In this blog post, we will look at how evolutionary theory has developed since Darwin and what we have learned and gained from the long-standing debate between science and faith.
There were certainly people who argued for evolutionary theory before Darwin, and they did exist. But why do we recognize Darwin as the first proponent of the theory of evolution? This article will provide detailed information on the origin and development of the theory of evolution, the specific content of the theory, and comparisons with other theories. Before starting the article, I will explain the definition of the theory of evolution and the scope of the theory of evolution covered in this article. The theory of evolution has a narrow and a broad meaning. The theory of evolution in the narrow sense refers to the theory of biological evolution, and the theory of evolution in the broad sense refers to the academic field that studies the evolution of living organisms. The theory of evolution discussed in this article refers to the former.
In the mid-18th century, signs began to appear in France that heralded the emergence of a new science. With the spread of Newtonian mechanics, the concept of natural causal change was established, and changes occurred as if a huge blueprint was unfolding. Starting with Mopertu, who wrote a text containing the principle of natural selection, to Olav, who claimed that humans are the product of natural historical change, it can be seen that new ideas different from the creationism of the time began to emerge through the efforts of various scientists. However, they did not fully understand the blueprint of the new theory, the theory of evolution. Later, Lamarck was the first to systematically organize the theory of evolution and fully implement the blueprint of the theory. Lamarck argued that “all living things evolve towards more complex and complete forms,” and named this property “progressiveness” and made it the main cause of evolution. In addition, Lamarck proposed the direction of evolution as “use it or lose it,” which states that organs that are frequently used develop, while organs that are not used degenerate.
However, the person who actually completed and widely disseminated the theory of evolution from the blueprint was Charles Robert Darwin (C.R. Darwin), who established the theory of evolution. The Charles Darwin we commonly know is Charles Robert Darwin, the author of “On the Origin of Species,” and there is also his grandfather, E. Darwin, who is also an advocate of the theory of evolution, but all of the Darwins mentioned here refer to C.R. Darwin. Darwin denied Lamarck’s theory of the survival of the fittest and made natural selection based on variability, heredity, and the finite nature of resources the main cause of evolution. The main content is that the optimal individual will survive over time based on the principle of natural selection. Although Lamarck and Darwin argued about different things, they were the first to introduce the theory of evolution to the world.
Just as guns have been improved and developed in various forms, evolutionary theory has also continued to develop since Lamarck and Darwin. In this process, various theories have emerged. For example, Wagner and Gulick, who emphasized the importance of geographical isolation in speciation, Negelie and Aymer, who focused on the study of the direction of evolution, Various scientists have proposed various theories, including Kropilak, who proposed neo-Darwinism (neo-Lamarkism), which argued that evolution occurs as a result of the cumulative inheritance of traits acquired by organisms, Weissman, who proposed neo-Darwinism, which added a genetic concept to Darwin’s theory of evolution, and Mendel, who is famous for his pea experiment. In particular, Weismann’s speech on the reproductive system and the rediscovery of Mendelism in the 1900s had a great impact on genetics. Weismann stated that what is inherited across generations is reproductive quality, and that somatic quality is not inherited, providing a basis for denying Lamarck’s theory of the inheritance of acquired traits. Mendel’s theory of genetics made a great contribution to the development of the chromosomal theory based on a vast amount of experimental and statistical data.
In the 1930s, Dobzhansky’s book Genetics and the Origin of Species (1937) began an attempt to synthesize the theory of evolution. The main contents of the synthesis theory are to organize and expand the concepts of paleontology and biology, focusing on chromosomal theory, population genetics, and the concept of species, to deny the inheritance of acquired traits, and to explain the gradualness of the evolutionary process and mutations, and that the direction of evolution is determined by natural selection. This attempt has highlighted the essentiality of evolutionary explanations in biology and has become a new starting point for evolutionary research. Since the 1960s, the development of evolutionary theory has accelerated based on the advancement of microscopes and analytical techniques and research achievements, and this has led to various debates. For example, there were debates about whether evolution is regular and gradual or irregular and radical, and debates about whether the unit of natural selection is an individual, a population, or a gene. In particular, the debate over the unit of natural selection has been a key issue in the theory of evolution from the time when genes were not discovered to the time when they were discovered. Darwin argued for the theory of individual selection, Lorenz, Win Edwards, and Wilson argued for the theory of group selection, and Hamilton and Dawkins argued for the theory of genes, and this debate continues to this day among prominent scholars.
So far, I have briefly described the history of the theory of evolution and compared the various theories within the theory of evolution. However, while the debate between these theories is based on the premise that the theory of evolution is correct, there is a broader range of debate that takes place without such a premise. The debate with theories other than the theory of evolution, and in particular the debate with creationism, has continued from the beginning of the theory of evolution to the present day. Now, I will begin to explain this.
The theory of evolution started with a huge backlash, like other major scientific theories. Like the heliocentric theory that denied the geocentric theory, the theory of creationism denied the theory of evolution, saying that the claim that the ancestors of mankind are not Adam and Eve is blasphemous. Since religious justifications cannot deny scientifically proven facts, the geocentric theory was discarded even in religions such as Christianity, and Adam and Eve, who were accepted as the ancestors of mankind, were accepted only in a symbolic sense as it was proven that the Earth and mankind existed 6,000 years before they were born. Of course, the creationism has not disappeared even though some of its contents have been accepted, and it is still in a debate with the evolution theory. This is because the theory of evolution can explain “microevolution,” which refers to the development within a species, but cannot explain “macroevolution,” which refers to the differentiation of species from one another. Modern creationism is now going beyond mere religious claims and is putting forward some theories based on science, and it actually accepts microevolution. Therefore, the main difference between modern creationism and evolutionism is whether life was created in the first place and whether evolution occurs from species to species. There are various theories within creationism, and there are attempts to introduce the concept of creative evolution to combine the two, but since this is not related to the topic of evolution, it will be omitted here.
There is no perfect theory in the world. Even Newtonian mechanics, which seemed very suitable empirically and conventionally, has been shown to be incomplete by quantum mechanics and relativity, and quantum mechanics and relativity also have contradictions that are incompatible with each other, so it is believed that at least one or both of them must be wrong. Even mathematics that have been proven to be true forever still have unsolved problems in the unproven parts. However, just as a test score that is not 100 is not meaningless, even if the theory is not perfect, it clearly has a meaning. All theories continue to develop. Similarly, theories about the origin of life, including the theory of evolution, will continue to develop as they solve the remaining problems through rediscovery, the emergence of new theories, and discoveries due to scientific development. This will allow us to learn more about the past.
