Jim Secord - The revival of Darwinism

Jim Secord, Director of the Darwin Correspondence Project, University of Cambridge, explains how perception of Darwin has evolved.

About Jim Secord

"I’m the Director of the Darwin Correspondence Project in the University Library at Cambridge University.

My research is on public debates about science in the 18th and 19th centuries. I’ve written particularly about Victorian evolution and debates about the problem of species and where we come from. I’ve also written about the reception of evolutionary works before Darwin published his Origin of Species."

Key Points

• Although Darwin was an eminent scientist in his day, his ideas fell out of favour following his death. Their significance, however, was rediscovered throughout the 1920s and 1930s. • Darwin was not a Christian; however, he did not consider his theory of natural selection as opposed to the concept of God. • Darwin’s writings on religious issues were often thoughtful and nuanced. This ambiguity has led many to misinterpret him, especially concerning the common misconception of his atheism. • Darwin avidly engaged in correspondence with various scientists and thinkers from around the world. His numerous letters are particularly telling of his character.

Darwin was, of course, very famous for the Victorians. Yet, in the decades after his death, and particularly in the early 20th century, his reputation and the number of references to him begin to decline. There’s a big celebration, in fact, here at Christ’s College of the centennial of his birth in 1909. At that time, people talked about being at Darwin’s deathbed or Darwin somehow being irrelevant.

It was only in the late 1920s and 1930s that Darwin’s reputation begins to pick up. There are two reasons for this. One, the Victorians start to be revived and seen as significant figures. The other reason, however, is quite detailed. Darwin’s theory had undergone what many people called an eclipse in the life sciences, particularly in evolutionary biology. People thought that he had introduced a scientific way of thinking about evolution. Yet, they didn’t necessarily accept that natural selection was the right mechanism. Darwin became like Jean-Baptiste Lamarck and many authors of his time. He was simply seen as someone who helped put evolution on the map.

However, in the 1920s and 1930s, new work combined Mendelian genetics with a statistical view of populations of animals and other works in natural history and classification. All of these ideas were combined in a new view, which suggested that natural selection was, in fact, probably even more important than Darwin expected.