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... would be essential in the evolutionary theories to come, and his influence, though rarely acknowledged, has ever been of the essence. A direct precursor of Charles Darwin was his own grandfather, Erasmus Darwin (1731-1802). Erasmus was an excellent doctor, invited by King George III to be his personal physician – an offer which the doctor declined. He was also a man of the broadest interests, a ... adaptation to their environment. Charles Darwin certainly read his grandfather’s Zoonomia or the Laws of Organic Life (1796). Yet, in his Origin of Species he dismissed him in a footnote as “a pre-Lamarckian harbinger of Lamarck’s confusion. And in his Autobiography Darwin spoke disparagingly of Erasmus’s Zoonomia, the book that may well have planted in Darwin’s mind the seed not only of evolutionism... whereby life arose from non-living matter and subsequently developed entirely by natural means.” 6 Darwinism and ‘Darwinism’ It is erroneous to associate evolution exclusively with Charles Darwin, although proclamations that “we live in the age of Charles Darwin” and comparisons of Darwin with Copernicus, Newton or Einstein are rife in the popularization of science as divulged by the media ...

... acquired characteristics cannot happen” (Michael Shermer 29 )? The ‘Darwinian’ camp, as usual, refers its opinions to their source in holy scripture, Darwin’s texts. Darwin wrote disparagingly about Lamarck as he did about his grandfather Erasmus Darwin, although the pioneering thought of both of them had provided essential elements of his hypothesis. The recluse of Down may not have been an unfair man... eclipsed by the aura enveloping Charles Darwin. When Lamarck is mentioned, it is mostly in “a systematically denigrating way, often ill-founded, not only by numerous biologists but also by historians of biology.” 1 This is without exaggeration one of the great injustices in the history of science. Lamarck’s vitally important work, which would make Darwin possible, is suppressed or misrepresented... common in his time.” (Pichot 26 ) Yet, who did propose an explanation of heredity was Charles Darwin! He had not the faintest scientific proof of how heredity worked, but his mind was as fecund as that of any biologist in fabricating explanations where they were needed but lacking. Darwin’s explanation of heredity was his theory of “pangenesis” and the “gemmules.” The cells in all parts of the ...

... reached the same conclusions. But also swimming in the same intellectual waters were Lamarck, Erasmus Darwin, Robert Chambers, Herbert Spencer, Thomas Huxley, and many others now less well remembered. The father of eugenics is generally considered to have been Francis Galton (1822-1911), a relative of Charles Darwin. He published a first sketch of his theory of “eugenics” in 1865 and a full elaboration... merely one of many planets revolving around the Sun. Darwin shows that Man is not a species apart from nature or above it, but, like all species, one among many of the branches of the tree of life. Darwin shows us that our self-image needs cutting down to size. Our species is unique, but uniqueness is ubiquitous in nature.” 4 Social Darwinism Simultaneously the opinion was abroad of the s... struggle for life and of natural selection,” writes Pichot, “Darwin has not only revolutionized biology and natural philosophy, he has also transformed political science. … The idea of applying Darwinism to the human society and politics has been immediate.” 9 This goes to show how sudden was the impact of the Darwinian revolution, and how Darwin had brought into the open ideas which were ripening in ...

... Jean-Baptiste de Lamarck and Alfred Wallace. All three of them, Lamarck, Wallace and Darwin, were exponents of their time, passionate students of their subject, and well-read in all texts available on it, among them the works of Linnaeus, Cuvier, Buffon, Erasmus Darwin and Chambers. Seen in this way, Darwin was much more a synthesizer and a symbol, leaning heavily on the theses of the geologist... strength again. ‘Darwinism’ is a cluster of theories, of which the original Darwinism is probably the least referred to. What is nowadays understood as Darwinism is generally some kind of neo-Darwinism, and depends on the inclinations of the proponent, whether geneticist, field biologist, anthropopaleontologist, or whatever. The sociobiology of Edward Wilson has radicalized neo-Darwinism into a moral,... routinely present Darwinism as the one and only scientific evolutionary theory, outlined by Charles Darwin in his Origin of Species . So does for instance David Attenborough in his BBC documentary on Charles Darwin, and so do most other popularizations of evolution. This is not only historically incorrect, it is also misleading as to the contents and significance of Darwinism, as it is of evolutionary ...

... dogmatic creationism and the scientific thesis of evolution; both standpoints, and several in between, were defended by estimable persons like Leibniz, Robinet, Erasmus Darwin and Cuvier. Till Lamarck published his theory of transformism (1800) and Darwin his theory of transmutationism (1859). Man was no longer the lord of creation. He was now occupying the middle rung of the Scale of Being, “midway from... Robert Shapiro in his much-appreciated Origins . 2 The origin of life is of course one of the most important problems – if not the most important one – in any theory of evolution. Charles Darwin, cautiously, left it untouched. But in the process of evolution there is also that other important problem: how can the mind act upon and through the matter of the brain? According to Larry Witham... and leave an absolute chasm between man and the Great Mind of the universe. Such a supposition seems to me in the highest degree improbable.” 7 While Alfred Wallace, as a naturalist another Darwin but also a great human being, saw the different levels of reality as “the last outcome of modern science,” scientific materialism judged this conception of his to be a fatal mistake and condemned him ...