Isaac Newton's Theory of Evolution by Natural Selection

In retrospect, the modern synthesis (natural selection + Mendelian genetics) could have been worked out in principal by *any* armchair thinker, at almost any time in history:

Natural Selection in a nutshell:

1. Offspring tend to resemble their parents...
2. ...but with some variation
3. Inherited characters can increase or decrease an organism's chance of surviving or reproducing
4. Therefore 1+3 => successive generations become better adapted to survive and reproduce
5. Therefore 2+3=>new species

1+2+3 were all so obvious for most of human history, that nobody thought about them or the consequences. Everybody knew it though.

Additionally, perhaps nobody thought about them, because of Plato's archetypes idea was so well accepted as to lead people away from thinking about variations, but instead idealized forms?

4+5. Logically follows and becomes important, if you allow enough time - a very old Earth.

Lastly you have evidence from anatomy that species are related, for example, mammals sharing bone structures. There's no reason why this couldn't have been studied much earlier.


What about Mendelian genetics? Could that have been figured out centuries earlier?

I think so, could an ancient Greek, Roman, or a Middle Ages monk have bred peas like Mendel? Surely they could have.

Furthermore, Mendelian genetics is observely true in a basic form, to an armchair thinker, even without doing experiments: Prior to Mendel, the main genetic theory was blending (like mixing paints) - but think about it, when your mum and dad produced you, your gender wasn't a blend - it was taken wholly from mater or pater! If a child's gender is clearly a binary choice, it's not impossible to imagine some early armchair thinker could argue that other characteristics might be too.


So here's my thought, maybe a starting point for a WI:

- We need a less influential Plato

- We need an old Earth widely accepted centuries earlier - study of rock strata with sedimentary rock miles thick, maybe could be the trigger

- We need somebody (how about Francis Bacon?) to do some experiment using peas, and identify dominant and recessive characteristics. Maybe his work gets put to one side

- We need somebody to put together an evolutionary theory based on natural selection, and Baconian (not Mendelian) genetics. I think Isaac Newton - instead of wasting a lot of time on magic and alchemy, could be the guy!

What are the consequences, of discovering the basics of evolution/genetics centuries earlier?

Is it possible that crude genetic engineering they could even play a part in the Industrial revolution? Or will that have to wait until computers and X-ray crystallography, etc.,

In ancient Greece, Anaximander postulated a theory of evolution in the 5th Century B.C. And many others, including Darwin's grandfather Erasmus, had deduced evolutionary theories as well, though none of them seemed to stumble upon the idea of natural selection until Darwin and Wallace (which, in retrospect, seems so obvious).

But I think if anyone had postulated a theory of natural selection before the 18th Century, it would have been ignored. Until Western Civilization had experienced the intellectual fresh air of the Enlightenment, there would be no one interested in listening to such ideas.

Yeah as you guys have pointed out; the basic idea had been out there for centuries. It was just a matter adding 1+2 and 2+3 and then filling in the gaps. Even today most "anti-evolutionists" don't realize that 1 2 and 3, really obvious ideas, add up to very logical and simple hypothesis. Which has been observed, tested, and survived to become a theory (and arguably a model).

Could it have happened earlier? Definitively. Would a less influential Plato help? Possibly.

Mendelian genetics, though present probably for much longer than evolutionary ideas, is a much harder concept to grasp. But people had been breading, not just peas, all kinds of plants and animals for centuries. Mendel was just the first to pay closer attention to it.

But both evolution and genetics could have appeared centuries earlier. They enlightenment helped but it was not necessary.

Darwin began The Origin of Species with a chapter in pigeon breeding, a some-what popular activity at the time. He basically explained how man affects 1 2 and 3 in pigeon breeding and then proposed that a man-selected effect could replaced by nature and called it natural selection.

If you have a society at any point in history with a breeding culture, wether plants or animals, and with armchair thinking as a popular pastime you could easily see evolution much much earlier.

jycee said:

with armchair thinking as a popular pastime you could easily see evolution much much earlier.

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Why would you want armchair people? Darwin hardly sat around and thought of it..? Don't you want tons of proof found in the field?

You get right to the heart of the cultural biases in Western culture that discouraged the 1+2+3 and keep us from seeing good BBC films here in the States.

I feel I must do my AH duty to our patron saint the butterfly and mention that changes in Plato's time and how generations interpret him will replace Bacon and Newton with other names and minds.

Note how much Plato influences Catholic thought, and how much Christianity influences views about the Earth's age and human origins. The biggest change that comes to my mind is a more religiously pluralistic Europe. Replace the Abrahamic monopoly and we see an intellectual climate that may be more reticent to noticing these retroactively obvious connections.

mowque said:

Why would you want armchair people? Darwin hardly sat around and thought of it..? Don't you want tons of proof found in the field?

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Darwin made tons of observations on the Beagle, and did tons of experiments when he came home. The observations may helped mentally trigger his hypothesis (if God made the world in 7 days, why did he fill the Galapagos full of variants of finches?), but mostly the experiments were used to test his hypothesis - and for his book - he wanted to build an unassailable mass of evidence, having seen the controversy caused by other evolutionary books previously published in the UK.

Anyway, Darwin's main contribution was deep-thinking - others could have easily done the same type of observations and experiments centuries earlier, some of the observations are "obvious" (everybody knew it, but nobody made them), and just nobody thought to make these observations/experiments, or came up with the explanation when the observation was well-known.

Consider the finches. Let's not forget that territoriality of species was well-known before Darwin. Lamarck (his evolutionary theory), Lyell (centres of creation) and others, had all proposed explanations for it... just the wrong ones.

Anyway, Charles Lyell is also important. He was a direct influence on Darwin's theories (uniformitarianism, and an ancient Earth), and on Darwin's life (including getting him on to the Beagle).

I don't see any reason why uniformitarianism and an ancient Earth couldn't have been thought of centuries earlier also. The ideas came from looking at rocks. People only started doing that really seriously and considering the implications in the 18th and 19th century, but why not centuries earlier? It's not like you need to invent the steam engine or the Jacquard loom before you can look at some rocks.

SunilTanna said:

Anyway, Charles Lyell is also important. He was a direct influence on Darwin's theories (uniformitarianism, and an ancient Earth), and on Darwin's life (including getting him on to the Beagle).

I don't see any reason why uniformitarianism and an ancient Earth couldn't have been thought of centuries earlier also. The ideas came from looking at rocks. People only started doing that really seriously and considering the implications in the 18th and 19th century, but why not centuries earlier? It's not like you need to invent the steam engine or the Jacquard loom before you can look at some rocks.

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IC: Because the world (and the Universe) was created in 4004 BC. Are you some kind of pagan or heretic!?

OOC: seriously, Christian/Jewish/Moslem belief was that the whole universe was very new. There was NO TIME for evolution or geology to have happened.

If science had been developed in India or the Mayan lands, where a concept of deep time existed, it would have been easier.


Also, Genesis specifically says God created all the beasts of their kinds, so if that is the grounding of your thought, you have to break that first before you can seriously consider other possibilities. The Enlightenment was probably a necessary first step, to break the grip of the Churches' thinking (the Calvinists were as bad as the Catholics in terms of Biblical literalism).

MRig said:

You get right to the heart of the cultural biases in Western culture that discouraged the 1+2+3 and keep us from seeing good BBC films here in the States.

I feel I must do my AH duty to our patron saint the butterfly and mention that changes in Plato's time and how generations interpret him will replace Bacon and Newton with other names and minds.

Note how much Plato influences Catholic thought, and how much Christianity influences views about the Earth's age and human origins. The biggest change that comes to my mind is a more religiously pluralistic Europe. Replace the Abrahamic monopoly and we see an intellectual climate that may be more reticent to noticing these retroactively obvious connections.

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Yes I have read that you cannot see "Creation" over there and you cannot buy it on DVD either, that must be a very powerful lobby to
prevent all that, a stupid lobby but nevertheless powerful.

We need somebody (how about Francis Bacon?) to do some experiment using peas, and identify dominant and recessive characteristics. Maybe his work gets put to one side

- We need somebody to put together an evolutionary theory based on natural selection, and Baconian (not Mendelian) genetics. I think Isaac Newton - instead of wasting a lot of time on magic and alchemy, could be the guy!

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Alchemy was Newton's primary interest, his writings on that far outnumber his writings on optics or physics.

Actually, I could see Mendelian genetics grow out of alchemy, like ideas about homonculi. Ideas about preformationism could be tossed out when some enterprising alchemist does a few breeding experiments (not with homonculi but just regular plants or animals), or just makes some observations. Newton could then discover those writings later.

As for the earlier scientist, Albertus Magnus or Nicholas of Cusa were both studying botany in their times, so we could speak of Albertian or Cusanian genetics.

vitemajoren said:

Yes I have read that you cannot see "Creation" over there and you cannot buy it on DVD either, that must be a very powerful lobby to
prevent all that, a stupid lobby but nevertheless powerful.

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My understanding is that it's not being lobbied against, but American distributors didn't pick it up. The idea that they think Creation can't find an audience is even worse than people suppressing--they don't even have to.

MRig said:

My understanding is that it's not being lobbied against, but American distributors didn't pick it up. The idea that they think Creation can't find an audience is even worse than people suppressing--they don't even have to.

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That is depressing to say the least!