Geology Reference
In-Depth Information
But what, beyond the obvious mechanics of cycling in his world machine,
made Hutton so singularly uninterested in narrative?
Many great arguments in the history of human thought have a kind of
relentless, intrinsic logic that grants them a universality transcending time or
subject. In such cases, we can, with due respect to differences of age and
culture, make comparisons that illuminate the generality of an argument by
its very congruence through such different circumstances. Mutton's primary
reason for denying history falls within an argument of this scope.
A quiet intellectual struggle has pervaded evolutionary biology ever since
Darwin developed the theory of natural selection—a tension between optimal
design and history. Some strict Darwinians have located the beauty of natural
selection in its ability to produce optimal forms as adaptations—and they
may wax lyrical about the aerodynamic perfection of a bird's wing, or the
ideal camouflage of a butterfly mimicking a dead leaf. Others have viewed
such pan- selectionism as a subtle perversion of the subject itself. Evolution
is the conviction that organisms developed their current forms by an extended
history of continual transformation, and that ties of genealogy bind all living
things into one nexus. Panselectionism is a denial of history, for perfection
covers the tracks of time. A perfect wing may have evolved to its current
state, but it may have been created just as we find it. We simply cannot tell, if
perfection be our only evidence. As Darwin himself understood so well, the
primary proofs of evolution are oddities and imperfections that must record
pathways of historical descent—the panda's thumb and the flamingo's smile
(Gould, 1983,1985) of my book titles (chosen to illustrate this paramount
principle of history).
This principle of imperfection is a general argument for history, not a tool of
evolutionary biologists alone. All historical scientists use it, as Burnet did in
likening a ruined earth to the destruction of Solomon's temple as comparable
evidence for history in non- optimal structures; as linguists must in detecting
history when current usage does not match etymology (consider the bucolic
basis of "broadcasting," sowing seed, or an "egregious" object as outside the
flock,
ex grege
).
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