Survivals

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“The abundance, the solidity, and the splendor of the results already achieved by science are well fitted to inspire us with a cheerful confidence in the soundness of its methods. Here at last, after grasping about in the dark for countless ages, man has hit upon a clue to the labyrinth, a golden key that opens many locks in the treasury of nature. It is probably not too much to say that the hope of progress—moral and intellectual as well as material—in the future is bound up with the fortunes of science, and that every obstacle placed in the way of scientific discovery is a wrong to humanity.”

Those words were written in 1890 by Sir James George Frazer, one of the leading intellectuals of the time. Today, March 9, 2009, our current President, Barack Obama, found it necessary to remove obstacles placed in the way of scientific discovery by George W. Bush, his predecessor, obstacles that might well be described as “wrongs to humanity.” How can it be that this was allowed to happen?

By 1890 the theory of evolution was widely accepted by scientific and scholarly men of the late 19th century, men who had been almost universally religious in their orientation to the world. Sir Edward Tylor, a Quaker, not only accepted the theory of physical evolution but attempted to apply it to the evolution of culture, and especially religion, by 1903. Frazer himself attempted to trace the evolution of science from magic. Archbishop James Usher had worked out a biblical chronology in which the six-day creation of all things had taken place in 4004 B.C., and the flood had occurred in 2501 B.C. But the geologists of the time knew the earth had to be older than that. Sir Charles Lyell, the foremost authority on geology of his time, resisted stubbornly for as long as he could, but by 1863 abandoned his early view and accepted the view that the earth was thousands of times older than previously thought. Jacques Boucher de Perthes argued for years that early men must have been contemporaneous with extinct mammals, and that stone axes found in the earth were evidence for human antiquity. His views were viewed with derision and suspicion until finally, in 1854, on the basis of his carefully collected evidence, they were accepted by one of his most prominent rivals, Dr. Rigollot. By 1859 many other scientists, like Hugh Falconer and Joseph Prestwich, also accepted Boucher de Perthes claims.

Thus by the late 1800’s the idea of evolution was widely accepted by the major scholars of the time, all of whom were also considered religious. The Reverend Charles Kingsley, as I mentioned before, accepted Darwin very quickly, and saw that “it is just as noble a conception of Deity, to believe that He created primal forms capable of self development into all forms needful pro tempore and pro loco, as to believe that He required a fresh act of intervention to supply the lacunas which He Himself had made,” thinking that the former idea might be an even loftier thought than what had preceded it.

If this is so, and I assure you that it is so, how do we explain the persistence in some circles even today to believe in the 6000 year antiquity of the earth, and the rejection of evolution? This would seem to me to have been settled a long time ago, and, of course, for many, it is considered settled. But a large majority in the U.S. persists in rejecting it. These early evolutionary scholars had an explanation even for that. Perplexed by the seeming survival of older customs or practices in contemporary life, things that seemed out of place in their evolutionary scheme of things, they came up with the notion of “survivals.” Tylor, for example, wondered why people in Europe nailed horseshoes to their doors. He eventually learned that in European folklore iron doors kept away fairies and rendered them powerless. He related this in turn to earlier ideas about witchcraft. Tylor said of this:

“Among evidence aiding us to trace the course which the civilization of the world has actually followed is that great class of facts to denote of which I have found it convenient to introduce the term “survivals.” These are processes, customs, opinions, and so forth which have been carried on by force of habit into a new state of society different from that in which they had their original home, and they thus remain as proofs and examples of an older condition of culture out of which a newer has been evolved.”

Dare I suggest that in the 1800’s, when Americans were still settling the frontiers and perhaps not as cognizant of intellectual developments in England and the continent, they tended to maintain beliefs that were rapidly going out of style elsewhere in the world. This, coupled with the well-known anti-intellectualism of Americans has allowed these more “primitive” ideas to survive, and those who continue to believe them are themselves “survivals.” Perhaps not, but it is amusing at least to think about it.

LKBIQ:
In science it often happens that scientists say, 'You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken,' and then they would actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn't happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time someting like that happened in politics or religion.
Carl Sagan

TILT:
James M. Cain wanted to be a singer like his mother but was thwarted when she told him his voice was not good enough.