-----[quoting Berlinski's first two paragraphs]-------
CHARLES DARWIN presented On the Origin of Species to a disbelieving
world
in 1859 - three years after Clerk Maxwell had published "On Faraday's
Lines of Force," the first of his papers on the electromagnetic field.
Maxwell's theory has by a process of absorption become part of quantum
field theory, and so a part of the great canonical structure created
by mathematical physics.
By contrast, the final triumph of Darwinian theory, although vividly
imagined by biologists, remains, along with world peace and Esperanto,
on the eschatological horizon of contemporary thought.
------------------------------------------------------
This opening, comparing Darwin's theory with the mathematical physics
of Maxwell, exemplifies the defect of Berlinski's essay, and all
similar efforts. Darwinism has an aspect of world-view; it is an
expression of faith in, and desire for, naturalistic explanation of
all the complex wonders of life. Darwinism as mere theorem and
technology
is a straw man, which Berlinski attacks with the traditional ammunition.
It's not completely true that Darwin "presented ... to a disbelieving
world"
Darwin was reluctant to publish, and only did so at the behest of the
only audience he cared about, the scientists who already had a profound
anti-clerical bias, who were thirsting for something like the theory
of natural selection.
The reference to Maxwell reminds me of my surprise upon finding
that he co-authored a paper on magnetism with Fleeming Jenkin, whose
criticism of Darwin (based on the then current blending model of
inheritance) was much respected. The popular histories of Darwinism
which I had read merely referred to Jenkin as 'an engineer'. I had
rather liked the notion of an amateur upstart causing such a stir;
but to co-author with Maxwell, he must have been in the highest
circles of that brilliant milieu.
-- Cliff LundbergSan Franciscocliff@noevalley.com