Darwin’s Real Problem in Understanding the Transmutation of Species
It is fundamental to consider that what we have interpreted by the “origin” or “transmutation” of species before Darwin’s work came along, was the comparatively elementary inquiry whether the allied species of each genus had or had not descended from one another and from a common ancestor, by the unexceptional process of reproduction and by agencies of natural laws and conditions still in process and capable of being thoroughly looked into. If any naturalist had been asked at that day whether, supposing that all the divergent species of each genus had been descended from an ancestral species, and that a rich and total explanation were to be made of how each little difference in form, color, or structure might have arose, and how the several distinguishing characteristics of habit and of geographic dispersion might have been acted about and if this were done, the “origin of species” would be seen, the great secret solved, he would doubtlessly have replied in the affirmative. He would probably have summated that he never expected any such incredible breakthrough to be made in his lifetime. Darwin has done this, not exclusively in the view of his disciples and admirers, but by the admissions of those who questioned the completeness of his explanations. For nearly all their objections and difficulties apply to those greater differences that distinguish genera, families, and orders from each other, not to those that distinguish a species from the species to which it is most intimately aligned, and from the continuing species of the same genus. So are these dissents ubiquitous or just a cause of incorrect identity?
On the subject of identity, it is amusing to note that an Oprah Winfrey creationism controversy has been storming since Spring 2008.
