EVOLUTIONISM The History Of An Idea From Naturalism To Neo-darwinism

The great English philosopher and mathematician, A. N. Whitehead, once stated, "A philosopher of imposing stature doesn't think in a vacuum. Even his most abstract ideas are, to some extent, conditioned by what is or what is not known in the time when he lives." Charles Darwin's idea of evolution by natural selection was no exception. The accepted tale of Darwin's voyage to discovery is that of an intrepid naturalist who used his great powers of scientific observation to deliver to the world nature's secret of speciation. However, a closer examination of naturalism, the intellectual movement that shaped Darwin's worldview, will lead us to a different conclusion. Naturalism, the idea that the material universe is all there ever was, all there is, and all there ever will be, is the only logical alternative to the theocentric universe proposed in the book of Genesis and other religious texts. Early Greek philosophers, Renaissance humanists, and Enlightenment philosophers proposed different forms of evolution as alternatives to a supernatural explanation of the existence and varieties of living things on earth. As the intellectual revolt against the Creation-Fall-Redemption ground-motive of Christianity gained strength in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, scientists were hard-pressed to explain the transmutation of species (evolution) apart from some supernatural elements. Naturalists used terms like "mind" or "force of will" as the mechanism of organic change that produced the bounty and variety observed in nature. By the time Charles Darwin set sail on the Beagle, he knew that supernatural interpretations to the study of both man and nature had become liabilities.Therefore, his observations of nature had to conform to the presuppositions of naturalism to be considered "scientific." Charles Darwin may have been only a footnote in the history evolution except for his invention of a theory that seemed to provide his contemporaries with whOsborn, Frederick C. is the author of 'EVOLUTIONISM The History Of An Idea From Naturalism To Neo-darwinism', published 2004 under ISBN 9781413448467 and ISBN 1413448461.