Constructing, Deconstructing, and Reconstructing. On “Darwinism” and “Darwinisms,” with Some Disparate Considerations on the History of Science

Recent developments in evolutionary biology rekindled the debate on whether evolutionary theory needs a rethink. Has the path opened by Darwin been abandoned? Or is a new synthesis emerging? What does “Darwinism” mean today? A historian can only say that things were not much different in the past. Biology was pluralistic before and after Darwin. Darwinism was a multifaceted collective movement, and the term meant many things to many people, including Darwin’s supporters. This is demonstrated by an overview of the different interpretations of the concepts of “struggle for existence” and “natural selection,” particularly by a discussion of the American psychologist James Mark Baldwin’s attempt to bring order into a proliferation of struggles and selections and, at the same time, to embrace them, as far as possible, under one label. A linear reconstruction of the events which led to the so-called Modern Synthesis can no longer be accepted, despite the fact that it has inspired fascinating narratives, first and foremost that of Ernst Mayr. The history of evolutionary biology, and of science in general, is only linear in retrospect, from the point of view of those who have an axe to grind, or of scientists-historians who adopt self-serving strategies in order to prove that they are on the right side of science and history. The commitment to concrete research makes many scientists indifferent to history and somewhat refractory to a genuine historical sense. There seems to be a profound difference between the “two cultures,” both of which are necessary: the scientific, present-oriented one, and the historical-humanistic one, which shows how the past conditions the present. Extended outside the realm of scientific research, however, “presentism” can be dangerous. Only a realistic picture of the history of science can help combat that ever-renewing enemy: anti-science.