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from Gainesville, Florida Hello, I'm Mike Cannon. And this is conversation. Charles Darwin was born in Shrewsbury, England, in 18. Oh, nine, Son of a prominent physician, he married his first cousin, daughter of the porcelain manufacturer Isaac Wedgwood. He had no formal training in the sciences, yet his fame rests on his scientific writings.

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He rarely appeared in public, yet he became enormously well known and controversial. He was a semi invalid. Yet his scholarly output was phenomenal. And today his name is at the center of a raging controversy in the school systems of many a city in the United States.

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It is. The controversy between creationism and evolution is, um, we'll talk about Charles Darwin and his legacy when I return in a moment with my guest conversation from the University of Florida, a discussion of social, political, scientific and religious issues of the day. Your host is Dr Michael Vegan in Ring professor of ethics and assistant dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at the University of Florida.

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My guest on this conversation is Dr Frederick Gregory, associate professor of history in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences of the University of Florida. Fred. Welcome to conversation. Hello, Mike. Nice to be here. This man, Charles Darwin, was one of the seminal thinkers of the modern era.

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What were some of the things that he did? How did he get his beginning and what were some of his major discoveries? Well, you know, I don't know how many how many things people know about Darwin. He was a very unusual person. We usually associate with a person of his stature, some great accomplishments as an undergraduate.

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This is not the case with Charles Darwin. He was a waster of time. He loved shooting, as he said that's hunting and did not score very well on his final examinations. But after he graduated, was sent off to medical school by his father, who was a physician.

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And then I found that he did not want to be a doctor at all. In fact, on one occasion he had to leave the scene of an operation very quickly because he did not like what he was seeing. But he came back to Cambridge and through a series of accidents, ended up as one of the naturalists aboard the H.

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M s beagle and went on a five year voyage around the world. And that, I think, was the single event, which was formative in the life and work of Charles Darwin. He had a long time interest in nature, though, did he not? Yes, blossomed on this fantastic five year voyage.

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That's correct. Even before he went on the voyage, he was a great Beetle collector. In fact, I think it was his teacher, Hensley, who once said that God must be inordinately fond of Beatles. Having made so many of them in Darwin, I think probably found most of those species of beetle.

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But he was fascinated with, uh, with things organic, not things geological. For a while, he had a bad teacher as an undergraduate, but eventually also, he became fascinated with geology, and he was indefatigable. When the ships would dock in South America, he would climb up into the hills and search for flora and fauna days and nights without end, he would go far inland for long periods of time.

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The ship would go elsewhere, and he would stay for an occasion months, uh, investigating the great diversity of organic life that the tropics brings and the temperate climates of the north. They're not. There are not so many species as our observable in the tropical regions. I understand it was in some of the islands off South America.

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Uh, perhaps on the other side, the western side of the continent that he discovered, uh, species that were unique to individual islands. And it was hard for him to believe that God would have created unique species. How did they become unique? And this was one of the things that started him thinking that thinking actually occurred after he returned.

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I think again, people have these make the assumption that when he arrived on the Galapagos Archipelago and observe the different species of turtle that were unique to each of these islands and Finch that there are 14 species of finches I believe in in the archipelago there.

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Yet when Darwin records them in his notes, he does not make the connection that later in the Journal of researches and his writing up of the data that becomes important to him. But it's certainly true that he did make this observation. Eventually he returned to England, wrote the Voyage of the Beagle, subsequently wrote other works in natural history, as it was called at that time, wasn't it biology?

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His first publication actually was in geology. It was on the formation of coral reefs, I believe. And then he wrote up The Journal of Research is the captain of the H. M s. Beagle also wrote up his own journal, and there was some question as to who to published first there.

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And he out of deference to the captain, I believe, delayed a bit. But his first publication was in geology, where he formulated a new idea of how reefs are built up. Uh, and then in the early 18 forties, he returned in 18 36 and in July of 18 37 he opened his first notebook on transmutation.

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It was called in his books, and he begins to refer to my theory, which is significant because although the ideas of transmutation of one species into another were not unknown at the time, they were generally associated with the views of a Frenchman named Jean Baptiste LaMarche and discredited because they were so speculative in that series in that book, and consequently he was very reluctant to make public that he was thinking along these lines as well.

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In fact, he was confused in his own mind, I believe. And so he did open a private notebook. And by 18 42 and then again in 18 44 he had sketched out his theory, which eventually would become the origin of Species. If he said that in 18 37 that this was my theory, that would tend to confirm Darwin as the originator of the theory of natural selection, as against the claim of Alfred Wallace, who did not come to the surface until the 18 fifties.

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Well, I think this is what Darwin himself felt, and eventually those who were close to him also felt that he had been working on this much longer than Wallace ever had. It's true, however, that in 18 58 Alfred Wallace did send Darwin a letter in which was contained the essential components of his theory of natural selection.

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But it's also true that earlier in the century, as early as 18 14, some figures that are very, very unknown to us now had ideas that were not unlike natural selection. Patrick Matthew and William Wells and Edward Blyth. All of these people subsequently laid claim to having participated in the discovery of the theory of natural selection.

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And then comes the publication of Darwin's book. I understand, by the way, that Darwin very graciously, uh, suggested that Wallace be allowed to publish first and then changed his mind and did come out with his large work. Some 500 pages, um, on the origin of species was the short title.

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But do you remember the long title? No, I don't. I wrote it down because it has an interesting phrase at the end on the origin of species by means of natural selection or the preservation of favored races in the struggle for life doesn't leave much out there.

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He does uses the controversial term race, uh, which is probably an opening, Uh, but you know, that book itself was also an abstract. The full text of what he had intended to publish, uh, was just put out, I think, in the 19 seventies by a fellow from the University of Wisconsin.

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And he says in the beginning, the very first page or second page of the origin as we know at the abstract that this is indeed an abstract, and I have been forced to do it because of Wallace's work. So he acknowledges he was very open about this.

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And I think, as you said, he was quite gracious in acknowledging that Wallace was on to something that he had been onto for a long period of time. But nevertheless, he had to give credit where credit was due. Now what does he mean, Fred? When he uses the term natural selection first in the first couple chapters of the origin, you'll read him talk about domestic breeding, and he shows how breeders can through what he refers to as artificial selection, change the shape of a beak or breed for a specific characteristic.

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He suggests that if this can happen by selecting certain characteristics that there might be a reason why in the wild state of nature, certain characteristics could also be selected for so that it would not be selection in the sense of a design that is being selected for.

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But it nevertheless would favor certain characteristics and not favor others at different times. And so he used the phrase natural selection and was subsequently criticized for using a term selection when it gave the impression that nature was deliberately acting in a design fashion when he didn't intend that to be the case.

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But he does suggest that mutations occur. Sports and nature, sports and nature occur. But that's not the basis of of natural selection. Sports meant monsters at the time. That is, UH, five finger six fingered people and and such. And they were not recognized as sufficient enough to be the motivating force of a grand scheme of evolution.

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He recognized that, and so he had to come up with something that he called variety or adaptation varieties of adaptation. I think it was called, uh, little changes, little changes, which subsequently lead to the development of new species that's correct, which are better suited to meet the challenge of the environment in the original species.

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That's correct. As the environment changes, then it's a question of adapting. And if an organism has an offspring which varies ever so slightly in such a way that the new characteristic will enhance its ability to survive one and to not only enhance its ability to survive, but also allow it than to live longer and have more offspring, which will in turn possess this same feature, then that can act as the driving force of a change, which is only observable over a long period of time.

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Hence his other famous phrase, survival of the fittest. That's actually Herbert Spencer's phrase, which he adapts in later editions of the origin and which also was severely criticized. This was a controversial subject, of course, and every word was criticized at some point or another. Well struggle for life, I suppose, in the title is one that we can credit to Darwin, uh, did Darwin in the origin of species, apply his theory directly to man?

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No, he did not. He left that to others, and it happened in Germany relatively quickly. Thomas Henry Huxley, Darwin's bulldog, the great spokesman for evolutionary theory after 18 59 when the origin was published, wrote a book called Man's Place in Nature, where he does this very explicitly because Darwin had neglected to do so.

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Speculation has it that Darwin neglected to include the humans in evolution and the evolutionary scheme of the origin because, uh, he did not want to offend his wife, who was a staunch Anglican, and he loved his wife dearly and was in a turmoil throughout his life, about the anguish that he might be causing her well, Huxley did go ahead and make the application, as did other Germans.

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Uh, Carl Falk, over in in Germany, wrote a book in the 18 sixties early 18 sixties on the same general. Did not Darwin make the same application, though in his book that has sent a man in 18 7? Eventually. Eventually he does come out and lend his his authority to the application.

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All right, let's talk Fred about the conflict that develops now between evolution purely scientific theory, as Darwin hoped it would be and certainly managed to be, and religion, particularly Christianity. What was Christianity's formal reaction to this new theory, which seemed to challenge the biblical account of the origins of man?

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Well, it was diverse. There were some who staunchly opposed it, and there were others who would come part way and would say that it would be possible, at least in theory, to work out some kind of a compromise between traditional Christianity and the evolution by natural selection.

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There were others who thought that this could not be done, so at least a tripartite response. It's interesting, however, that there is a continuity in the religious position of people throughout this period. And I think that Andrew Dixon White's book on the Warfare of Science with theology, written at the end of last century, is now pretty much a discredited metaphor.

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Or at least it's not accepted by historians is accurately reflecting the way in which science and religion interacted in the 19th century. Huxley, for all his rhetoric, was hardly one who opposed the mission of the church. And because we don't generally recognize this, I think that historians have some work to do in correcting this impression.

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So the reaction was very diverse, depending on whom you're talking about. I know that there were some very thoughtful people in both the Roman Catholic and Protestant denominations, Um, who accepted Darwinism as a possible scientific structure for the formation of species, perhaps even including man, at least the body of man.

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But Roman Catholic theologians I know were unanimous in asserting that while the body may have evolved to a particular point, at that point, God infused a supernatural soul in that body, and only at that time did the body become human, and we have the appearance of a person, and this would explain to many of the people at that particular time the creation of man.

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But in the 19 twenties, you have a famous trial in Tennessee, the Scopes trial, in which two great attorneys and public figures were arrayed against each other, William Jennings Bryan on one side and Clarence Darrow on the other. And he was over the case of a man who taught evolution in the school system.

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What was the outcome of that? Well, it wasn't what Gen. William Jennings Bryan had hoped it would be. The intent there was to make the teaching of evolution illegal. Now what's interesting is to note that back at the beginning of the first decade of this century, the evangelical community, uh, was not so opposed to Darwin's evolutionary theory as they were worried about the higher criticism of the Bible, which had come out of the 19th century and particularly out of Germany in 19 oh nine, a book called The Fundamentals was written, which is often pointed to by people today.

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Call themselves fundamentalists, and in that work, one finds no great harangue against evolutionary theory. There is a person named George Frederick right, who had tried right after the publication of the origin, to reconcile Darwin's theory of natural selection with his understanding of the Christian religion, uh, and had written then uh, somewhat critical piece in in that 19 oh nine book.

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But the greater emphasis the greater threat was, as I've said, higher criticism, it became more of a concern in the second decade. And I can't help but think that the reason why this happened and this is pure speculation, I'm not an American historian. Perhaps you yourself would would want to comment on this.

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Speculation that perhaps one of the reasons why this became an issue in the 19 twenties was because of the great increase expansion of the number of people in public school system. I think between 1920 1930 the number of people attending public school doubled, which is an amazing statistic.

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So that, uh, with this and with the discovery by William Jennings Bryan that some of the Germans had admitted that Darwin's theory of evolution had been one of their motivations in declaring war, that this was then seen as godless and put all these factors together and and so it was attempted by the creationists of the 19 twenties to discredit by making illegal, uh, the teaching of evolution in the school system.

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But they were largely unsuccessful, and so they had to kind of regroup in the 19 thirties and forties. And during that period, a number of the conservative and evangelical youth who were going into science began a slow tendency to accommodate themselves in their religious position to the theories of evolution by adopting some sort of, say, theistic evolution, which in which God is in control of producing these little varieties.

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That then are the basis for the change so that it's It's a compromise between completely naturalistic explanation and one in which God is very active and and accommodation, by the way, Fred, which goes back to the time of Augustine of Hippo in the fifth century. Augustine, you remember, posited the existence of what he called, uh, seed the seed like reasons for things.

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Seminoles Ratso channels the seed like reasons for things which Augustine asserted God created in the beginning and then allowed to develop. That is evolved as seeds evolved, except that in this case the seeds were leading to the development of living forms such as animals and man.

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What we're involved with here, I think, is is the real debate. Uh, and that is one in which an individual has to decide not what is scientific and what is not scientific, but how one science and one's religion are going to interact because most people recognize the need for a super naturalistic act at some point, if it's not directly involved in intervening to create species, perhaps it's in the beginning, the universe altogether.

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In a cosmological sense. Now, that's not true for all people. Some people have a totally naturalistic explanation for the universe, but many people and I would say most begin the universe with some super naturalistic act. If that's the case, that is, if most people are in this group, then I think the classic debate between Newton and Leibnitz in the early 18th century is the one which we still have with us today, and that is a debate over when God or religion and science intersect and how they intersect.

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It was Newton's position that God is necessary for the very running of the universe to be present in every act that that occurs and that he supervises the universe. I think there's a verse in Colossians that a person of this persuasion could decide that in him and by him to all things consist or hold together, live in its position was that this this view of God was really demeaning to a deity or deities power.

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That is, if God were as great as he could be, which of course he must be. Then he would create a universe which did not require his constant attention, and this would be a testimony to his greatness if we could demonstrate that the universe was stable by itself.

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Well, you have a God who intervenes and a God who tries to testify to his greatness by not intervening. And this debate, as I suggest, was spawned in the early 18th century, if not before, and has been with us ever since. Where do you bring God and the natural process together?

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Newton's argument represents a traditional theological conception, that of Providence, that God not only created the world in the instance described in the biblical account but by his power, maintains the universe in existence, and thus his creative power is unlimited, whereas limits would put a limit to that power, that God may exercise the power once.

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And that's it, right. What is the present argument between the creationists and evolutionists? The one that has so many school systems exercised? Well, I think it's the same one recast in modern terms, or at least in no, it's It's the same one recast in in the biological context as opposed to the physical context, the astronomical context that Newton and Leibnitz were arguing about, because it is a question over whether and how or when God intervenes in the development of organic life on Earth.

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If God, if you follow Darwin, you only need God And Darwin was atheist. He believed that God was necessary to guarantee the existence of scientific law or of rational law. Without a God, Darwin could not possibly see how there could be order in the universe. So God was for Darwin somewhat what he is for Whitehead and some 20th century philosophers, the guarantor, the ground of order.

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After that, he takes this live in position that the development of organic life can be explained in completely naturalistic terms, that these chance occurrences, these little varieties that occur by chance are sufficient to explain how life develops and how it changes. And some of the people who tried to reconcile his position with the traditional intervening, uh, religious position, uh, were opposed by Darwin himself.

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Who would say that if you have God be the source of these, these accidents, then it's supernatural selection and not natural selection, and in fact we don't need God to do that. We can get the same result by allowing them to occur by chance, so that if you insist that God is the is the the person behind this are the reason that the cause behind these changes then God is at best redundant in the universe because you can get the same effect by natural means.

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And so that was a classic clash between the two positions. Now the creationists, as I read about them in the press, are attacking the empirical evidence of the evolutionary theory itself, and they do assert it as a theory and not a demonstrated set of facts. They assert, for example, that no known there is no known intermediate, uh, form of a species that has been discovered as a fossil.

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We find completed forms here and another straight down, different completed forms. But there are no intermediate forms to show that change is occurring or has occurred. And on that ground, I understand. Many of the creationists say that the theory is only that and is very disputable.

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Well, of course, to say that the theory of evolution is only a theory is not to say anything derogatory, really, because science, to my knowledge, doesn't have anything else. And that is to say that contemporary philosophers of science would emphasize that even so called facts are only possible in a context of theory.

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Their theory laden, as one philosopher has put it so. Science revels in theory, and that's not really the question, uh, to me, the question is whether or not the explanation being offered is naturalistic or super naturalistic. Now we've always associated naturalistic explanation with scientific explanation, and as I said, scientific explanation makes no claim to be anything different from that.

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So to me, I think the issue is put rather falsely. I don't think that creationism is a science if it is admittedly bringing into the explanation a supernatural intervention. Nor do I think that Darwinism would be totally scientific if he brings in a supernatural intervention at the beginning.

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Uh, the question is where you're going to bring the religion in. And I think it's a false debate to try and say, Well, this is only a theory or that creationism is scientific. Uh, it's a misuse of terms, as far as I can tell, but the creationists bear witness to the fact that the decision where you're going to bring religious or supernatural causation into an explanation because after all, we are human beings and we do have both dispositions.

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Uh, neither science nor religion would be possible without human beings, I mean, and so we must relate these two. Now where are you going to do that? Is the open issue, and the creationists wish to assert that one must do that in the creation of species.

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And they do point out that there are some problems with the incomplete nature of Darwin's explanation. But that's not going to phase the evolutionary scientist because he is committed and she is committed to a naturalistic explanation. And so if you bring in God, that is going to be a priori objectionable to the to the scientist because he wants to do it.

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But it's not objectionable on the other side, to the creationist, who is perfectly willing to bring in reason and the empirical findings of reason. No, that's correct. And I think, as you indicated, a recent convention in Chicago finally admitted that we have some problems with intermediate reforms.

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We don't have the fossil records that we want to have, uh, and we have to face that fact. We've been assuming that the reason why we don't have the fossils of intermediary species is all covered in the origin that we shouldn't expect that there would be too many for lots of reasons, all right, but we should find some eventually, and we haven't been able to locate any.

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And so now there's a general recognition, I think, among evolutionary scientists that we do not have the the fossil record that we'd like to have. And maybe there is some aspect of speciation, the process of forming new species that we've been overlooking. But there's no attempt on the basis of that incomplete evidence to move for any kind of interventionist explanation because, as I say, that's not what the scientist does, Uh, nor should he do?

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Because, uh, he's doing scientists or science. So he wants to do it as naturalistic Lee as he can and will bring in religion at a point that he chooses to for religious reasons, probably. And And that's why I say the creationists want to bring in the religion at a different point from where many people in the scientific community wish to bring it in.

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But they both do bring it in, and I think that makes them qualitatively similar kinds of people. It's the question of where one would be tempted to say that since God is the author of both faith and reason, these two should be congruent. If they cannot totally agree, they one ought to try to find ground on which they can agree.

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And I think that's what Augustine tried to do in the fifth century with a very rudimentary science. If you could call it that at all, by the way, I'm sure that earlier in the program I misstated that Latin phrase of his. I was searching for it.

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It was rats. Fiona's Seminoles. The seed like reasons for things very quickly, Fred of a final comment. Perhaps you would s a a guess in 30 seconds how this controversy is gonna turn out. Well, I don't know how it will turn out. I think it will continue to be with us for the very reasons that I've indicated.

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We will have to make these decisions as we continue, where and how we will relate Science and religion. And since Newton, enlightenment didn't solve the matter. I doubt whether we will thank you, Fred. It's been fun talking with you about this and very enlightening. My guest on this conversation has been Dr Frederick Gregory, who is associate professor of history and the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences.

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A specialist in the history of science. Once again, Fred, thanks very much for being with me on conversation.