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'I would sooner die than give up': Huxley and Darwin's deep disagreement
- Source :
- History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences
- Publication Year :
- 2021
- Publisher :
- Springer Science and Business Media LLC, 2021.
-
Abstract
- Thomas Henry Huxley and Charles Darwin discovered in 1857 that they had a fundamental disagreement about biological classification. Darwin believed that the natural system should express genealogy while Huxley insisted that classification must stand on its own basis, independent of evolution. Darwin used human races as a model for his view. This private and long-forgotten dispute exposes important divisions within Victorian biology. Huxley, trained in physiology and anatomy, was a professional biologist while Darwin was a gentleman naturalist. Huxley agreed with John Stuart Mill's rejection of William Whewell's sympathy for Linnaeus. The naturalists William Sharp Macleay, Hugh Strickland, and George Waterhouse worked to distinguish two kinds of relationship, affinity and analogy. Darwin believed that his theory could explain the difference. Richard Owen introduced the distinction between homology and analogy to anatomists, but the word homology did not enter Darwin's vocabulary until 1848, when he used the morphological concept of archetype in his work on Cirripedia. Huxley dropped the word archetype when Richard Owen linked it to Plato's ideal forms, replacing it with common plan. When Darwin wrote in the Origin of Species that the word plan gives no explanation, he may have had Huxley in mind. Darwin's preposterous story in the Origin about a bear giving birth to a kangaroo, which he dropped in the second edition, was in fact aimed at Huxley.
- Subjects :
- 0106 biological sciences
History
History of taxonomy
Richard Owen
Analogy
050905 science studies
010603 evolutionary biology
01 natural sciences
History and Philosophy of Science
Arts and Humanities (miscellaneous)
Homology (anthropology)
Lagostomus
Biology
Archetype
History of science
Naturalism
Literature
Original Paper
Philosophy of science
William Whewell
business.industry
John Stuart Mill
05 social sciences
History of systematics
History, 19th Century
Biological Evolution
Dissent and Disputes
Homology
Philosophy of biology
Charles Darwin
Darwin (ADL)
Thomas Henry Huxley
0509 other social sciences
Hugh Strickland
business
Natural History
Subjects
Details
- ISSN :
- 17426316 and 03919714
- Volume :
- 43
- Database :
- OpenAIRE
- Journal :
- History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences
- Accession number :
- edsair.doi.dedup.....61ba43534afb4d3004511feebcaabfb6