Darwinian Debates

The Darwinian debates are useful not only for their effect on science but also for their far reaching effect on society. The debates tie everything that we learned about the Victorian era together. First, the Darwinian debate engaged all sections of literate society instead of an esoteric group of people. By reaching all of literate society, the debate was widened and applied to many different things, so much so that the term “Darwinian” or “Darwinists” became associated with many different things had had little or no relation to Darwin’s actual arguments. Also in reaching an entire swath of society, the book was spread across the world, creating a global as well as domestic debates about the meanings and consequences of evolution through natural selection. How many editions of the Origin of Species were sold when the book first came out? How many evolutionary-minded clubs or organizations were founded after the work was published? Were the lower, semi-literate or illiterate classes aware of Darwin’s theories?

With the societal debates came accelerated secularization. Evolution through natural selection provided a scientific explanation instead of relying on scripture and Biblical teaching for an explanation of the creation of the earth. Another element of the increased secularization was the realization that the earth is older than 5,000 years and so the teachings in the Bible were not historically accurate, although they were still useful for moral instruction. The Great Exhibition of 1850 had started a trend of venerating science as the way for explaining natural phenomenon and using reason and logic to solve problems. In about 100 years, the idea of religion had radically changed and the power and influence of the Church had noticeably declined going from an era of religiosity alien to today’s society to an increasingly modern view of religion’s place in everyday life. How many people became agnostic or atheists as a result of Darwin and Wallace’s work? Were there any churches that explicitly supported Darwin’s theories? Were new religious sects created advocating Darwin’s ideas?

Another equally interesting aspect of Victorian life the Darwin debates influenced was medicine and gender roles. Because Darwinism advocated ideas of struggle for survival, people began to think of creating a more perfect race and ideas of eugenics began appearing. Did these ideas influence Adolf Hitler when he began his work with eugenics to try and create a perfect Aryan race?