TRANSFORMISM

"After long succession of generations, the individuals, originally belonging to one species, become at length transformed into a new species distinct from the first." --Jean-Baptiste Lamarck

If you were a typical member of Western civilization two hundred years ago, you believed "in the Bible"--in the Biblical story of existence. The Bible was the authority on the subject of life on Earth. How did it all begin? Earth and everything in it were created by God-- an allpowerful and all-knowing being. How long did it take God to create the world? Six days. When did He create the world? Thousands of years ago. What were they like?-the animals and plants He created back then. Pretty much the same as those we're familiar with today. Only they were far more perfect. Were humans created perfect? Yes, humans were created perfect and given dominion over all other life forms. "Dominion"? Yes. God made Adam and Eve to be the caretakers of His earthly garden. Sad to say, they didn't hold the position long. Why not? Adam and Eve came under the evil influence of a serpent, a troublemaker who tempted them into becoming disobedient to God. What happened? Adam and Eve were cast out of their jobs and out of their home, the Garden of Eden. And ever since then, life has gone downhill. Downhill? Yes, indeed, since that time, life has degenerated. It has devolved. In the nineteenth century, the Biblical paradigm of existence, which had reigned supreme in Western civilization for over fifteen hundred years, lost its preeminence. It was replaced, gradually at first and then very rapidly, by a new "scientific" paradigm, a paradigm in which life is understood as evolving rather than devolving. What made the -1-

emergence of a new vision of the history of life on Earth inevitable was a discovery so important that many scientists still capitalize it .... the Fossil Record. The discovery of the Fossil Record began many centuries ago with the discovery of fossils--shells, teeth, bones and other remains buried in the ground. Some of these corresponded to parts of known, living organisms, but others were not at all familiar. They were "UBOs" ... unidentified buried objects. Leonardo da Vinci, the great fifteenth century artist and scientist, was the first to suggest the correct answer to the question "What are these UBOs? and how did they get here?" They are the remains of animals that had existed at one time, da Vinci said. These animals had become extinct. Prior to the late eighteenth century, those interested in fossils really didn't dig deep enough to come up with anything that would challenge the Biblical doctrine that life on Earth has been around for just a few thousand years. Any fossil philosophers who might dare to challenge the orthodox view were countered by the doctrine of catastrophism. Catastophism held that the planet is periodically destroyed by catastrophe. What are fossils? Merely the last bits and pieces of worlds destroyed by God. What is the significance of fossils? They are mute witnesses of the the terrible power of God. In 1785, English geologist James Hutton advanced a theory that seriously challenged catastrophism. Hutton demonstrated that the processes of erosion, sedimentation, disruption and uplift, occurring over long periods of time, could account for the the formation of fossil-bearing rock strata. The implication of this theory was breath-taking: If the layers upon layers of fossil-bearing rock are not the remains of catastrophes, then life has been around not for thousands of years (the Bible position), but for ... millions of years, maybe even longer. In 1830, the great British geologist Charles Lyell published Principles of Geology, which established uniformitarianism as the new orthodoxy in geology. Lyell was (by the way) a friend and mentor to Charles Darwin, author of a key text of the new paradigm-On the Origin of Species (1859). The Origin became the basis of modern biology and -2-

evolutionary theory. After 1830, the Biblical position on the history of life was no longer tenable. "Science" proved more convincing.

1832 was a big year in science, a year of beginnings and endings. In this year, Charles Darwin, in the midst of his second year as ship's naturalist aboard the H.M.S. Beagle, found himself with long periods of time in which to pursue his reading. Following a thorough immersion in Lyell's Principles of Geology, Darwin became a convert to the uniformitarian position; this conversion was a necessary step on the way to the point of view that the succession of life forms in Earth history could be ascribed to just "natural causes." Had the captain of the Beagle any idea of the eventual outcome of Darwin's work, it is very likely young Darwin would have been "lost at sea" in 1832. Darwin had been hired on to discover scientific proof of the truth of Genesis. Also, in 1832, the most eminent of the catastrophists suffered a major personal catastophe--death. Baron Georges Cuvier, founder of paleontology and comparative anatomy, passed away in 1832, leaving among his many papers a eulogy for a colleague that would alter the destiny of Western civilization--and not in a positive direction. More about this later in the chapter.... Baron Georges Cuvier (1769-1832). Cuvier is generally regarded as the most eminent French scientist of the early nineteenth century. He was also the chief catastrophist of his time. Indeed, during the Napoleonic period and after, the name Cuvier was practically synonymous with catastophism. Cuvier's position was that existing species have not evolved from earlier species; rather, all species were created "In the Beginning," and a great many were wiped out in subsequent catastrophes. Those species that exist now are the survivors. How far back was the creation? Baron Cuvier supplied the answer that was, for quite a while, the official scientific answer ... about six thousand years.

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In short, the situation in the opening decades of the nineteenth century was this: The Fossil Record--the key to a new, scientific understanding of the history of life on Earth-was practically the exclusive property of Baron Cuvier, an arch-conservative. Cuvier was a defender of the ancien regime, the Old Order of Church, Bible and King. It was thus inevitable that Cuvier interpret the Fossil Record as supporting the Biblical account of life on Earth. Much depended upon Cuvier's interpretation of the Fossil Record, namely the "establishment" of the time. The "Old World Order" was based on Judeo-Christian monotheism. There is but one God, saith the paradigm, and this God is the source of all power. Power flows from God the Sovereign to His earthly representatives, the Church and the State. Personal salvation lies in conforming to the Will of God, which is expressed in the Holy Bible. Official keeper and interpreter of the sacred will is the Church. Official secular representative of God is the King (or Queen), also called "Sovereign." As above, so below. One God above, one King below. The orthodox reading of the Bible gave us monarchy, not democracy. Cuvier jealously guarded his interpretation of the Fossil Record and his position as "the authority" on the Record. He was ready to pounce on any who might interpret the Record in other terms, in terms that would cast doubt on the reliability of the Bible story. Cuvier met his nemesis in the person of an older colleague--Jean-Baptiste de Monet de Lamarck (1744-1829). In his crusade against heretical tendencies in modern science, the Baron made it his special mission to attack and destroy Lamarck. These days everybody knows the name Darwin, and most regard Darwin as the father of evolution. That the name Lamarck is unfamiliar to most people today reflects the fact that Baron Cuvier was very successful in destroying Lamarck's reputation. Lamarck was probably the most important scientist on the planet in the early nineteenth century. Lamarck was the father of the science of biology. He was also founder of the modern science of evolution. -4-

In his History of Creation (1873), Ernst Haeckel writes, "To him [Lamarck] will always belong the immortal glory of having for the first time worked out the Theory of Descent, as an independent scientific theory of the first order, and as the philosophical foundation for the whole science of Biology." [1] Baron Cuvier was first to discover the Fossil Record, but it was Lamarck who was the first to read it accurately. From Cuvier's point of view, Lamarck's reading of the Record was highly subversive, as it suggested that the earthly representative of God was neither Church nor State, but "Nature." Lamarck established the science of evolution in 1809 with the publication of his Philosophie Zoologique. Today, even the most dyed-in-the-wool Darwinists acknowledge the priority of Lamarck. "Lamarck has a much better claim [than anyone else] to be designated 'the founder of evolution,'" writes Ernst Mayr. "All others before him had discussed evolution en passant [in passing] and incidentally to other subjects or else in poetical or metaphorical terms. He was the first author to devote an entire book to primarily the presentation of a theory of organic existence. He was the first to present an entire system of animals as a product of evolution." Lamarck's "claim" as founder of evolution was patented as soon as he penned the following: "After long succession of generations, the individuals, originally belonging to one species, become at length transformed into a new species distinct from this first." [2] The idea that existing species evolved from pre-existing species is the foundational premise of all modern evolutionary theory. Lamarck called his theory "Transformism." The main propositions in the theory, writes L.J. Jordanova, are that "organic forms develop[ed] gradually from each other and were not created at once in their present form" and that "the laws governing living things have produced increasingly complex forms over immense periods of time." [3] An underlying premise of Transformism--the premise that inflamed Cuvier against Lamarck-- is that God has conferred upon Nature the Creator power. Within just a few -5-

lines in the Discourse de l'an XI, writes Barthelemy-Madaule, Lamarck "appeals first to the first author and his infinite power; the prodigies of nature, which 'the sublime Author must have willed that she possess'; and finally the necessity of including in his 'biology' this 'natural power' that represents the Supreme Being...." [4] Another premise may be termed the holistic (or homeostatic) premise: Biological transformations are in the nature of things, and these require "an impulse derived from organisms themselves, leading them gradually from the simple to the complex through terrestrial vicissitudes." In Lamarck's system, transformism (evolution) is "the product of an ever unstable equilibrium between living forms. It is a network of interactions between organisms and their environment...." [5] In our own time, observations regarding the "network of interactions between organisms and environment" gave rise to the "Gaia hypothesis" of the British scientist James Lovelock: "Journeys into space did more than present the Earth in a new perspective. They also sent back information about its atmosphere and its surface which provided a new insight into the interactions between the living and the inorganic parts of the planet. From this has arisen the hypothesis, the model, in which the Earth's living matter, air, oceans, and land surfaces form a complex system which can be seen as a single organism and which has the capacity to keep our planet a fit place to live." [6] The Transformism of Lamarck, it may be observed, anticipates the holism of James Lovelock and other "New Biologists" more than it anticipates the biological materialism that we call Darwinism. Transformism was a "declaration of independence" of sorts, independence not from the "sublime Author," but from narrow definitions of God and His Word that supported the ancien regime --the rule of Monarch, Church and Nobility. In Lamarkian thought, the book written by the "sublime Author" is not the Bible, but Nature. The power of God is conferred not upon some select class or group of people, but upon Nature generally. It goes without saying, Baron Cuvier and other defenders of the ancien regime, the old -6-

paradigm, could be counted on to oppose the heresies of republicanism (as expressed in the American and French revolutionary movements) and any theory of a scientific nature that might support republicanism. Lamarck's Transformism was supportive of the main idea underlying republicanism--the idea that the true bible is the Book of Nature, the next best thing to God Himself. Those closest to Nature are closest to God--the common people.

In 1815, six years after publication of the original theory, Lamarck offered a revised version of Transformism in the first volume of Histoire Naturelle des Animaux Vertebres . Four "laws" are offered; the first two are of immediate interest to us. The first law maintains that as animals progress up the evolutionary scale, they express more complexity of form and greater size. (Within any group of animals, the ancestral type is always the smallest.) The second law, the "essence of real Lamarckism" in the view of Cannon, holds that new biological structures (and species) emerge in response to environmental demands. Biological organisms normally maintain themselves in a state of balance with the environment. This state of equilibrium is called "homeostasis." When the environment changes, organisms must accomodate the changes--or they will not survive. The requirement for accomodation is experienced by organisms as "need," according to Lamarck. Lamarck used the French word "besoin" to refer to such a need. In response to changes in the environment, animals express a besoin (need) to change. Transformism may be summarized briefly as follows: Species come from other species, and the mechanism of transformation (evolution) is biological re-structuring in response to environmental changes. Biological adjustment and re-structuring processes are (to use contemporary phrasing), triggered by environmental signals. What is it that gives some organisms greater adaptability than others? Greater ability to read the environment correctly (i.e., greater awareness) and to respond appropriately. [7] -7-

Lamarck died in 1829, and not long after, Baron Cuvier, the bastion of political correctness, wrote a "eulogy" that made a mockery of Lamarck and Transformism. At the time, Cuvier held high office in the French Academy--the equivalent of England's Royal Society. In this position, Cuvier became a kind of "reputation maker or breaker" by virtue of his frequent work as the eulogist of departed Academy members. Generally, Cuvier was fair and kindly in his eulogies, but in the writing of Lamarck's eulogy, he wrote with a poisoned pen. Cuvier's eulogy for Lamarck was so derogatory, the Academy refused to publish it. On November 26, 1832, the eulogy on Lamarck was presented to the Academy by one M. le Baron Silvestre. The most damaging remarks had to do with the term "besoin," which Cuvier intentionally misrepresented as meaning "wish." Animals evolve, according to Cuvier's version of Transformism, because they wish to evolve. "The seed of ridicule having been sown," writes Cannon, "Cuvier continues by giving examples of what he pretends are Lamarck's views. Acquatic birds, he said, acquired their webbed feet by dint of wishing to swim: from continually wishing to fly, the bird developed its wings and feathers: from continually going to the water's edge but wishing to avoid wetting the body, the long-legged bird appeared...." [8] Cuvier's poisoned eulogy destroyed Lamarck's reputability as scientist. So ridiculed was "Lamarckism," the great Philosophie Zoologique did not appear in an English edition until 1914. From the time of the eulogy to the present day, "Lamarckism" became in orthodox scientific circles a term of censure--a prime example of the "anthropomorphic heresy." Recently, Darwinist Richard Dawkins had this to say about Lamarckism: "Lamarckian types of theory are traditionally rejected-- and rightly so--because no good evidence for them has ever been found (not for want of energetic trying, in some cases by zealots prepared to fake evidence." What is Dawkins' definition of Lamarckism? "All -8-

evolutionary advancement follows this pattern.... The animal strives for something it needs." [9] More than a hundred and sixty years have passed since the death of Lamarck, and important members of the scientific establishment are still repeating the distortions of Cuvier. The greatest victim of Cuvier's attack on Lamarck was not Lamarck, but the science of evolution. The infamous eulogy contributed greatly to the establishment of anthropomorphism as a principal heresy in science. The concept of anthropomorphism-which refers to the projection of human characterists upon animals or deities--goes back to the ancient Greeks. As a a term of censure, it was used frequently against Christianity in the medieval period by Jewish and Islamic theologians. Where the Jewish are concerned, Mosaic law forbids visual representation of the Deity, and this forbiddance was likely that original basis of the idea that anthropomorphism is "heretical." In the nineteenth century, this heresy was adopted by science, under the name "anthropomorphic fallacy," as a criticism of religious thought generally and as a criticism of "subjective" scientific thought. Cuvier's attack on Lamarck, for his supposed anthropomorphic crimes (attributing to animals the ability to wish and then calling this ability the key to evolution), established anthropomorphism as one of the most grievous errors in science. Soon after the eulogy, the concept of anthropomorphism-as-grievous error was elaborated by the German materialist Ludwig Feurerbach and others. The demonstration by New Physics that the observor is inseparable from that which he or she observes rendered the "anthropmorphic fallacy" obsolete. Nevertheless, many scientists, even today, speak of "committing anthropomorphism" as if it was a deadly sin. In 1859, Darwin published his famous On the Origin of Species By Means Of Natural Selection. For the materialistic scientists, the theory was a dream come true, as it postulated a mechanism of evolution (Natural Selection) that was wholly external to organisms. It was not "wishful thinking" that was the means of evolution, but natural selective processes. -9-

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