Imposing Order Upon Complexity: Divergence Forward in Time (Origin, Chaps. 1–5, 8)

Abstract

With its twin focus on the mechanism of natural selection and the principle of divergence, Chapters 1–5 of the Origin of Species are often described as presenting the explanatory core of Darwin’s theory of evolution. Although Darwin might have pushed for this theoretical agenda, the critical reader willing to go beyond Darwin’s rhetoric encounters in them another dominant narrative. This alternative narrative sees life forms at low taxonomic levels as entangled in tight and complex reproductive networks from which it is difficult to break free considering, among other reasons, that nature does not favor inbreeding among forms that are too close and that life forms are dependent upon each other in multiple ways (symbiosis, coadaptation, predator-prey relationship, parasitism). An heir of the tradition of natural theology, Darwin’s intellectual toolkit was founded on such notions as contrivance (adaptation), interconnection (competition), and interdependence-symbiosis (harmony), which put him at a conceptual disadvantage when it came to reflecting upon the process-pattern of biological evolution. One gathers from Darwin’s exposition that life is less about neat irreversible divergent patterns propelled by a selective impetus than about complex genealogical strains and sub-breeds undergoing a perpetual fission-fusion process (reticulate evolution), a reality that blurs Darwin’s self-proclaimed proofs in favor of divergence. These contradictions bring to light the theory-laden character of Darwin’s account. In light of the solidarity of Chapter 8 of the Origin with Chapters 1–5, this former chapter will be included in our analysis here.