[Marxism] Darwin and gradualism

[Ian Angus <ecosocialism@xxxxxxxxx>]

Mark wrote:

>More interestingly, Darwin was wrong in his Victorian assumptions about gradual
>and incremental change. Huxley argued this matter with him, as I think Wallace 
>did.
>Evolution (whether biological or in a historical sense) tends to be flashes of 
>lurching
>in a vast amounts of apparent inaction.

Mark, the problem with this argument is that the "Victorian
assumptions about gradual and incremental change" didn't exist. The
usual Victorian assumption was  god-ordained stability, not  gradual
change.

Pre-Darwin theories about the origin of new species consistently
rejected the idea that one species could gradually change into another
one: they believed that new species appeared suddenly. That was the
only logical conclusion they could adopt, given their belief "species"
were, im Stephen Jay Gould's words,"entities, not tendencies; things,
not arbitrary segments of a flux."

For example, Robert Chambers, whom you mention, believed that a
species remained constant until, as part of the Divine plan, the
females extended their gestation periods and gave birth to something
new. The old species was totally replaced by a new one, in one
generation. In France, Cuvier explained the changing character of
animals in the fossil record not by gradual and incremental change but
by multiple waves of extinction and creation.

When Huxley argued for a saltationist (sudden leaps) theory, he was
defending not a new radical idea but the old essentialist view of
species as things. Darwin's realization that species are populations
rather than entities, and that evolution results from long-term shifts
in the composition of populations rather than sudden changes to the
"species-entity" was so radical (and so materialist) that even some of
his closest collaborators couldn't get their minds around it.

Finally, your statement that "Evolution ... tends to be flashes of
lurching in a vast amounts of apparent inaction," should be preceded
by, "Some scientists believe that ...."

As Marxists, we may think the Gould-Eldridge theory of "punctuated
equilibrium" is "dialectical," but it is always dangerous to judge
science that way. (As Engels says somewhere, for many radicals
"historical materialism" serves as an excuse for not actually studying
history.)  Punctuated equilibrium may be correct, but it is still very
much a minority viewpoint among scientists. Note also that the "rapid"
changes envisioned by Gould and Eldridge took place over tens or
hundreds of thousands of years -- fast from a geological perspective,
but very gradual on a human time scale.

I will be speaking on "Marx, Engels and Darwin" at the ISO's Socialism
2009 conference in Chicago on June 18. I look forward to discussing
the subject with any Marxmailers who attend.

Ian Angus
Download "Marx, Engels and Darwin" at
<http://www.socialistvoice.ca/?page_id=223>

________________________________________________
YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message.
Send list submissions to: Marxism@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Set your options at: 
http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40archives.econ.utah.edu