Darwin’s Dilemma

DARWIN'S DILEMMA* DARWIN reared his theory o£ Natural Selection upon the basis o£ three observable £acts in the world o£ living things, and two deductions which he made £rom these observations. The first two observations are the following: organisms tend to increase their numbers in a geometrical ratio such that, i£ unchecked, the individuals o£ a given type o£ organism would quickly become so great in number that no. country could support them. On the other hand, and this is the second observation, the numbers o£ a given type o£ organism do in £act remain relatively constant. The first deduction made £rom these first two observations to account £or them is what Darwin called " the struggle £or existence." For i£ nature produces more individuals than can survive, the greater number o£ them must, £or some reason or other, be destroyed. Now this Darwin accounted £or by competition between organisms, resulting in survival o£ those that are sufficiently equipped by their quality, or are favored by circumstances, such as the seed that falls on fertile ground. Darwin's third observation was that organisms tend to vary. His first example is that o£ variation under domestication, o£ wheat, £or instance, o£ pigeons, o£ horses, and o£ hounds. Now this is attributed to man's power o£ selection. These variations are intended by man. However deliberate the choice, not all o£ these variations that are brought about are actually the result o£ a deliberate selection-not all. Deliberate choice, improvement o£ environment, or cross-breeding, are not all there is to this selection. Darwin pointed out that, . . . eminent breeders try by methodical selection, with a distinct object in view, to make a new strain or sub-breed, superior to any kind in the country. But for our purposes, a form of Selection, which may be called Unconscious, and which results from everyone * These pages are the transcript of a recording. 367 368 CHARLES DE KONINCK trying to possess and breed from the best individual animals, is more important. [Notice, the breeding or deliberate improvement of, say, the quality of wheat or the quality of horses is accompanied by an improvement that was not intended; that is not deliberate, an unconscious selection is taking place.] Thus, a man who intends keeping pointers naturally tries to get as good dogs as he can, and afterwards breeds from his own best dogs, but he has no wish or expectation of permanently altering the breed. Nevertheless we may infer that this process continued during centuries, would improve and modify any breed, in the same way as Bakewell, Collins, etc., by this very same process, only carried on more methodically, did greatly modify, even during their lifetimes , the forms and qualities of their cattle.1 I have quoted this long passage because of the importance of what Darwin calls "Unconscious Selection," unconscious "insofar that the breeder could never have expected, or even wished to produce the result that ensued-namely the production of two distinct strains." This unconscious selection is important to Darwin's second deduction, namely, Natural Selection. The distinction which he makes brings us face to face with two different types of selection; the first is deliberate, with a distinct object in view; the second was unintended unexpected, nor even wished for. So far as man's purpose in this particular intervention is concerned, the new strains produced by the second type are fortuitous. Actually, they are products of nature. The natural principle, as distinguished from the conscious, deliberate one, is called Natural Selection. There is no doubt that Darwin was reasoning here on the basis of an analogy or proportion between art and nature, and that the term for transition was selection. In other words, unconscious selection is first revealed as a by-product, so to speak, of conscious selection, and an unconscious selection is going on in nature all the time. This was sound reasoning, it seems to me, given the observations-particularly the one that all organisms tend to vary considerably-which should in fact 1 Charles Darwin, The Origin of Species, chap. I (New York: Modern Library, n. d.) , p. 8~. DARWIN'S DILEMMA 369 be warranted by experience, and in...