Anecdotal, Historical and Critical Commentaries on Genetics Charles Darwin: Genius or Plodder?

There is no doubt about the magnitude of Charles Darwin’s contributions to science. There has, however, been a long-running debate about how brilliant he was. His kind of intelligence was clearly different from that of the great physicists who are deemed geniuses. Here, the nature of Darwin’s intelligence is examined in the light of Darwin’s actual style of working. Surprisingly, the world of literature and the field of neurobiology might supply more clues to resolving the puzzle than conventional scientific history. Those clues suggest that the apparent discrepancy between Darwin’s achievements and his seemingly pedestrian way of thinking reveals nothing to Darwin’s discredit but rather a too narrow and inappropriate set of criteria for ‘‘genius.’’ The implications of Darwin’s particular creative gifts with respect to the development of scientific genius in general are briefly discussed. Genius: 1. An exceptional natural capacity of intellect, especially as shown in creative and original work in art, music, etc. 2. A person having such capacity. The Random House Dictionary of the English Language (1966). Some people called him an evil genius. Others just said he was a genius. Still, they unanimously saluted his brainpower. No other thinker shook Victorian England as deeply as Charles Darwin with his theory of evolution by natural selection. But Darwin was the most unspectacular person of all time. . . His personality did not seem to match the incisive brilliance other people saw in his writings. Janet Browne (1995) Charles Darwin is a mystery man. Was he a great scientist, really great I mean, of the calibre of Albert Einstein, that everyone accepts as having been a genius? Or was he perhaps like some of the prominent figures of molecular biology—smart and ambitious, but lucky in having been the person around when important conceptual moves and empirical discoveries were there to be made? Was he even a bit thick, a man who hit on his theory but really had no idea of what he had grasped? ‘‘Yes’’ answers to all of these questions can be found in the literature. . . Michael Ruse (1993) EVERY science, and every branch of the major sciences, has its outstanding figures, its emblematic heroes, people who saw much further than others, indeed, further than it was reasonable to expect any one to see at the time. Such brilliance is often accorded the epithet ‘‘genius,’’ and there is usually near unanimity on which individuals merit the appellation. Physics has a pantheon of geniuses: Galileo, Isaac Newton, Albert Einstein, Erwin Schroedinger, Werner Heisenberg, Paul Dirac, and Richard Feynman are just some of the names in physics that come to mind when one says ‘‘genius.’’ Biology, a younger science, has fewer, although Louis Pasteur, Francis Crick, R. A. Fisher, Barbara McClintock, and Joshua Lederberg would almost certainly qualify. The case of Charles Robert Darwin, whose 200th birthday we celebrate this year, presents a major puzzle in this regard. If scientists were polled to name the outstanding biologist of all time, Darwin would probably head the list, and by a comfortable margin. This ranking would have been very different a century ago when so many of Darwin’s major ideas were widely disbelieved (Bowler 1983), which illustrates that it is not enough to be perceived as brilliant to enter the ‘‘genius’’ sweepstakes: one must be believed to have been right as well. Isaac Newton, for example, may have brought the same brilliance to bear in his alchemical studies as in his physics, but it is for his discoveries in physics, not in alchemy, that we accord him the status of genius. The puzzle about Darwin is that in terms of his insights—their depth, range, and importance—there does not seem to be anyone in his league, surely a mark of ‘‘genius.’’ Yet in his style and from what we can deduce of his mental processes, he does not fit the image of ‘‘genius’’ that we have inherited from physics and Address for correspondence: Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin, Wallotstrasse 19, 14193 Berlin, Germany. E-mail: [email protected] Genetics 183: 773–777 (November 2009) mathematics. He was not particularly fast in his thinking nor was he mathematically gifted. His most apparent qualities were thoroughness and doggedness, qualities that seem the antithesis of brilliance. This leads one to wonder whether Darwin, to use Francis Crick’s description of Max Perutz, was actually a ‘‘plodder’’ (Ferry 2007), albeit an exceptionally productive and lucky one. The nature of Darwin’s intellect is certainly of historical interest, but its importance goes beyond history. It touches on the nature of scientific intelligence in general and on the sources of such intelligence. An inquiry into the special case of Darwin may ultimately help us revise our notions of the nature of and criteria for ‘‘genius.’’ Surprisingly, the world of writers and literary critics might provide more clues than that of historical reconstruction. THE CASE FOR DARWIN AS GENIUS AND THE COUNTERCASE FOR DARWIN AS PLODDER The case for Darwin as genius is straightforward. His development of the concept of natural selection and his arguments for it as the motor of evolution were brilliant. The basic idea may seem obvious now, but one must remember that it was not always that way: many eminent scientists, including even ostensible supporters, either did not truly understand the idea (e.g., T. H. Huxley) or could not believe it, and this period of misapprehension and rejection extended more than 70 years (Bowler 1983). (Indeed, the idea that natural selection has been the major player in shaping the world of living things is still unbelievable to hundreds of millions of people, mostly in various religious communities.) Furthermore, Darwin was truly first with the idea: Darwin had the basic idea 20 years prior to Alfred Russel Wallace, and his careful study during that 20-year period enabled him to assemble and write the main lines of evidence in The Origin of Species in just a little over a year. The theory of natural selection remains the central idea in biology. Beyond natural selection, Darwin developed the idea of sexual selection (an idea that was similarly neglected and rejected for decades), produced an ingenious explanation for the origin of coral reef atolls, understood the larger implications of earthworm burrowing, explained the shape of orchid flowers (and what could be predicted from them), founded the study of the expression of emotions, and much more. Not everything he said or thought was right, of course—the failed hypothesis of ‘‘pangenesis’’ (Darwin 1868) is a notable example. But the fact that he was willing to look at all the difficult aspects of his theory, without flinching, and try to find solutions is in itself a sign of great intellectual courage, which is surely a component of intellectual genius. The opposite case—the idea that Darwin was basically not much more than a diligent fact collector who sort of stumbled into his big ideas—is also strong. One particularly stellar witness for this position is Charles Darwin himself. He presented the case against himself as a genius in his autobiographical fragments (republished in Darwin 2002). He wrote these for his family, never intending them for the wider public, but they were published posthumously at the decision of his grown-up children, who felt that the public had a right to know more about their father. In his reminiscences, Darwin presents a convincing portrait of a man who was patient, thorough, and persistent but who lacked any outstanding intellectual gifts. Although he notes his better-thanaverage observational powers and his ability to put together a scientific argument, the overall picture is one of modesty personified. The reader can be forgiven for concluding that here was a man who had accomplished much primarily through diligence, the defining characteristic of a ‘‘plodder.’’ Of course, he was being deliberately modest—he did not want his family to remember him as a vainglorious character trumpeting his gifts—a self-deprecating style that characterizes other Victorian grandees, such as John Stuart Mill and Anthony Trollope, in their autobiographies (Levine 1988). After all, to downplay one’s abilities, in effect inviting other people to ‘‘discover’’ their true magnitude, is a good strategy, even if not wholly deliberate. Yet Darwin’s account of himself and his self-perceived limitations rings true: what comes through is the sense of a man who is genuinely surprised that he managed to achieve all that he had. Indeed, if we are to accept Darwin’s self-portrait, we must be surprised, too. After all, there are plenty of diligent drones who work tirelessly for a lifetime and never come up with a good idea, let alone a whole raft of them. It is also certainly true that hard work is one element of ‘‘genius’’ and a very important one in many instances of high intellectual achievement (Gladwell 2009). Nor is this idea new: one recalls Thomas Alva Edison’s remark that genius is a matter of 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration. But to ascribe all such achievement to hard work is as reductive and patently false as the idea that geniuses are simply a product of their genes. It clearly does not explain why some highly diligent people produce unprecedented new insights while others simply chalk up a lot of hard work. One can throw up one’s hands and say, in effect, that the ‘‘real’’ Darwin is unrecoverable and that we will have to be satisfied just to make of him whatever we choose (Ruse 1993). But that conclusion is an unsatisfying postmodernistic dodge; It neither answers the question nor makes it disappear. It would be more valuable to take a close look at Darwin’s actual method of working, as evidenced in his Journal of Researches (the published record of his work aboard The Beagle), in his notebooks, and in his voluminous letters. From that material we can try to identify the elements that made his thinking unusual. 774 A. S. Wilkins