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The Concept of Evolution1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 February 2009

A.R. Manser
A.R. Manser
Affiliation:
University of Southampton.
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Extract

There appears to be a wide measure of agreement, both amongst biologists and others, that Darwin's theory of evolution marks a major breakthrough in the science of biology; Darwin has even been called ‘Biology's Newton’, the highest term of praise that could be bestowed on a scientist. A. G. N. Flew, considering the matter from a philosophical point of view, says: ‘Yet one of the most important of all scientific theories is that developed by Darwin in his Origin of Species. Covering the entire range of biological phenomena its scope is enormous. While if any scientific theory is interesting philosophically this one is.’ In spite of the testimony of both biologists and philosophers of science to the importance of the theory, it does not appear to play anything like the same role in biology as does Newton's theory in physics. For modern physics would be

Type
Articles
Information
Philosophy , Volume 40 , Issue 151 , January 1965 , pp. 18 - 34
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Institute of Philosophy 1965

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References

page 18 note 2 Penguin New Biology, no. 28, p. 25.Google Scholar

page 19 note 1 Smith, J. M., The Theory of Evolution, Pelican Books, 1958, p. 11.Google Scholar

page 19 note 2 I take this terminology from Kerkut, G., Implications of Evolution, Pergamon, 1960, p. 157.Google Scholar

page 21 note 1 op. cit, p. 370.Google Scholar

page 21 note 2 History of Biological Theories, p. 18.Google Scholar

page 22 note 1 Rensch, B., Evolution above the Species Level, Methuen 1959, pp. 62–3.Google Scholar

page 23 note 1 op. cit., p. 279.Google Scholar

page 24 note 1 One conclusion that could be drawn from this type of example would be that the course of evolution had been directed, not by an omniscient Deity, but rather by a demiurge of great power who occasionally had an original idea and who, whenever he did, made the most of it by applying it in all possible fields. Human technology and biological evolution both seem to progress in a series of ‘leaps’ with each new discovery diffusing rapidly.

page 25 note 1 Dobzhansky, T., Evolution, Genetics and Man, Science Editions, 1963, p. 104.Google Scholar

page 25 note 2 ibid, p. 105.

page 27 note 1 Mind, LXX, No. 277, p. 104. I should add that some biologists would find this remark eccentric.Google Scholar

page 27 note 2 ibid.

page 28 note 1 Implications of Evolution, p. 149.Google Scholar

page 28 note 2 cf. Grene, Marjorie, ‘The Faith of Darwinism’, Encounter, Nov. 1959, p. 54.Google Scholar

page 30 note 1 Selected Writings, ed. Buchler, , Routledge, 1956, p. 319.Google Scholar

page 30 note 2 ‘Degrees of Explanation’, BJPS, No. 6, 1955–6, p. 218.

page 31 note 1 Evolution, p. 569.Google Scholar

page 32 note 1 The Logic of Scientific Discovery, p. 87, no. 1.Google Scholar