style="font-size:15px;"> Galeras erupting in 2008. The fatal mountain continues to threaten surrounding communities, but better predictive science has improved the ability of the authorities to evacuate in time.
‘I do not feel guilty about the death of my colleagues. there is no guilt. there was only an eruption.’
STANLEY WILLIAMS, SURVIVING GALERAS, 2001
For instance, in a memo from the period Williams accuses two of the other survivors of being ‘pathetic liars ... jealous of the recognition which I received’ for disputing his account. He now admits that he was ‘playing the survivor’, and some have ascribed his abysmal behaviour to the brain damage he sustained.
In the debate over which heralds of impending eruption – LPEs or elevated sulphur emissions – to heed, Chouet seems to have been vindicated. His 1996 paper on the use of LPEs for eruption forecasting is one of the ten most cited papers in volcanology. When the Mexican volcano Popocatépetl had its biggest eruption in a millennium on 18 December 2000, careful analysis of LPEs meant the authorities were able to give 48 hours notice to evacuate 30,000 people who lived in the danger zone. Not one person was hurt.
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HUXLEY
vs
WILBERFORCE
FEUDING PARTIES
T.H. Huxley (1825–95), aka ‘Darwin’s Bulldog’ – biologist, educator
vs
Samuel Wilberforce (1805–1873), aka ‘Soapy Sam’ – Bishop of Oxford
DATE
Saturday, 30 June 1860, at the meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science (BAAS) at Oxford
CAUSE OF FEUD
The descent of man
One of the most famous confrontations in science was the clash over evolution between T.H. Huxley, known as ‘Darwin’s Bulldog’ because of his tenacity in defending Darwin’s theory of evolution through natural selection, and Bishop Samuel Wilberforce, known as ‘Soapy Sam’ because of his smooth, persuasive, even slippery style in debates. This now legendary encounter is typically quoted as a milestone in the ‘triumph’ of science over religion, though many dispute this and there is a great deal of uncertainty over what was actually said.
Barking and yelping
As he knew it would, the 1859 publication of Darwin’s On the Origin of Species aroused opposition from many quarters, including many in the Church. Evolutionary theories were common currency at the time but men like William Paley had reconciled them with religious belief by suggesting that evolution was directed by some sort of cosmic guiding hand (i.e. God). What was particularly shocking about Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection was that it removed the need for a guiding intelligence directing proceedings. Blind forces could be responsible for all of life’s many forms; there was no need for God in this conception of creation. Religionists were also uncomfortable with Darwin’s unstated, though implied, conclusion that man might be descended from the apes, rather than being the result of a separate act of creation, made in God’s own image.
TIMELINE
Biologist T.H. Huxley immediately became an ardent acolyte of the new theory and, foreseeing that Darwin would face ‘considerable abuse & misrepresentation’, wrote to offer his services: ‘as to the curs which will bark and yelp – you must recollect that some of your friends at any rate are endowed with an amount of combativeness which (though you have often & justly rebuked it) may stand you in good stead ... I am sharpening up my claws and beak in readiness.’
OPENING PANDORA’S BOX: THE REACTION TO DARWIN
Darwin had been incubating his theory of evolution through natural selection for decades before he was finally pushed into publication by Alfred Russel Wallace’s (see pages 186–191) independent arrival at a similar theory. One reason he had held off for so long was because he knew it would open a Pandora’s box of reaction. In the event, the best he could do was marshal his arguments and evidence with minute care, and admit that there were a few gaps where he must trust to the future emergence of more evidence.
Wilberforce was one of the first to attack Darwin. His critique was powerful, pointing out flaws in Darwin’s science – the lack of fossil evidence of transitional forms, for instance – and highlighting the disturbing social and moral implications of the theory. This line of attack is still pursued by religious critics of Darwinism today. In 2009, for instance, Christoph Schönborn, Cardinal Archbishop of Vienna, argued: ‘The question of evolutionism and the economic crisis are very closely linked. What we can call the ideological Darwinist concept that the stronger survives has led to the economic situation we’re in today.’
The religious response to Darwin’s theory has been diverse and complex since it first emerged. The Catholic Church made little fuss about accepting the theory, partly because in Catholicism religious authority does not stem solely from scriptural sources. Many stripes of Protestant religion have also sought to accommodate Darwinism and there are many who argue that there is no contradiction between being a religious believer and a scientist, for instance. But there are also many at the extremes of religion, particularly in fundamentalist Christianity but increasingly in the Islamic world too, who loudly protest that any conception of evolution is at odds with religious belief, and it is these strident voices who have dragged Darwin into what is often referred to as the ‘culture wars’.
‘That man wants to claim my pedigree,’ complains the Defrauded Gorilla to animal rights campaigner Henry Bergh in a satirical cartoon of 1871. ‘He says he is one of my descendants.’ ‘Now, Mr Darwin,’ replies Mr Bergh, ‘How could you insult him so?’
The barking and yelping soon began. Among Darwin’s many detractors was Samuel Wilberforce, Bishop of Oxford. Son of the famous anti-slavery campaigner, Wilberforce was a high-profile public figure, a clergyman not afraid to weigh in to scientific debates. He published a dismissive review of Origin in June 1860, arguing that ‘man’s power of articulate speech; man’s gift of reason; man’s free will and responsibility ... all are equally and utterly irreconcilable with the degrading notion of the brute origin [of humankind].’ ‘The
