Dissecting 'Darwin'

Scientist portrayed as reluctant discoverer

Steve Ruskin, Special to the News

Friday, August 4, 2006

Charles Darwin's five-year voyage aboard the HMS Beagle (1831-1836) was only the beginning of the intellectual odyssey that led, in fits and starts, to the final appearance of his theory of evolution in Origin of Species in 1859.

This period of Darwin's life, from the day he stepped off the Beagle until the day he was buried in Westminster Abbey in 1882, is the subject of David Quammen's concise biography, The Reluctant Mr. Darwin.

After gathering specimens in South America, the Pacific (including, of course, the Galapagos Islands), Australia and elsewhere, Darwin possessed an unmatched collection of species and a firsthand knowledge of their geographic diversity. With these he had the building blocks for his theory of evolution.

The idea that one species might somehow become another species was called transmutation. For Darwin's contemporaries, transmutation was considered not only bad science, but also irreligious. Yet soon after returning from his voyage, Darwin became convinced that transmutation was exactly what had been occurring among the earth's species.

Quammen writes, "It's not possible to say exactly when Charles Darwin became an evolutionist. He didn't blurt out Eureka! in a letter, or a journal paper, or a fevered talk to one of the societies. Still, it's possible to approximate the timing of this intellectual conversion: March of 1837. Species changed, one into another. He knew it. He just didn't know how."

Rather than blazing a direct path to Origin of Species, Darwin took a 20-year detour. He wrote volumes on the Beagle voyage and its discoveries. He cataloged and distributed the thousands of specimens he had collected. He married, had children, managed lucrative investments and fought a mysterious recurring illness, all while working on the budding theory that he knew, if published, might make him a scientific and social outcast.

In 1844, just to test the waters, he produced a long essay and shared it with a few trusted colleagues. This was his first written description of his theory of evolution by natural selection. Out of fear, he never published it.

The essay was tucked into a desk drawer, and Darwin became involved in even more projects: He spent a whopping eight years, from 1846-1854, doing almost nothing but dissecting barnacles. As a result, his almost pathological reluctance to go public with his theory nearly cost him his place as its discoverer.

Had it not been for a letter he received in 1858 from a young, virtually unknown naturalist named Alfred Russel Wallace - who had independently come up with the theory of evolution by natural selection - Darwin may never have published his theory at all. But Wallace's letter struck him like a bolt from the blue. He knew he had been wrong to wait so long, and now here was this man, with an equivalent theory, innocently claiming credit for the discovery.

Darwin was crushed: Should he fight Wallace for priority in their discovery? Concede defeat? Fortunately, Darwin's scientific friends calmed him down and proposed a "joint discovery," but one that gave Darwin precedence. Their theories were presented together at a scientific meeting on July 1, 1858. Just over a year later, Darwin published his full theory in Origin of Species. It was an instant, though scandalous, best seller.

The Reluctant Mr. Darwin is a wonderful introduction to the events leading to Darwin's development of the theory of evolution. Those readers looking for an account of Darwin's years aboard the Beagle, or a more comprehensive narrative of Darwin's life, will have to look elsewhere - though they won't have to look far. There are many Darwin biographies, from Janet Browne's massive two-volume work titled Charles Darwin, to Adrian Desmond and James Moore's Darwin: The Life of a Tormented Evolutionist.

So what does Quammen add that others have not? First, he offers brevity, dealing largely with the events leading up to Darwin's development of his theory of natural selection.

Second, he writes of Darwin in a refreshing, journalistic style. No academic would write of Wallace's effect on Darwin: "Alfred Wallace had scared the bejesus out of him, he knew he'd delayed too many years, and now he felt desperately rushed to get his book into print." This is a book for a popular audience, and to that end it accomplishes its purpose well.

Finally, Quammen injects into the current evolution-creationism debate a portrait of Darwin the man, with all his faults and personal struggles. Quamman paints the shy, perennially ill, "reluctant" Darwin as simply human: neither the towering scientific demigod portrayed by certain evolutionists, nor the seething, godless demon vilified by many creationists.

Given Darwin's current status as a cultural lightning rod, it's an impressive feat to pull off in less than 200 pages.

Steve Ruskin has a doctoral degree in science and technology studies. He lives in Colorado Springs.