The Essence of Darwinism and the Basis of Modern Orthodoxy 97
Darwin as a Historical Methodologist
One Long Argument
An old quip, highlighting the intractability of philosophical dualism, proclaims:
"what's matter? never mind; what's mind? doesn't matter." Predarwinian
evolutionary systems embodied the same kind of Catch-22, this time in painful and
practical terms, destined to ensnare any budding naturalist who hoped to study
organisms by direct confrontation with testable hypotheses. Lamarck's system, for
example, contrasted an intrinsic force of progress with a diversionary, and clearly
secondary, force of adaptation to changing local environments. The secondary
process worked in the immediate here and