West Coast History of Science Society Meeting

University of California, San Francisco

April 11th - April 14th, 2002

[Program]

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Darwin's Experimental Unveiling of the Nature of Heritable Variation

Eduardo Wilner
University of Alaska, Fairbanks
 

Darwin used the process of artificial selection (ASN) extensively and variedly in his evolutionary theorizing. To mention just a few, Darwin used ASN as an analogy to natural selection (NSN); he compared artificial to natural varieties, hereditary variation in nature to that in the breeding farm; and he also compared the overall effectiveness of the two processes. Most historians and philosophers of biology have argued that ASN worked as an analogical field to NSN. But I will argue that this provides a limited and somewhat muddled view of Darwinian science. I say "limited"  because I will show that Darwin also used ASN as a complex experimental field. And I say  "muddled" because, if we concentrate on the analogical role exclusively, we conceive Darwinian science as rather disconnected from contemporary conceptions of "good science." Analogies have a rather limited role in science: they work mainly as thinking aids. They can be used, for instance, as didactic or heuristic tools. Experiments, on the other hand, are traditionally given weightier tasks. Experiments work as tests of specific scientific hypotheses, and are also used to disclose, understand, and (even in non-theoretical ways) ground the existence of scientific causes.

I argue that ASN, as a multifaceted experiment, fulfilled a number of critical good-science criteria. First, as a more or less traditional experiment, ASN established the efficiency of Darwin's preferred cause: NSN. Second, as a non-traditional experiment, ASN disclosed the nature of a crucial element in Darwin's evolutionary mechanics: hereditary variation. Third and last, I argue that the experiment-conception will help us make sense of Darwin's comments regarding the 'monstrous' nature of domestic breeds - a comment that, under the analogy-conception, has puzzled philosophers and historians of biology for quite a while.