Posted by
Jack Fisher on Sunday, July 05, 2009 6:34:31 PM
When discussing the debate over Charles Darwin's theory of evolution, many misguided moral crusaders will cry fowl by claiming schools and universities are not hearing out alternative views. The most common alternative view they push is creationism/intelligent design (they're really the same thing). But these religiously motivated theories had been disproven long ago because they could never hold up under peer review and could not explain anywhere near the phenomenon that evolution explained. Since it is drawn from the annuls of bronze age mythology, it can't be tested or verified. It can't even be taken seriously. Only evolution has been able to explain the vast biodiversity of life on Earth. That is why no alternative is taught. But that doesn't mean there weren't any.
One alternative that most religious zealots never even mention is the evolutionary theory of Jean Baptiste Lemarck. His theory, which is similar to Darwin's, hypothesized that individuals of a species could gain attributes in their lifetime that would favor their survivability and hence pass them to their offspring. He called this 'aquired characteristics.' For example, if a man worked as a blacksmith most of his life and developed big, strong arms then under Lemarck's theory he would pass the trait of big strong arms to his offspring.
History of Jean Baptiste Lemarck (1744-1829)
This theory, which came before Darwin, was tested by science and eventually disproven by Mendal genetics. Darwin later got it right when he hypothesized that populations evolved, but not individuals. Lemarck was discredited, which is part of why he is rarely mentioned in science today. But what also goes unnoticed is how his work would later influence the debate over evolution.
One of the major arguments anti-evolution crusaders often make is that evolution is a slippery slope. Teaching it leads to some kind of degradation of morality. Their favorite tactics is to associate it with the likes of Hitler and Stalin, claiming they were fervent evolutionary supporters. But nothing could be further from the truth.
Stalin, who used many cruel reasons to justify his slaughter, was NOT a supporter of evolution. He and many others in the communist party believed in Lemarck. Soviet psuedo-scientist Tromfim Lysenko denounced evolution and Mendelian genetics as a capitalist myth. Stalin took this and in his propaganda promoted Lemarck, believing that using acquired characteristics and the proper conditioning of individuals in their totalitarian state they could create a new race he called homo soviticus (the ideal communist). Those that actually pushed evolution or 'Darwinism' as they called it were sent to the gulags. These ideas were later adopted by another Lemarck supporter, Mao Zedong for the same reason. So those that say they were ardent Darwinists do not check their facts.
Lemarck and Communism
Lysenkoism and Stalinist Russia
Hitler was another tyrant who liked the appeal of Lemarck's work. It fell much more in line with his radical ideology on racial superiority. Many erroneously say he favored Social Darwinism (a perversion of real evolution anyhow), but his ideas of conditioning his people and exterminating undesireables is much more in line with Lemarck.
Hitler and Lemarck
Now just because these tyrants favored Lemarck does not mean Lemarck deserves to be associated with them. It just shows that those attempting to discredit Darwin and evolution are not checking their facts. Even if evolution were used as justification by madmen and despots, that wouldn't make it any less true. But it isn't and it's ridiculuous to assert otherwise by linking it to undesirable figures in history. Lemarck like creationism/intelligent design have both been disproven by science. That is why evolution is accepted.