The Origin of Varieties? - Part Two

Darwin laid down a superb basis for understanding "The Origin of Species", but it that's all it was, only a basis. All of his proofs described only the origin of variations, and in this his contribution to science was great.

Now it is very rare indeed when a scientist can do that, when a scientist publishes a new paper proving the existence of a new basis for many heretofore unrelated facts. But that's what Darwin did, and he did so brilliantly. It is also a tradition for a scientist, once having laid down the basis, to take a great leap of faith to see the next step, which he hopes is just over the horizon. And that's what Darwin did when he entitled his work, "The Origin of Species".

That title alone is the great leap of faith, for all of Darwin's work went to presenting and then proving, "The Origin of Varieties", but he didn't say that. The fact that living things vary is a very convincing idea because any ordinary man can see it happening right before his eyes. But to take the fact that variation occurs within a species, and then to use that as a springboard from which to suggest that such variation can create new species is a great leap of faith, but a leap to which Darwin was entitled. Since most scientists know the difference between facts and theories, the misinterpretation of Darwin's work didn't come from that quarter. The complications came when people who do not know the difference between fact and theory, mixed up the two, often for private and political motivations. Theories seldom stand for very long. Consider the history of science:

Like Darwin, many other great scientists in the past have created brilliant new ways to look at old facts, and then put forth brilliant theories based upon that new understanding of those old facts. But, as brilliant as they were, most new theories turn out to be wrong in the long run. History abounds with examples:

When it was believed that the Earth was the center of the solar system, and when findings of fact controverting this view began to appear, the greatest scientist of the day created one of the most brilliant feats of mathematics of all time, explaining away the controverting data, "proving" again that the earth was still the center of the solar system. That great mathematician was Ptolemy and it was left to Copernicus 1,400 years later to prove Ptolemy wrong.

Probably the greatest physicist of all time created a way to calculate the way objects move. His theory of mechanics did explain everything mankind could measure then. But as time passed, it was found out that his terrestrial mechanics just wouldn't work when applied to outer space. There the matter rested for 200 years, until another brilliant scientist created celestial mechanics, yet another theory, which filled in the gap and let science progress still further. The first scientist in this example was Isaac Newton, and the next scientist was Albert Einstein.

And so it will be with Darwin. His facts will always stand, but the great leap of faith he made by applying the origin of varieties to the origin of species, will certainly not stand. I say "certainly" because thousands of other scientists, in the 150 years since Darwin, have tried to discover proof of Darwin's leap of faith, and all have failed. In this sense, repeated failure is proof, although certainly a weak proof, that the opposite claim is true, that species do not vary.

Indeed, even Darwin himself hedged on this point. While not generally known, the full title of Darwin's main work, the work for which he is so famous, includes a hedge. His true and full title it this: "On The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or The Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life". So while Darwin boldly implies that species vary in the first part of his title, the last part of his title concerns only the survival of "races", and races, as we all know, are not species at all but are varieties.