"LYSENKO, VIEWS OF NATURE AND SOCIETY -
REDUCTIONIST BIOLOGY AS A KHRUSCHEVITE REVISIONIST WEAPON"
First published in pamphlet format in Toronto; September 1993. (pp. 19-65)
Continuing From INtroduction & Preface to :

PART I. A (VERY) SHORT HISTORY OF GENETIC THEORY [Part 1 in web-edition]

INTRODUCTION :
THE CENTRAL DOGMA

Most parts of orthodox Twentieth Century Western genetics emphasise a resistance to dramatic changes. Accordingly a fundamental hypothesis is enshrined, that genes can translate information in one direction only, from the genome into the external phenotype, or appearance. The dogma goes on to state, that genetic information can never be channelled from the life experience of the organism into the genotype, (or gene bank, or genome) of the organism.
In biological parlance :

This unidirectional theory, was initially formulated by August Weissmann in the 19 th century; but became accepted by most later conventional geneticists. It has a long history both backwards in time, to the Preformationists, and forward to today, to the extreme reductionists.

The continuity backwards is clear, because of the view then possible that the nucleus is essentially uncahged through hsirtory. What has been shall be for ever more. Weismann's chasitity belt around the nucleus, fends off the unstable, vulnerable and flexible cytoplasm. This "comfortable, stable and serene" view of life has a history that long antedates Weismann.

To show this, Figure 1 shows the view of heredity put forward by the Pre-Formationists in the 18th Century. This was first printed in the year - and shows that the mother incubates a child in the ovary, whose child also contains an exatly alike child, and so on ad nauseum. This view of history has passed into Russian folk legend as the Russian Babushka Dolls!

It received a molecular updating in 1957. Francis Crick, one of the co-discoverers of the importance of the genetic molecule DNA, called this hypothesis, the "Central Dogma" which :

So for the 20th Century, molecular biology has updated August Weissmann's belief, that only the germ cell layer (and not the cytoplasm) contributed to heredity.

Figure 2, shows a mechanism that expressed in molecular genetic terms, ensures Weismann's view of continuity without change. In fact, the illustration is taken from Helena Cronin's book "The Ant and the Peacock". This illustration is chosen, for it shows a remarkable continuity forward from Weismann's time, and a signficant extension even beyond the Watson and Crick view.

Helena Cronin is a representative of the most determined modern day bio-reductionists. Here the molecular updating of Weismann's position, is now taken even further. In this second stage updating, the so called "Extended Phenotype" touches every facet of behaviour. Thus the diagram shows that the bower bird's nest is part and parcel of the gene actions. This may or not be true, and could be debated there. But, the bald view taken, leaves precious little room for learning. Even more disturbing is the extension (implicit and explicit) to the Empire State Building and human society made by Cronin.

Molecular biologists themselves confirm their close relationship to Weismannism. Jaques Monod says:

Evolution is the counterpart of genetics, and therefore genetic theory has to be interwoven in a dyad, with theories of evolution. To fit any unifying biological theory, hypotheses have to carry over from one to the other member of the dyad. To perform this trick, modern molecular Weismannist dogma,was married with two other features thereby creating the so called New Synthesis of modern Neo-Darwinism.

Namely the Central Dogma was wedded to two other components : Natural selection (this notion has come to represent that Darwinism that emphasises imperceptibly slow evolution) and Mendelism which enshrines the impossibility of "blending inheritance". The marriage thereby leaves gene effects never to be changed. For the New Synthetists, such as Ernst Mayr this results in a neat picture :

Unfortunately for the proponents of the new synthesis, all the key facets of the unifying theory are under attack. For the molecular Central Dogma, three essential inconvenient facts have come to light.

The first attacks the root of the Central Dogma ie. that genetic message, or information cannot go from RNA to DNA. This was shown by Temin, and is forms one theory on how viruses can cause cancer. It also forms the practical basis of much current genetic research, since an essential lab technique depends upon going from RNA to DNA. It is not yet clear whether protein can go directly to RNA, but the discovery of Prion caused diseases is suggestive.

The second inconvenient fact records that much of the DNA in a cell is entirely "useless". That is to say, that it seems not to have any role in transcribing information into protein. The term "Junk DNA" has been coined for this. If it has no biological role for information processing, why is it there, and how can it be so critical for cellular function?

Interestingly, this fact has been revealingly subverted by the most crude of modern reductionists, Dawkins. It was Dawkins who coined such terms as "The Selfish genes," and "The Extended Phenotype". For his school, the organism only exists in order to provide a vehicle for replication of "selfish DNA" (see R.Dawkins. The Extended Phenotype. Oxford, 1990. p.156).

The third inconvenient fact is the phenomenon of "non-nuclear inheritance". Not only does this challenge the Central Dogma, but it also threatens the absolutism of Mendelian genetics. For the strict Mendelists, the clear demonstration of non-nuclear inheritance by chloroplasts and mitochondria
threaten the monopoly of the single genes upon inheritance. Though non-nuclear inheritance has been long denied by classical geneticists, clear examples force even diehards to modify considerably their theories :

The other component part of the New Synthesis, the "gradual actions of the God of Natural Selection", is no better off. The gradualness of evolutionary change is now challenged by new evidence which suggests a much more rapid, or "Saltationary Change" in evolutionary time scales. Fortunately for its credibility, this alternative view was formulated by leading evolutionists. For instance, S.J.Gould states on the evolutionary aspects of the New Synthesis : It behoves the students of the politics of science, and those interested in the history of evolution and genetics to ask : "How did the edifice of The Central Dogma, and the New Synthesis get and remain so high today?" Our cursory historical skip in part 1 below, examines the development of biological thought in an attempt to answer this still pertinent question. We will try and skip through to the 20 th century as fast as we can, but some preliminary steps are required.

EARLY GREEK SCIENCE AND THEORIES OF BIOLOGY

In common with other histories, we start with the Greeks. Their ideas were so influential for later Western intellectual thought that we can hardly do less. At the beginnings of science, cloudy theories based upon Gods were perhaps commoner than in the present day, as the base of "true facts" was so much smaller. In this climate, the most fantastic theories can be proclaimed that may even have a germ of truth, but remain fantastic by not being based on fact. A gruesome and bizarre precursor of the survival of the fittest theory is that of Empedocles (c 440 BC):

But the best Greek scientists rose above such abstract philosophising in their science. For the school of Hippocrates (ca 460-370 BC) for example, medical science was based on careful and exact observation. Though his writings may really be that of several individuals, they were collected in Alexandria under his name. His treatise on ancient Greek medicine countered the school of theory that proclaims : First theories, then fix the facts : Similarly because the Seasons acted as indicators for the farmer, works based on sound observations such as those of Hesiod (ca 8th Century BC), can be found. For instance, in "Works and Days" the farmer is given concrete instructions that ultimately derive from natural observations: It is however the name of Aristotle (384-322 BC) which carries the force of Greek science down to the modern times. It is likely that the Hippocratic traditions of the Asklepiadia, were known to Aristotle through his father, Nichomanus-a physician at the court of Philip of Macedonia.

Aristotle's work continued the Asklepiadian habits of careful dispassionate observation, which in turn inspired his student Theophrastus (c.370-285 BC) and Dioscorides, both of whom described plants and established a basis for pharmacy; and Pliny (23-79 AD) a Roman zoologist.

Aristotle lived some years after that of Hippocrates, and he reflected the apogee of Greek society, known as Hellenism. This is when "Science broke loose from the apron-strings of natural philosophy" (G.Thomson). In fact Aristotle was Plato's (ca 427-347 BC) pupil and Alexander The Great's tutor. In his most famous purely biological research, he dissected and described hundreds of animals. He was a :

By Aristotle's day, the early changes from primitive tribes and communism, through to the city states, were complete. The money-based state had come into being, thereby transforming the world from one of freemen to one with slavery. Plato had elaborated the class justification for inequality, based upon an unchanging rule of Men of Gold (see Introduction and Appendix).

Though perhaps it is irritating to spend much time on seemingly arcane details of Greek views, these views have been handed through the generations to us, in one disguised form or another. We will therefore spend a few pages on the substance of Aristotle's world view, and his debates with Plato and the Ancient Dialecticians. It helps also to understand later terminology, in the application of philosophy to biology.

As a pupil of Plato's for 20 years, Aristotle naturally understood his philosophy. Plato himself had a major contribution to later science, one that helped to straitjacket it into a rigid "Either-or" reductionism. This itself fostered a view of "Unchanging realities" or Idealgestallen. Thus :

In the Appendix, we trace the detailed growth of Plato's thought as the consequence of the development of a class society. It is usually not presented in this manner; rather it is usually stated in the form : Such bald statements of themselves, do carry some explanation, but surely, much less than by situating the person's thought in the time that the man lived. To situate Plato, and through him Idealism in history is the goal of the appendix essay, drawn unashamedly from Thomson.

Nonetheless, Plato was fond of Aristotle. But however fond, he apparently recognised that Aristotle was not an obedient pupil. In fact Plato called him:

To understand their relationship, we should briefly examine their views. On perhaps the two greatest philosophical questions then, where did Aristotle differ from Plato?
These questions, are Firstly : And Secondly, In conformity with his biological researches, Aristotle believed that the world truly existed. After all, why describe minutely and dissect animals that did not exist? But Plato does not agree, as we saw above in his view of Essences. The most important disagreement between Plato and Aristotle, was on Plato's theory of Ideas or forms. This of course sides Aristotle with those who believe that the real world exists independently of human thought. In fact, Aristotle never ascribed to the Platonist view that thought or the Mind was primary, and that matter was secondary. He never, in philosophical parlance became an Idealist, and fought Platonist thought by a myriad of examples: Aristotle was a great empirical Greek biologist and scientist, whose contributions included the first descriptions and taxonomies of note. But his influence on succeeding Centuries was vitiated by his interpreters, who re-worked him back towards Platonism. In particular this happened with Plotinius (AD 204-70), of the Roman empire, who was the founder of Neoplatonism. This had some reactionary effects of its own.

But Aristotle was not himself a wholly consistent anti-Platonist, and by this lack, he facilitated the later usurpation of his views.
His answer to the second Great Question, shows that he was not entirely consistent to nature and reality. He took a half way house between Plato, and the opponents of Plato. Aristotle believed that the world itself was eternal. He did allow that it entailed constant change for the animals and plants that inhabited it. But he left open, some room for a Prime Mover - God or Gods :

Even the change that he allowed was a compromised change. Thus he thought that there had to be something first before there could be change : Thus any change was a strictly limited "regular change" : If this view was held by Aristotle, he could not conceive of any evolutionary changes. For nothing can break out of such cyclic motions as these.
So ultimately he also like Plato believed in an unchanging eternity, one moreover that had been pushed by an external mover. These notions allowed him favour in the Middle Ages. Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) found that Aristotle's notions of change (ie. You had to have something in the first place for any subsequent change) precluded Creation, and therefore Aquinas modified this. But he could and did easily take over much of Aristotle's thought : So the major problem of the legacy of Aristotle, as it was transmitted by the Neo-Platonists, became that Aristotle at bottom was an Essentialist. As the NeoPlatonists spun their interpretations of Aristotelian thought, its' underlying belief became an unchanging world, with the reactionary tendency of Essentialism. This philosophy can be defined as a belief in : For biology, all this had especial consequences, for as Mayr notes : Naturally Aristotle and Plato provoked an equal and opposite reaction to themselves. Their opponents were the Epicureans : This tension between Idealists who are fundamentally anti-change and reactionary, and Materialists who are fundamentally pro-change and progressive, has vitiated both biological and social thought down to the present.

In Appendix One, some further details of the origins of this Great Debate in Greece are examined. This debate reverberated through the intellectual battles of the following centuries in Western European thought. The Greek example is one of many, that shows how societal conditions affected philosophical thought at the inception of one particular class society. As Joseph Needham showed for Chinese philosophy, and Debriprasad Chattophadaya showed for Indian philosophy, these debates between materialists and idealists were not exclusive to Europe. On the contrary wherever society was developing surplus revenue enough to develop life beyond subsistence civilisation, some form of these debates seem to be inevitable.

So much for their philosophical stances. But what did these Giants think of heredity?

Perhaps the earliest codified, and non-religious notions of heredity emphasised a blending of the various parts of the body's potential. This is generally known as a theory of Blending Inheritance, and stood more or less unchallenged until the re-discovery of Mendel's work by Correns in 1900. In this belief, the famous physician Hippocrates (ca 460-377 BC) concurred and taught that :

Of course this view, by its very phrasing, ensured a dynamic and continuing interaction of environment with the body's potential. This is a very "material" belief. As such it linked Hippocrates in general with the Atomists, such as Democritus (the BC) and Epicurus (342-271 BC). These philosopher scientists believed that all the world had a material, or a firm and real existence.

Mayr traces the application of this idea to heredity, back to Anaxogoras; and Mayr comments that this idea carried much weight down the years :

In Greek theory however, the most codified notions of sex and fertilization of the Ancients were handed down to later centuries by Aristotle. Aristotle disputed with Hippocrates and the atomists their view of a particulate (ie. "material" and real) transmission of heredity. His view was that the eidos - or the male sperm, provided only the organizational impetus for the "passive" female material: It is very interesting that Aristotle here shows a kinship to later views that would separate the hereditary material from the end result. This antecedence was noted by Max Delbruck, a molecular scientist of the 20 th Century. Mayr approvingly notes this connection : But rightly, Mayr distinguishes it as being different on the grounds that one is an Ideal theory and one a species of Material theory : It should be clear that though Aristotle here appears as an anti-materialist, he was not a true and consistent
Idealist, but nor was he a consistent materialist, as outlined above.

Perhaps for biology directly, his greatest gift was that on top of his "empiricism" (his reliance on direct observation and what can be verified as fact) he also asked the question "Why?'. For him nature had to have a reason for its actions within nature and not external to it :

THE ARISTOTELIAN LEGACY TO ARABIC EUROPE
 
Following the Classical era, much European history following the fall of the Roman Empire is shrouded by the term the Dark Ages. This really indicates the destruction of the hellenic and Roman Empires. During the chaos there was a cultural and intellectual vacuum. Into this fitted various forms of Greek philosophy. As we saw, Aristotle had been bowlederzed by the Neo-Platonists. Actually, Aristotle was not held in high regard by Antiquity. The Arabs sweeping across the Mediterranean, "rescued" Aristotle : It was then the Arab conquest of the crumbling Hellene and then Byzantine Empires that resurrected Aristotle. The destruction of the Byzantine Empire and the Great Library at Alexandria had ensured that written materials of the past were rare. Amidst the continual wars for positioning of the tribes across Europe, the early nations of Europe were being formed. But during the societal instability, there was a torpid intellectual dormancy in Europe, only small centers of thought survived in the monasteries.

Through Arab civilizations which had carefully nurtured some science, and knew of the Aristotelian corpus, Europe rediscovered the Greek scientists. Greek science had been then principally transmitted in the form of a knowledge of the NeoPlatonic view of Aristotle's school. Thankfully however, for our knowledge of Aristotle, his chief legacy to science in the Middle Ages became his translated writing, via Arabic.

However, having just been rescued form the NeoPlatonists once, Aristotle fell once more into ideological hands. The reactionary tendencies of Aristotelian thought, of an unchanging eternity, were quite conducive to the Christian philosophers. Such philosophers like St.Thomas Aquinas appropriated the thoughts of Aristotle. In doing so they did indeed, further rescue Aristotle from the more naive layers of Neo-Platonism.

Fortunately, the Aristotelian tradition of careful observation was simultaneously resuscitated. Aquinas' friend, the Flemish Dominican William of Moerbeke translated the treatises on animals, and these influenced the climate, partly through Aquinas himself (Thomas Aquinas, A. Kenney, Oxford, 1980, p.13)

Primitive society's observations of crude nature, such as Hesiod's, attempted merely to anticipate potential cataclysms in the surrounding world. But the Greek systematic observations of Aristotle, were at a further stage of a more deliberate classification, one beyond a simple listing. Following Aristotle's rediscovery, initially men and (a few) women of science simply copied out sections of Aristotle and parroted him verbatim. One form of mimicry was new classifications. Ultimately this provided a platform for the further development of science in the Middle Ages. But due to the supremacy of the Church, this was bound to be a development that would be a Godly one.
 
A CLASSIFICATION OF NATURE IN PRAISE OF GOD
 
The earliest Medieval observers of flora were the

and they employed local artisans and draughtsman in their work. Their benefit and their reciprocal impact on art, can perhaps be seen in the work of Albrecht Durer, for one.
 
Since Christianity had become dominant in the Western world, the Medieval notions of differences in plants and animals ascribed these to the Original Creation. The systematic study of Nature became the study known as Natural Theology, revealing the book that was God's creation. St.Thomas Aquinas took over from Plato, the belief in a Created Perfect Reasoned World. His "Natural Theology" emphasised "rationally" the perfection of the world : In conformity with Christian teachings, the first great systematists of the 16th and 17th Centuries, classified plants mainly in order to confirm that each species was only created once. Moreover, all of the earthly species should fall into a natural, logical, hierarchical pattern, "culminating" in the pinnacle - Man as made in God's image. This of course would immediately set a dilemma for those who took the task of actually classifying real plants and animals. The theological theory was one thing, but how much did nature conform to this theory?
 
Perhaps the two foremost systematists of this period were John Ray (1628-1705) who lived and worked in England, and Carl von Linne Linnaeus (1707-78) who worked both in Holland and his native Sweden. On the surface these men were steadfast theologian biologists, but one's faith would be somewhat shaken by the facts. Both denied that the various half way plants between "creations", which formed the true species, could be considered as separate plants. Ray had started out his work, with the view of determining what constitutes a species. He concluded that : This working definition of species was a conceptual advance, one that holds today for many biologists. Ray took great care to distinguish between species and mere variations. In Ray's opinion, plants that vary only slightly from the standard normal pattern did not constitute a separate species, rather he considered them an accident due to : Linnaeus did not contradict Ray in his views as expressed in the title of one of his books : That is to say, that at least early on in his career, Linnaeus did not challenge these assumptions. In his influential Critica Botanica (1737) Linnaeus wrote : Indeed, both Ray and Linnaeus were so conscious of the skill of the gardener in being able to call forth variants, or "sports", that they expressly denied these were "true species". This denial served the purpose to uphold the externality of species, or the Almighty Authors' Creations. As Briggs and Walters comment : But both Ray and Linnaeus were interested enough in sports and the skills of the gardener, that they themselves attempted crosses. Indeed, Linnaeus may have made the first scientifically produced interspecific hybrid, between the Goatsbeard Tragopogon pratensis and T.porrifolius ( Ibid, p.16). Linnaeus had pondered upon sports and varieties so much by the later part of his life, that upon writing his great Species Plantarum (1753) he commented that "It was not infrequently" the case, that it was not easy to tell which were true species and which were false varieties. Thus : Startlingly and contrary to most accounts, Linnaeus was probably driven by the weight of evidence to consider evolution, an even greater challenge to Godly natural planning. Comment Briggs and Walters : But like Buffon, Lamarck, Lyell, Teilhard de Chardin and many others after him, Linnaeus never really shook off a theological underpinning for his views.
 
The impetus to probe into the nature of species continued. It was Joseph Gottlieb Kolreuter (1733-1806) who systematically undertook the earliest well recorded breeding experiments in plants. In total he performed more than 500 different hybridizations involving 138 species. (Mayr Ibid,p.643) In doing so he confirmed a general rule to do with speciation, that a simple biological union between two species did not of itself create a new third species.
 
Comte de Buffon had already described that species sterility was a generalizable phenomenon. In carefully describing his crosses, Kolreuter found that all F1 hybrids (ie the first generation of crosses between two parent stocks) were essentially alike and in character were intermediate between the parental species. This became known as Blending Heredity. However the F2 generation showed a great deal of variability, with throwbacks to the grandparental characters. But Kolreuter never fully described segregation of characters as Mendel did later, because: Kolreuter, and Carl Frederich von Gartner (1772-1850), influenced Gregor Mendel who had possessed Gartner's book. Numerous other breeders were active in many European countries over this period; including Charles Naudoin (1815-1899), Augustin Sageret (1763-1851) and Bonnier. The great tradition of the practical plant breeders now arose, who had entirely practical interests in the matter of breeding. Thomas Andrew Alexander Seton (1824) and John Goss (1820) were particularly active. They extended the work of inter-species breeders into inter-individual but intra-species crosses, thereby anticipating Mendel's work and : ESTABLISHING THE CELLULAR THEORY OF LIFE 

After the microscope became available through the development of optics, biology advanced rapidly. Probably, Dutch spectacle makers made the first microscopes. These allowed Robert Hooke to publish in 1665 some pioneering results. Over the next century various theories flowed out, describing the nature of body components. Hippocrates had described the body as being composed of "solids and liquids". But now that anatomical dissection could be pursued at a micro-level, this simplistic view was no longer tenable.
 
Haller, following Boerhaave, described the "solids" of the body as being really fibers. By the 1830's even better microscopes allowed the accurate descriptions of cells filled with a fluid called sarcode by Dujardin (1835) and protoplasm by Purkinje (1839) and von Mohl (1845). A cellular theory began to be possible, but protoplasm was still a vague vitalistic notion :

Cytoplasm was first introduced as a term by Kolliker and Robert Brown (1773-1858). Brown first considered the nucleus as being a critical part of the living cell. Though cells by now were described, a theoretical framework for their significance and biological role was lacking until the botanist M.J.Schleiden (1804-1881) and Theodor Schwann, a zoologist (1810-1882) propounded what later came to be known as the Schwann - Schleiden Cell Theory. Using the fruits of Zeiss' optics, they accumulated enough data to generalise a theory in 1838.

This was the "Free Cell Formation" theory, that postulated that the first step in cell formation was the formation of cell nucleus by crystallization from granular material within the cell contents. The nucleus would then form a cell around it. Of course this theory focused on the fundamental question, where does life come from ? By even posing the question it was clearly anti-theological. But its simplistic answers placed the authors in the realm of reductionist naive materialists. Though the theory itself was wrong, it focused scientific attention on the cell. Schwann insisted correctly that :

Schwann extended this observation from plants to the animal world. By 1878, Rudolf Virchow following this line of reasoning could launch an attack upon the uniqueness of man. This again challenged the theological view of nature : Relatively quickly the biological universality of cellular structure became appreciated and no longer aroused controversy. Then in 1852 R.Remak (1815-1865) went on to reject the free cell formation by demonstrating that in frog eggs, cells arose from cells. This seems in the 20 th Century only natural, but it was at that time a significant step forward. Virchow endorsed this finding saying : However controversy on this question continued, even down to Darwin himself who remained uncertain about the Free Cell Theory. It later even surfaced in the 20th Century in the controversy around Olga Lepishinkiaa (See Section III and IV later).
 
The above 19 th century views upon cellular development were of course linked to views on embryogenesis. Naturally, one of the basic questions in biology had always been the biological role of sex. In these considerations, the botanist Kolreuter (See above) in his crosses played an important role.
 
Kolreuter's major achievement was to show that there was an equal contribution of each parent to the progeny as shown by his F1 generation. This had major implications as the mystery of sex had long perplexed biologists. The ancient dilemma concerned whether the egg (the mother) or the sperm (the father), contributed more to the progeny. The Aristotelian view was that the male "eidos" supplied the form and the maternal substance was just the raw material. This question was restated during the Middle Ages and immediately after, in terms of Preformationism : Only a few scientists realised that both parents gave an essential contribution to the progeny : When Bonnet in 1740 had discovered parthogenesis in aphids (virgin birth without the participation of males), this seemed to be a confirmation of Aristotle. Several other examples were rapidly found, especially in the plant kingdom where Apomixis (uniparental reproduction) is widespread.

Initial speculations explained these observed phenomena, by invoking theories of fertilisation by pseudo-chemical "molecular" excitations. All these theories did not involve the penetration of an egg by sperm and were espoused by the Mechanical Reductionist schools of du Bois Reymond, Ludwig, Wilhelm His, and Schwann.
 
But the era of solid experimentation was only just beginning, and these concepts which were drawn from a residual Platonist-Aristotelian reasoning process alone, were soon to be challenged. So Kolreuter's data was very significant :

Finally N.Pringseim in 1856 actually observed fertilisation in the freshwater alga Oedigonium; and only then was the true role of the fusion of the male and the female gametes understood.
 
Now attention moved more rapidly to sub-compartments within the cell, especially the role of the Nucleus in cell behaviour. Microscopic technique had in the interval been further improved. The invention of the microtome (by Wilhelm His in 1866) and the discovery of the aniline dyes by the chemicals industry enabled a far greater definition of the cellular structure. The stage was set for investigation of the nuclear structures, the chromosomes.

But there were accompanying fundamental changes in society's vision of itself. To follow the inter-relation of genetic and biological science with society's opinions we should catch up with these changes.
 
THE STATE OF BIOLOGY AS CAPITALISTS CHANGED THE FEUDAL WORLD 

As John Ray and Linnaeus had both maintained, the prevalent view in science saw an unchanging eternity of species. But some heretics now promulgated other views. The change of the world from feudalism to capitalism forced a general revision of opinions, new world views steadily seized the world.
 
This seizure both resulted from, and further ensured that the old ecclesiastical monastic stranglehold was unable to solve the problems of the day. Nascent capitalists needed credits or usury in order to develop. This was outlawed by the Church. Capital forced the strictures against usury by the Church to give way. The Church's economic position; both in economic theory and in practical importance as the largest landowner in feudal society, was challenged. Of course, simultaneously so was the intellectual hegemony challenged. The insistence upon a profit by the rising capitalist class, was heralded by a less passive, more attentive view to nature and science. The violent changes in society allowed for a less tranquil view of the erst-while "unchanging eternity" view of nature.
 
During this ferment, the old philosophy was cautiously thrown overboard. But in the first stages, care had to be exercised. After all it was not so long ago that Galileo Galilei (1565-1642) had been excommunicated for this studies into motion. In this interregnum, to perform science required cunning!

For Rene Descartes (1596-1650) the bodies of humans were reduced to machines that were governed by mathematical laws. However he carefully allowed the Church the luxury of the Mind. He wanted the Body free for his mathematical laws, and the clergy could allow him that when he let them have the
Mind! His half way house was called Dualism, because it is precisely that. It allowed the mind a spiritual existence that is somehow divorced from the real world laws of mechanics that rule the body. But, these ideas at least allowed some thoughts on bodily processes the light of day.
 
It was the mechanical materialist reductionist schools who took the final steps, that led away from the middle ground of Descartes. They demanded the Mind as well as the Body for science! They set up a clear distinction between Idealism and Materialism. Eager to open the organism's processes to science, they lapsed into a over-simplistic reductionism. Even the differences of the living from the dead, were ignored. The qualitative difference in chemical processes between living and dead organisms was not easily explicable. But to deny the primacy of chemical and physical processes in the body automatically opened the door to mystical ideas about The Vital Spirit. With no adequate explanations for the infinite complexity of chemical processes within living bodies, the Mechanical Materialists had to deny any difference in qualitative differences between living and dead.

This dilemma hatched problems for biologists in later years, right down to the 20 th Century. Despite the limitations of the Mechanical materialists, these ideas were belligerently anti-Ideal and they did push science forward.

Change was everywhere. In the General Spirit of the Enlightenment, Evolution was as Ernst Mayr puts it, "In the air" throughout the second half of the Eighteenth Century. Several philosophers and scientists are credited with moves towards an Evolutionary biological solution. These included Condorcet and Liebniz. They both put the view that there were few limits to Nature and that there was a continual change towards perfection and "progress".

But perhaps it was Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) who initiated some key speculations enabling a biological theory of evolution. For in fact, he first proposed that the world itself had evolved; in his "A General History of Nature and a Theory of The Heavens" :

Kant's introduction of Change into the notions of the Universe was a major step forward. Some of the first biological steps towards evolution were taken in post-revolutionary France. Georges, Comte de Buffon (1707-88), was a French zoologist who was the director of the Jardin du Roi in Paris. Though he ultimately rejected the notions of man's evolution from other primates and species, he considered several issues from the standpoint of whether or not evolution was a tenable theory. He therefore introduced into biological thought some profound questions.

But in one particular area his contribution was startling and fundamentally helped the movement towards an evolutionary theory:

Buffon made these calculations in light of the increasingly abundant evidence of fossils. The fossil evidence was not entirely new; Xenophanes (ca. 500 BC) had known of fossils. But over the years the view had been taken that they were simply crystalline like formations; or they were thought to be evidence of spontaneous generations. After it became accepted that they represented formerly living organisms, the Biblical view of history prevailed and they were interpreted as being relics of the Deluge and Noah's Flood. Despite many (including Leonardo da Vinci) who argued against this, the prevalent theological view held. But the discovery of extinct animals and stratigraphy made this view untenable : Despite Buffon's attack on the age of the earth, he rather surprisingly remained an anti-evolutionist. In spite of this he continued throughout his career to make major scientific contributions.
 
 LAMARCK AND HIS THEORY OF EVOLUTIONARY CHANGE

Buffon remained an anti-evolutionist. But he appointed to the Jardin du Roi a protege who made his mark as an evolutionist. He broke the biologic Static mould, but had a curious reception by fate for his ardour. This was Jean Baptiste Lamarck ( 1744-1829). It has been pointed out by Burkhardt R.W.Jr. that Lamarck's views were not unique. In the times he wrote there were other evolutionists like Geoffrey Saint-Hilaire in Paris itself (Preface to Zoological Philosophy, Lamarck. Chicago, 1984, p.xv).
 
Nonetheless, Lamarck's contribution was a long lasting one. Moreover for those who believed in some form of unorthodox evolutionary change (i.e. One not officially sanctioned by the Neo-Darwinians) it became the descriptive term of the abuse that was heaped upon them by Neo-Darwinians.

Lamarck was a soldier, who following injury was an invalid. He became scientifically known after Buffon sponsored the publication of Lamarck's "Flore Francais" in 1779, when he was elected to the Academie Royale des Sciences. Buffon's successor at the Jardin du Roi appointed him as "Botanist of the King and Keeper of the Herbaria". After the Revolution, in 1793, he was appointed to the lowly position of Professor of Insects and worms (a job no one else wanted) in the Museum d'Histoire Naturelle. Here he had the luxury of time for research into fossils and invertebrates.

He coined the term invertebrates and biology. It cannnot be entirely conicdental that his advances were amde during the era of the revoutionary changes sweeping France. He gave lectures to the students and these allow a tracing of his ideas. By 1800 Lamarck's lecture contained :

By 1809 Lamarck in his "Philosophie Zoologique" had attacked the belief that all species were of the same age, created at one time by God. It is thought that the crucial aspects of his thought developed in the late 1790's, under the impetus of the empirical study of fossil forms of the "lowly" molluscs: The Catastrophists believed that the only way in which the extinctions could be explained were as the result of the Biblical Noah's Flood. Paradoxically Georges Cuvier, the eminent scientist who himself had found so many fossils in the Paris limestone quarries, was just such a theological Catastrophist. As Lamarck's explanations of fossil extinctions were framed during the heyday of the Catastrophists, Lamarck asked the Catastrophists: Lamarck did not agree that there was a continuous graded chain of life species : As Mayr comments, this view was directly opposite from that of the Scala naturae of the Theist view of nature. In fact Lamarck was resolutely anti-theist in his biology : This view of change and adaptation led him to counter Special Godly Creation with Spontaneous Generation : Yet he did not have a crude opinion that large complex mammals like elephants could spontaneously arise, in opposition to those like Diderot and Maupertius. He restricted these spontaneous generations to the lowest species : There was still a "Prime mover". But according to Lamarck, Nature had all its' necessary powers, once they had been given to it,  initially by the "supreme author of all things." So that, thereafter Nature was able to drive herself. As this drive lay in the ability to become more complex, a Godly dispensation to change was unnecessary : Moreover, and most radically unique thus far, was the assertion that "Man was not exempt" from the sweep of nature : It is well known that Darwin hid his own views on these matters for fear of provoking the reactionaries. As Mayr says, in contrast to Darwin, Lamarck's own views were presented with "clarity, modernity, and courage."

But how did Lamarck see Nature effecting this change?

Here Lamarck gathered opprobrium from future biological scientists for generations. He recognised two separate causes for change, though he had no proof for either. He only had his previous knowledge and experience from the systematisation of nature that he had provided.

The First Cause of change was a belief that there was the steady increase in complexity of the organism :

But the Second cause, is what Lamarck is remembered and vituperated for.
This is the theory of  Inheritance By Acquired Characteristics. This allowed for Lamarck, the environment changes, responsible for not one single linear sequence of life (The Scalae nature) but a branched tree. The adaptations in nature are found : Here Mayr as the archetypical modern Darwinist, locates the difference between Lamarck and Darwin -
In the primary or otherwise of the environment : By what precise mechanism did Lamarckian evolution take place? Lamarck proposed two principal means. The first was the mechanism that he placed in his First Law. This was essentially the old idea that an organ is strengthened by use and weakened by disuse : As Mayr comments rather ruefully, Darwin retained elements of this belief of "Use and Disuse" in his evolutionary schema.

The second mechanism that Lamarck provided was the Inheritance of Acquired Characteristics. This was offered as a principle though it appears that he never formulated a real mechanism for it. This manner of theorising without data was of course a legacy from Aristotle. However, it is the description whereby Lamarckian thought is characterised nowadays. And in mitigation, many biological notions were provided before any mechanism could have been adduced, such as for instance in Weismann's case later on. Even more famously of course is darwin, who could provide no clear mechanism for heredity.

Of course in all the attacks upon Lamarck, there were bound to be some whereby outrageous false assertions were made. Mayr in fact, does defend Lamarck against two attacks that have been launched upon him throughout time.

The most scurrilous one was thrown at him by Georges Cuvier, in a so called eulogy after Lamarck's death. Here Cuvier castigated him as advocating the active volition on the part of the evolving organism, to achieve the desired goal. This illegitimate attack by Cuvier tainted Lamarck. It misled Darwin's views upon Lamarck, as shown by his comments upon :

The other misconception of Lamarck is a more subtle one and reflects the complexity of evolution. This is the issue of the induction of new characters by the environment. As Mayr says : DARWIN INCHES TOWARDS PROCLAIMING EVOLUTION
 
The story of Charles Darwin and the writing of the Origin of Species, is generally well known and does not need repetition. But some facets of the story on the political context of evolution are of interest in this essay. These facets relate to a definite bias in Darwin's social views, which accordingly were translated into his biology. Enshrined as Scientific views, the way was then open to re-importing these "Scientific Views" back to society, with all the authority that Science can muster.
 
Darwin was forced into publishing " Origins " by the threat of being beaten to the punch by Alfred Russell Wallace. Darwin's ideas had germinated in the famous voyage of the Beagle around the world, and particularly in the South Americas. He had been enabled to perform this trip by family connections and his class background, being employed in fact as a sort of Gentlemen accompanier to the Admiral of the ship. He took with him the books of Charles Lyell, a prominent geologist. Lyell followed Buffon, and showed data that proclaimed the earth had changed, had evolved, and had a history. Curiously he was a thorough Theist and believed that the earth's ageing reflected the patterns preordained by God.

Under Lyell's influence, Darwin saw the changing face of the world. In South America he experienced a cataclysmic earthquake, which revealed the powerful force of change on the rock strata and the relationship of sea to land. For Darwin, it confirmed the fact of change as a biological and geological force. He had amassed data, including fossils and geological data on this 5 year trip, and had returned to the British world of the academics in 1836. By the year 1844 he had already formulated his theory and sketched it out on paper. Yet it was only in 1859, that he blurted out to the world, (alongside Wallace) the Theory that would make him a renowned figure. Till then he had only published trip journals and a few interesting, but not earth shattering monographs.

We are forced to ask why?
The psychology of Darwin's delay in publishing has for some time been speculated upon. Perhaps the definitive biography of Darwin, is that by Desmond and Moore. This work is quite clear on the reasons for the delay. They do not doubt Darwin's class view, as a firm supporter of the Church And State, as being the fundamental reason for his holding back. Darwin was a priviliged country gent who had achieved fame by patronage. He would not easily give this up:

By the time Alfred Russell Wallace had written to Charles Lyell, Darwin's geological mentor; that he proposed to write about the descent of species, the world was twenty years on from the Beagle's voyage. By now the work of the preceding evolutionists had been done. In addition, the bourgeois world needed a justification for change. The world was ready now to accept Darwinism. ON NATURAL SELECTION
 
Darwin and Wallace had successfully convinced the world of science, not without a struggle it is true; that there had been change of species through time. Furthermore that this was not limited to "lower species" but included man, and that this process was independent of God. And alongside this, that there was no pre-existing plan or map that was bound to culminate in Humanity.

But others had previously thought of evolution. In fact in the historical sketch to "Origin of Species", Darwin acknowledges his many predecessors. But Darwin and Wallace also provided a mechanism that could effect evolution. Moreover it made a great deal of sense to those who had watched Nature. This mechanism was Natural Selection.
Even this was not totally novel.

Darwin himself pointed out that others had reached the notion of natural selection before himself or Wallace :

Since there is still much argument about how Natural Selection works, especially at what level it works (groups of organisms, single organisms or DNA) a working definition of it may seem impossible.

But Darwin gives us a working definition of natural Selection, in fact the one that started the whole debate :

He compared natural selection to the artificial selection of farmers, which of course was much more familiar to Society. In doing so he said that natural selection was no different in concept: Darwin then used several concrete examples to make the meaning and function of natural selection clear. The best to show may that of climatic change : The force of Natural selection had been much appreciated by Darwin on his voyages. But to those who had not seen the divergence of odd animals and plants he had, he emphasised its power. In using human forces of selection in agriculture as a persuasive weapon, Darwin added that Natural selection was an even more powerful instrument than the farmer's artificial selection : Darwin saw that not only was natural selection innovative in throwing up new species, but that it was also conservative in retaining proven useful elements. Actually Nature bore the stamp of "Higher workmanship" because of its ability to retain, or conserve useful elements, though they appeared to be trivial : Whether the differences selected by Nature are always pertinent to survival perplexed some of Darwin's readers, even sophisticated biologists such as Nagaeli. This early criticism of Darwin, is one of those that continue to this day perplex evolutionists.

Attempts have been made to ascribe an answer using notions of linkage of genes, but this was of course beyond Darwin's capacity to address. Mendel's discovery of particulate bearers of heredity as yet unknown. This term has become a code in the literature for particles that appear to carry the messages of heredity. Also, because these are finite particles, they could separate. Of course these alter became termed genes. So because Darwin did not know about Mendel's experiments, he defended nature's tricks by stating that science simply did not understand enough about the system to be dogmatic. This observation applies today in many circumstances :

He went on to show that some apparently meaningless trivia in nature, (specifically the arrangement of the parts of the flower in orchids) were not by any means haphazard and meaningless. On close inspection they had very precise functions attached to them, related to insect fertilisation. These remarks were only possible on the basis of his pioneering and painstaking observations on the nature of the  "Contrivances by which orchids are fertilised".

Throughout his text, Darwin emphasises the slowness of change that is effected by Natural Selection. But by slow he emphasised that this by no means diminished its force :

Darwin deals with the various objections to natural selection that were raised even during his life time. Mivart raised some points that have continued to be problematic, or at least continued to be argued about since they were first raised. The one that follows is the problem of "incipient stages of useful structures". Darwin answers it by recourse to the giraffe : Another key objection seemed to Mivart to be the problem of mimicry : Darwin parries this thrust by invoking a chance variation followed by a razorous and murderous elimination of unhelpful variants. This "two-step" dance, as it has been called, is described by Darwin as follows : Darwin underscores the importance of the second step of the dance by noting the low frequency of variations. Moreover, he notes that despite this "spontaneous variability", a good fit to the environment occurs. This he attributes to a selection, which is Natural as opposed to societal, which formed the greyhound :