1860 Oxford evolution debate

Discussion about evolution in Oxford, England November 2019 thumb|upright=1.35|The debate took place in the Oxford University Museum of Natural History. The 1860 Oxford evolution debate took place at the Oxford University Museum in Oxford, England, on 7 July 1860, seven months after the publication of Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species. Several prominent British scientists and philosophers participated, including Thomas Henry Huxley, Bishop Samuel Wilberforce, Benjamin Brodie, Joseph Dalton Hooker and Robert FitzRoy. The encounter is often known as the Huxley–Wilberforce debate or the Wilberforce–Huxley debate, although this description is somewhat misleading. It was not a formal debate between the two, but rather it was an animated discussion after the presentation of a paper by John William Draper of New York University, on the intellectual development of Europe with relation to Darwin's theory (one of a number of scientific papers presented during the week as part of the British Association's annual meeting).Oxford Chronicle, 7 July 1860. See also the recent essay by James C. Ungureanu, "A Yankee at Oxford: John William Draper at the British Association for the Advancement of Science at Oxford, 30 June 1860," Notes and Records: The Royal Society Journal for the History of Science, (2015). Although Huxley and Wilberforce were not the only participants in the discussion, they were reported to be the two dominant parties. The debate is best remembered today for a heated exchange in which Wilberforce supposedly asked Huxley whether it was through his grandfather or his grandmother that he claimed his descent from a monkey.Lucas J. R. John Lucas (philosopher) 1979 Wilberforce and Huxley: a legendary encounter The Historical Journal 22 2 313–330 10.1017/S0018246X00016848 11617072 19198585 http://users.ox.ac.uk/~jrlucas/legend.html 14 February 2008 10 April 2011 https://web.archive.org/web/20110410081122/http://users.ox.ac.uk/%7Ejrlucas/legend.html dead subscription Huxley is said to have replied that he would not be ashamed to have a monkey for his ancestor, but he would be ashamed to be connected with a man who used his great gifts to obscure the truth. However, what Huxley and Wilberforce actually said is uncertain,Frank A. J. L. James Science and Beliefs: From Natural Philosophy to Natural Selection Ashgate 2005 978-0-7546-3996-1 David M. Knight & Matthew D. Eddy 171–193 An 'open clash between science and the church'? Wilberforce, Huxley and Hooker on Darwin at the British Association, Oxford, 1960 and subsequent accounts were subject to distortionGalileo Goes to Jail and Other Myths about Science and Religion Harvard University Press 2009 9780674033276 Numbers Ronald 155 since no verbatim account of the debate exists. One eyewitness suggests that Wilberforce's question to Huxley may have been "whether, in the vast shaky state of the law of development, as laid down by Darwin, any one can be so enamoured of this so-called law, or hypothesis, as to go into jubilation for his great great grandfather having been an ape or a gorilla?",The Morning Chronicle, 9 July 1860. The writer of the letter calls himself "Harpocrates". whereas another suggests he may have said that "it was of little consequence to himself whether or not his grandfather might be called a monkey or not."Glasgow Herald, 4 July 1860. The writer of the letter is identified as "a well-known townsman" called "J.S." Background Reaction to Darwin's theory right|thumb|upright|Charles Darwin, whose theory was at the centre of the debate The idea of transmutation of species was seen as contrary to religious orthodoxy and a threat to the social order and thus was very controversial in the first half of the nineteenth century, although Radicals seeking to widen democracy and overturn the aristocratic hierarchy welcomed it.July 2023 The scientific community was wary in the absence of a proposed mechanism.Larson Edward J. Edward Larson Evolution:The Remarkable History of Scientific Theory Modern Library 2004 0-679-64288-9 https://archive.org/details/evolutionremarka00lars 5–24 The anonymous publication of Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation, supporting the idea of transmutation of species, in 1844 brought a storm of controversy but attracted wide readership and became a bestseller. At the British Association for the Advancement of Science meeting at Oxford in May 1847, the Bishop of Oxford Samuel Wilberforce used his Sunday sermon at St. Mary's Church on "the wrong way of doing science" to deliver a stinging attack obviously aimed at its author, Robert Chambers, in a church "crowded to suffocation" with archaeologists, geoscientists, astronomers, chemists, physicists, and biologists. The scientific establishment also remained skeptical, but the book had convinced a vast popular audience.Desmond Adrian Adrian Desmond Moore James James Moore (biographer) 1991 Darwin London Michael Joseph, Penguin Group 978-0-7181-3430-3 Chapter 34: "From the Womb of the Ape" Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species was published on 24 November 1859 to wide debate and controversy. Influential biologist Richard Owen wrote an anonymous negative review of the book in the Edinburgh ReviewOwen Richard Richard Owen Review of Darwin's Origin of Species Edinburgh Review 1860 3 April 1860 487–532 http://darwin-online.org.uk/content/frameset?itemID=A30&viewtype=text&pageseq=1 https://web.archive.org/web/20100806060548/http://darwin-online.org.uk/content/frameset?itemID=A30&viewtype=text&pageseq=1 6 August 2010 live. Published anonymously. and coached Wilberforce, who also wrote an anonymous 17,000-word review in the Quarterly Review.Wilberforce Samuel Samuel Wilberforce (Review of) On the Origin of Species Quarterly Review 1860 108 215 225–264 http://darwin-online.org.uk/content/frameset?itemID=A19&viewtype=text&pageseq=1 https://web.archive.org/web/20100806051419/http://darwin-online.org.uk/content/frameset?itemID=A19&viewtype=text&pageseq=1 6 August 2010 live. Published anonymously. Thomas Henry Huxley, one of the small group with whom Darwin had shared his theory before publication, emerged as the main public champion of evolution. He wrote a favourable review of "Origin" in The Times in December 1859,Huxley Thomas Henry Thomas Henry Huxley Collected essays: vol 2 Darwiniana 1–20 Macmillan 1893–94 London along with several other articles, and delivered a lecture at the Royal Institution in February 1860.Foster Michael Michael Foster (physiologist) Lankester E. Ray Ray Lankester The scientific memoirs of Thomas Henry Huxley. 4 vols and supplement 400 Macmillan 1898–1903 London 978-1-4326-4011-8 2007 The reaction of many orthodox churchmen was hostile, but their attention was diverted in February 1860 by a much greater furore over the publication of Essays and Reviews by seven liberal theologians. Amongst them, the Reverend Baden Powell had already praised evolutionary ideas, and in his essay he commended "Mr. Darwin's masterly volume" for substantiating "the grand principle of the self-evolving powers of nature".Powell Baden Essays and Reviews 1860 John W. Parker and Son London On the Study of the Evidences of Christianity 139 https://archive.org/details/a578549600unknuoft The controversy was at the centre of attention when the British Association for the Advancement of Science (often referred to then simply as "the BA") convened their annual meeting at the new Oxford University Museum of Natural History in June 1860. On Thursday 28 June, Charles Daubeny read a paper "On the final causes of the sexuality in plants, with particular reference to Mr. Darwin's work..." Owen and Huxley were both in attendance, and a debate erupted over Darwin's theory. Owen spoke of facts which would enable the public to "come to some conclusions ... of the truth of Mr. Darwin's theory" and repeated an anatomical argument which he had first presented in 1857, that "the brain of the gorilla was more different from that of man than from that of the lowest primate particularly because only man had a posterior lobe, a posterior horn, and a hippocampus minor." Huxley was convinced this was incorrect and had researched its errors. For the first time he spoke publicly on this point and "denied altogether that the difference between the brain of the gorilla and man was so great" in a "direct and unqualified contradiction" of Owen, citing previous studies as well as promising to provide detailed support for his position.Gross Charles G. 1993 Hippocampus minor and man's place in nature: a case study in the social construction of neuroanatomy Hippocampus 3 4 407–413 10.1002/hipo.450030403 8269033 15172043 Wilberforce agreed to address the meeting on Saturday morning, and there was expectation that he would repeat his success at scourging evolutionary ideas as at the 1847 meeting. Huxley was initially reluctant to engage Wilberforce in a public debate about evolution, but, in a chance encounter, Robert Chambers persuaded him not to desert the cause. The Reverend Baden Powell would have been on the platform, too, but he had died of a heart attack on 11 June.Baden Powell (1796-1860) https://plantmorphology.org/portfolio-item/baden-powell/ The Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University 26 July 2022 Debate The main protagonists, as caricatured in Vanity Fair horizontal 145 HuxleyVanityFair.jpg Huxley (1871) 147 Carlo Pelligrini-Samuel Wilberforce Not A Brawler.jpg Wilberforce (1869) Word spread that Bishop Samuel Wilberforce would speak against Darwin's theory at the meeting on Saturday 30 June 1860. Wilberforce was one of the greatest public speakers of his dayNatural History Museum. Samuel Wilberforce. Retrieved on 1 June 2011. but was known as "Soapy Sam" (from a comment by Benjamin Disraeli that the Bishop's manner was "unctuous, oleaginous, saponaceous"). According to Bryson, "more than a thousand people crowded into the chamber; hundreds more were turned away."Bryson Bill Bill Bryson A Short History of Nearly Everything 348–349 2003 Doubleday London 978-0-7679-0817-7 A Short History of Nearly Everything Darwin himself was too sick to attend.Thomson Keith Stewart http://www.americanscientist.org/issues/pub/2000/5/huxley-wilberforce-and-the-oxford-museum Huxley, Wilberforce and the Oxford Museum American Scientist 2000 88 3 210 10.1511/2000.3.210 13 February 2009 11 June 2011 https://web.archive.org/web/20110611202651/http://www.americanscientist.org/issues/pub/2000/5/huxley-wilberforce-and-the-oxford-museum dead subscription The discussion was chaired by John Stevens Henslow, Darwin's former mentor from Cambridge. It has been suggested that Owen arranged for Henslow to chair the discussion "hoping to make the expected defeat of Darwin the more complete". The main focus of the meeting was supposed to be a lecture by New York University's John William Draper, "On the Intellectual Development of Europe, considered with reference to the views of Mr. Darwin and others, that the progression of organisms is determined by law". By all accounts, Draper's presentation was long and boring. After Draper had finished, Henslow called on several other speakers, including Benjamin Brodie, the president of the Royal Society, before it was Wilberforce's turn. In a letter to his brother Edward, the ornithologist Alfred Newton wrote: In the Nat. Hist. Section we had another hot Darwinian debate ... After [lengthy preliminaries] Huxley was called upon by Henslow to state his views at greater length, and this brought up the Bp. of Oxford ... Referring to what Huxley had said two days before, about after all its not signifying to him whether he was descended from a Gorilla or not, the Bp. chafed him and asked whether he had a preference for the descent being on the father's side or the mother's side? This gave Huxley the opportunity of saying that he would sooner claim kindred with an Ape than with a man like the Bp. who made so ill a use of his wonderful speaking powers to try and burke, by a display of authority, a free discussion on what was, or was not, a matter of truth, and reminded him that on questions of physical science 'authority' had always been bowled out by investigation, as witness astronomy and geology. A lot of people afterwards spoke ... the feeling of the meeting was very much against the Bp.Wollaston, A. F. R. 1921 Life of Alfred Newton: late Professor of Comparative Anatomy, Cambridge University 1866–1907, with a Preface by Sir Archibald Geikie OM Dutton New York 118–120 According to Lucas, "Wilberforce, contrary to the central tenet of the legend, did not prejudge the issue", but Lucas is in a minority on this, as Jensen makes clear.Jensen, J. Vernon 1991 Thomas Henry Huxley: communicating for science Associated University Presses Cranbury, NJ 978-0-87413-379-0 "Debate" with Bishop Wilberforce, 1860 63–86 https://books.google.com/books?id=GINeLJUueCoC&pg=PA63 [This chapter is an excellent survey, and its notes gives references to all the eyewitness accounts except Newton. The great majority of these accounts do accord with the traditional version.] Wilberforce criticised Darwin's theory on ostensibly scientific grounds, arguing that it was not supported by the facts, and he noted that the greatest names in science were opposed to the theory. According to a letter written 30 years later to Francis Darwin, when Huxley heard this he whispered to Brodie, "The Lord hath delivered him into mine hands".Huxley Leonard 1900 The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley 1 Macmillan London 202 Huxley's own contemporary account, in a letter to Henry Dyster on September 9, 1860, makes no mention of this remark. Huxley rose to defend Darwin's theory, finishing his speech with the now-legendary assertion that he was not ashamed to have a monkey for his ancestor, but he would be ashamed to be connected with a man who used great gifts to obscure the truth. Later retellings indicate that this statement had a tremendous effect on the audience, and Lady Brewster is said to have fainted. Reliable accounts indicate that although Huxley did respond with the "monkey" retort, the remainder of his speech was unremarkable. Balfour Stewart, a prominent scientist and director of the Kew Observatory, wrote afterward that, "I think the Bishop had the best of it."Balfour Stewart, letter to David Forbes, 4 July 1860. Joseph Dalton Hooker, Darwin's friend and botanical mentor, noted in a letter to Darwin that Huxley had been largely inaudible in the hall: Well, Sam Oxon got up and spouted for half an hour with inimitable spirit, ugliness and emptiness and unfairness ... Huxley answered admirably and turned the tables, but he could not throw his voice over so large an assembly nor command the audience ... he did not allude to Sam's weak points nor put the matter in a form or way that carried the audience.http://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/entry-2852 Letter 2852 – Hooker, J. D. to Darwin, C. R., 2 July 1860 Darwin Correspondence Project 2010-06-22 Next, Henslow called upon Admiral Robert FitzRoy, who had been Darwin's captain and companion on the voyage of the Beagle twenty-five years earlier. FitzRoy denounced Darwin's book and, "lifting an immense Bible first with both hands and afterwards with one hand over his head, solemnly implored the audience to believe God rather than man". He was believed to have said: "I believe that this is the Truth, and had I known then what I know now, I would not have taken him [Darwin] aboard the Beagle."Green Vivian H. H. Vivian H. H. Green A New History of Christianity https://archive.org/details/newhistoryofchri00gree registration 1996 Continuum New York 978-0-8264-1227-0 231 The last speaker of the day was Hooker. According to his own account, it was he and not Huxley who delivered the most effective reply to Wilberforce's arguments: "Sam was shut up—had not one word to say in reply, and the meeting was dissolved forthwith".Huxley, Leonard, 1918. Life and Letters of Sir Joseph Dalton Hooker OM, GCSI. 2 vols, I pp. 522–525 (letter to Darwin, July 2nd 1860). Ruse claims that "everybody enjoyed himself immensely and all went cheerfully off to dinner together afterwards".Ruse Michael Michael Ruse Can a Darwinian be a Christian? The Relationship between Science and Religion 2001 Cambridge University Press Cambridge 978-0-521-63716-9 5 It is said that during the debate, two Cambridge dons happened to be standing near Wilberforce, one of whom was Henry Fawcett, the recently blinded economist. Fawcett was asked whether he thought the bishop had actually read the Origin of Species. "Oh no, I would swear he has never read a word of it", Fawcett reportedly replied loudly. Wilberforce swung round to him scowling, ready to recriminate, but stepped back and bit his tongue on noting that the protagonist was the blind economist.Browne Janet Browne Charles Darwin: The Power of Place 2003 Pimlico London 978-0712668378 126 Notably, all three major participants felt they had had the best of the debate. Wilberforce wrote that, "On Saturday Professor Henslow ... called on me by name to address the Section on Darwin's theory. So I could not escape and had quite a long fight with Huxley. I think I thoroughly beat him."Samuel Wilberforce, letter to Sir Charles Anderson, July 3, 1860. Huxley claimed "[I was] the most popular man in Oxford for a full four & twenty hours afterwards." Hooker wrote that "I have been congratulated and thanked by the blackest coats and whitest stocks in Oxford." Legacy thumb|upright|A stone pillar erected in 2010 outside the Oxford University Museum of Natural History to mark the 150th anniversary of the event Summary reports of the debate were published in The Manchester Guardian, The Athenaeum and Jackson's Oxford Journal. A more detailed report was published by the Oxford Chronicle.England Richard Censoring Huxley and Wilberforce: A new source for the meeting that the Athenaeum 'wisely softened down' Notes and Records 71 4 June 28, 2017 371–384 0035-9149 10.1098/rsnr.2016.0058 31390398 5906432 Both sides immediately claimed victory, but the majority opinion has always been that the debate represented a major victory for the Darwinians. Though the debate is frequently depicted as a clash between religion and science, the British Association at the time had a number of clergymen occupying high positions (including Presidents of two of its seven sections).Jackson's Oxford Journal, 23 June 1860. In his speech to open the annual event, the President of the Association (Lord Wrottesley) concluded his talk by saying "Let us ever apply ourselves to the task, feeling assured that the more we thus exercise, and by exercising improve our intellectual faculties, the more worthy shall we be, the better shall we be fitted to come nearer to our God."Jackson's Oxford Journal, 30 June 1860. Therefore, a case could be made for saying that for the many clerics in the audience, the underlying conflict was between traditional Anglicanism (Wilberforce) and liberal Anglicanism (Essays and Reviews). On the other hand, Oxford academic Dr Diane Purkiss says the debate "was really the first time Christianity had ever been asked to square off against science in a public forum in the whole of its history". The debate has been called "one of the great stories of the history of science"Brooke, John Hedley John Hedley Brooke 2001 http://www.st-edmunds.cam.ac.uk/cis/brooke/ Darwinism & Religion: a Revisionist View of the Wilberforce-Huxley Debate Lecture delivered at Emmanuel College, Cambridge on 26 February 2001 14 February 2008 dead https://web.archive.org/web/20081211074654/http://www.st-edmunds.cam.ac.uk/cis/brooke/ 11 December 2008 and it is often regarded as a key moment in the acceptance of evolution. However, at the time it received only a few passing references in newspapers,E.g., Liverpool Mercury, 5 July 1860. and Brooke argues that "the event almost completely disappeared from public awareness until it was resurrected in the 1890s as an appropriate tribute to a recently deceased hero of scientific education". The debate began a bitter three-year dispute between Owen and Huxley over human origins, satirised by Charles Kingsley as the "Great Hippocampus Question", which concluded with the defeat of Owen and his backers. The play Darwin in Malibu by Crispin Whittell, was inspired by the debate. A commemorative pillar marks the 150th anniversary of the debate.Flood Alison https://www.theguardian.com/books/2010/sep/10/plinth-huxley-wilberforce-evolution-debate Plinth commemorates Huxley-Wilberforce evolution debate The Guardian 10 September 2010 14 November 2012 See also Creation–evolution controversy William Henry Flower Thomas Henry Huxley Alfred Newton Scopes Trial References 30em Further reading Hesketh Ian Of Apes and Ancestors: Evolution, Christianity, and the Oxford Debate Toronto University of Toronto Press 2009 978-0-8020-9284-7 none Category:Christianity and evolution Oxford evolution debate Oxford evolution debate Oxford evolution debate Category:History of mental health in the United Kingdom Category:History of the University of Oxford Category:19th century in Oxfordshire Category:Charles Darwin Category:June 1860 in the United Kingdom Category:1860 in education Category:British Science Association