The Intellectual Standing of Charles Darwin, and the Legacy of the "Scottish Enlightenment" in Biological Thought

Abstract

Charles Darwin is universally associated with promoting the concept of organic evolution, but there have been persistent currents of denigration and misunderstanding that began with his own contemporaries and continue to the present, prominently represented today in paleontology and especially in biological anthropology where he has been described as a dull, timid, and mindless collector of trivia - "blotting paper, soaking up life's ink." On the other hand, qualified analysts of literary style, philosophy, and the history of science have concluded, after careful analysis of his writings, that Darwin's contributions were of the highest caliber in each of the realms in question. His work was carried out with a full understanding of the highest standards of the thought and documentation of his intellectual predecessors and contemporaries. The significant roots of his orientation are to be found in the outlook of the Scottish Enlightenment. Just as the physical sciences represent a continuation at the professional level of "Scottish Realism," Charles Darwin should be seen as the means by which that orientation was projected into what has become the biological sciences. © 1997 Wiley-Liss, Inc.