What Did Darwin Really Believe?

[Krishna Keshava Dasa]

“Important as the struggle for existence has been and even still is, yet as far as the highest part of our nature is concerned there are other agencies more important. For the moral qualities are advanced either directly or indirectly much more through the effects of habit, by our reasoning powers, by instruction, by religion, etc., than through natural selection; though to this latter agency the social instincts, which afforded the basis for the development of the moral sense, may be safely attributed.”

[Charles Darwin, The Descent of Man, vol.2, pp.403-404, 1981, Princeton Press Edition]

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Humbly in service,

Krishna Keshava Das

Serving Assistant

Princeton Bhakti Vedanta Institute

of Spiritual Culture and Science

www.bviscs.org // linktr.ee/bviscs

[David Marjanovic]

That quote must be out of context.* After all, Darwin's sketch of a scenario for how life could have formed from non-life is right there in the Origin.

But what I really want to say is... who cares? Your question is part of the history of science. It is not part of science. If you want to know what is known and what is thought today about the origin of life, asking what Darwin believed is simply beside the point. The only authority in science is the evidence, and we know much more of the evidence today than Darwin ever could have.

* Darwin quotes, no matter what purpose they're used for, are _usually_ out of context. That's because Darwin was always careful to look at a problem from all angles before stating his conclusion, and to write this entire process out. The conclusion without this context is never the whole story, and many Darwin quotes that are floating around out there aren't even his conclusions, they're openings of just such "discussions".