Returning now to Mendel: had his experiments been understood and disseminated when he first presented them (as much as Darwin’s writings were, for Mendel had read them), they surely world have solidly buttressed evolutionary theory, and promoted the “modern synthesis” (Darwinian selection and Mendelian inheritance) much sooner, saving Darwin great anxiety, and Wallace from having to assert intelligent direction in human evolution. Mendel’s equally revolutionary paper (‘Experiments in Plant Hybridization’) would not be rediscovered until 1900, fittingly, by students of Darwin.
It is strong testament to the power of a cherished and long-established concept (as was the Scala Naturae) that naturalists, botanists and other learned men of Mendel’s day could not comprehend his unprecedented ideas on inheritance, and so, his work was assigned to the dusty library shelves of all works ahead of their time.
Returning now to my main theme: one can scarcely imagine today the world-shattering nature of these assertions, and especially, in Darwin’s case, coming from one who had intended to join the seminary after his return from the Galapagos! How many men of the cloth, having taken up the disciplined study of God’s creation, have provided the science by which to reject the need for God? Modern historical accounts tend to skip over, or give scant mention to, these first intellectual salvos against the majestic edifice of a Biblically based conception of the Natural Order.
It is akin perhaps to Giordano Bruno’s 15th Century declaration that the Earth was not the center of God’s cosmos, except that these 19th Century naturalists were not burned alive—only threatened with eternal hell-fire for their presumptuous arrogance. But these early pioneers of natural science and biology no doubt felt intensely the criticisms and excoriations of the more pious and powerful, as they, led by Darwin, dared to step outside their divinely assigned roles as mere describers of Nature, and into their Promethean roles as bringers of intellectual fire to civilization.
– Michael Ricciardi
Image credits: Library of Congress – Public Domain
About Michael Ricciardi
