indefinite number of linking forms. “Why do we not see these linking forms all around us? Why are not all [Latin languages] blended together in an inextricable chaos?”

They are not blended in this way, even if there is a fairly large number of dialects, just as there is a large number of animal species of similar forms.

“On this doctrine of the extermination of an infinitude of connecting links, between the living and extinct [Latin languages] of the world, and at each successive period between the extinct and still older [forms], why is not every [historical period] charged with such links? Why does not every collection of [medieval and ancient writings] afford plain evidence of the gradation and mutation of the forms of [the Latin language]?”

We can find older forms of the Latin languages preserved in writing. But we do not find anything like a continuous series of such forms, despite the fact that it is perfectly clear that such a continuous series must have existed.

The answer is likely the same both in the case of these languages, and in the case of the evolution of living beings, and likely has to do with the mathematics governing these kinds of changes. It is related to the imperfection of the records, but not completely explained by this. If you had perfect records, you would indeed be able to find a continuous series of linguistic forms, and you would indeed be able to find a continuous series of living beings. But basically in both cases you have periods of relative stability followed by periods of relatively rapid change, rather than one extremely long period of slow change, and consequently random sampling discovers relatively few of the total number of forms.

Imperfect Copies and Evolution

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We tend to think of evidence for evolution in terms of complex facts of geology and biology. But in fact there is pretty good evidence for the theory of evolution which is available to almost everyone, or least everyone who has some familiarity with various kinds of plants and animals, without any complicated study.

What happens when you take a thing, then make a copy, then make copies of the copies, and so on? If your copies are perfect, you will just get a bunch of identical copies of the original. But if your copies are not perfect, something else happens. Suppose you perform this process with photocopies of a sheet of paper with text on it. Over time, various discrepancies will creep in. For example, during one of your copies there may be a hair on the surface of the copy machine, and this hair will show up as an extra line on the copy.

Then, when you make copies of the sheet with the extra line, all the copies you make of it, and all the copies of the copies of that sheet, and so on, will all have an extra line.

At the end you will be able to divide your copies into at least two families: ones with the extra line, and ones without it. In practice you will not get just two families, but families within families within families, and so on.

There are two facts about living things, neither of which is all that hard to notice.

First, living things make copies of themselves. They are not perfect copies but imperfect ones, with differences from the original.

Second, living things are organized in the way discussed above, as families within families. Thus there are various kinds of dog such as the chihuahua and the golden retriever, which are both kinds of dog. And then there are dogs and wolves, which are pretty similar themselves. And wolves have a similar relationship with coyotes and jackals. And all of these canine species have a similar relationship with cat families, and so on.

These two facts are evidence for common descent, that is, evidence that all of these living things are remote descendants of a lengthy process of the imperfect copying of one original ancestor.

Nonetheless, the theory was rarely proposed, if not non-existent, before the eighteenth century. Empedocles anticipated the theory of natural selection, as in this statement by Aristotle:

Wherever then all the parts came about just what they would have been if they had come be for an end, such things survived, being organized spontaneously in a fitting way; whereas those which grew otherwise perished and continue to perish, as Empedocles says his ‘man-faced ox-progeny’ did.

Empedocles, however, implied (for example by speaking of “man-faced ox-progeny”) that things came to be by chance, and does not seem to have suggested common descent in particular.

Given the presence of evidence for common descent, why was the theory not proposed much earlier? I have two guesses regarding the reason for this. First, the existence of an apparently settled account in the book of Genesis. Second, the fact that it is difficult for people to conceive of long periods of time and of their effects. People have a hard time even with much shorter periods of time, let alone the idea of considering the effects of the passage of millions of years.