“The Descent of Man,” 150 years on

RE: Darwin's views on human diversity
In his Editorial "The Descent of Man, 150 years on", A. Fuentes argues that Darwin "offers a racist and sexist view of humanity" (Science 372, p. 769; 2021). In addition, he writes that (a) "race is not a valid description of human biological variation"; (b) "there is no biological coherence to 'male' and 'female' brains, and (c) "'survival of the fittest' does not accurately represent the dynamics of evolutionary processes". Moreover, he argues that "We can acknowledge Darwin for key insights, but must push against his unfounded and harmful assertions". I disagree with some of these conclusions for the following reasons.
On the first pages of "The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex" (1), Charles Darwin (1809¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬¬–1882) summarizes the aims of his book as follows: "The sole object of this work is to consider, firstly, whether man, like every other species, is descended from some pre-existing form; secondly, the manner of his development; and thirdly, the value of the differences between so-called races of man". In this context, Darwin (1) implicitly refers to sexual selection as an evolutionary force. He points out that, in his book, no new facts on human biology are presented; it rather consists of a compilation of observations published by other scientists, based on which the author draws "interesting conclusions".
With respect to argument (a), it is important to recollect that Darwin was horrified by reports on slavery, and strongly rejected all forms of violence towards humans and animals. Accordingly, the question as to the existence of "human races" was regarded by him as controversial, or problematic. Nevertheless, Darwin referred to the work of leading anthropologists of his time, who distinguished between several (usually 5) "human races". Today, some biologists and philosophers, such as the African-American Professor Quayshawn Spencer (PhD, Stanford University), argue that the so-called "Five Human Races" (i.e., Sub-Saharan Africans, Asians, Caucasians, American Indians, and Pacific Islanders), to which Darwin (1) referred, represent distinct, evolved human populations, or genomic ancestry groups (2).
Concerning statement (b), i.e., that differences between male vs. female brains (and other biological features) are not based on convincing data, I refer to the "Organization for the Study of Sex Differences (OSSD)"(3). This interdisciplinary society of experts in the area of "Sex & Gender-Research" publishes a journal entitled "Biology of Sex Differences" (Vol. 1/2010; Vol. 12/2021). On the Internet-page of this peer-reviewed periodical, hundreds of Online-articles can be down-loaded that corroborate what Darwin (1) wrote 150 years ago: The fact that men and woman differ from each other in numerous biological and psychological features (3).
The argument (c), i.e., that the phrase "Survival of the fittest" is outdated, is indeed a matter of ongoing debate. Darwin borrowed this slogan from the philosopher Herbert Spencer ( 1820–1903) and introduced it as a synonym for "natural selection" in later editions of the "Origin of Species" (1. Ed. 1859; 6th Ed 1872). Numerous studies have shown that the "Darwin-Wallace-principle of natural selection" can explain evolutionary processes in nature, such as the adaptation of populations to their corresponding environment (4). However, it must be admitted that the phrase "survival of the fittest" is problematic, since "fitness", i.e., life-time reproductive success, is often confused with "physical strength".
Concerning the charge that Darwin distributed "a sexist view" (i.e., that he regarded women as second-class humans), we should remember that he was the loving father of ten children, three of whom did not survive childhood. When his second child, Anne Darwin (1841–¬¬1851), died, he wrote to his cousin William Darwin Fox (1805–1880) the following disturbing letter (April 29, 1851): "My dear Fox, I do not suppose you will have heard of our bitter & cruel loss. Poor dear little Annie … was taken with a vomiting attack … (that) … rapidly assumed the form of the low & dreadful fever, which carried her off in ten days – Thank God she suffered hardly at all, & expired as tranquilly as a little angel… She was my favourite child … Poor little dear soul" (5). In early 1851, Darwin was the proud father of three sons and two daughters; as a result of the "un-fair" death of his beloved Annie, he lost the last traces of his Christian faith.
The sentences quoted above (5) are not the words of a "sexist", who ranks men higher than women (or girls); it rather documents that for Darwin, all members of the "Human Race" (mankind) are of identical value–with equal dignity and the same rights. However, Darwin (1) accepted human diversity, i.e., the differences between average members of the "Five Human Races", and those between the two biological sexes, based on the scientific literature available at his time, as well as on his own observations.
Taken together, I conclude that Darwin was neither a racist nor a sexist. However, as a "man of the 19th century", he adopted and perpetuated ideas of other scientist of his time, inclusive of some unfounded "racial- and gender-stereotypes". Today, we know much more about human diversity and sexual selection. Recently, P. J. Richerson et al. (6) correctly argued that "Darwin's insights (of 1871) are (still) of particular interest to modern science". In my opinion, it is unfair to accuse the British naturalist for some of his misguided conclusions. Darwin was a human being, and humans (even great scientists) make mistakes!
U. Kutschera
AK Evolutionsbiologie, 79104 Freiburg i. Br., Germany
E-Mail: [email protected]
References
1. C. Darwin, The Descent of Man. John Murray, London (1871).
2. Q. Spencer, Phil. Studies 175, 1013 (2018).
3. Webpage: Organization for the Study of Sex Differences (OSSD).
4. U. Kutschera, Evolution. Ref. Mod. Life Sci. Article 06399 (2017).
5. A. W. D. Larkum, A Natural Calling. Springer-Media, Netherlands (2009).
6. P. J. Richerson et al. Science 372, eaba3776 (2021).

In the last months, a crucial event is taking place within the fields of evolutionary biology and biological anthropology. This is because in a chapter1 published in a book including several renowned scholars, and subsequently in this Science editorial2, Agustin Fuentes stated that Darwin's works, in particular the Descent3, included several ethnocentric, racist and sexist assertions. This is an unequivocal fact that everybody can confirm: the Descent is freely available. What is particularly revealing and crucial, even more than those two publications by Fuentes, is the very harsh reaction to them by numerous scholars. In particular, by several Western scientists, including very prominent ones, who often try to portray Fuentes as a radical and/or an outcast within the scientific community. This is a typical strategy used against any evolutionary biologist that puts in question the quasi-religious idolization of Darwin. Here I am providing a short commentary that provides not only a contextualization of Fuentes' publications but, more importantly, also of the attacks against it and the inaccurate and often quasi-religious narratives they are based on. In fact, those narratives confirm what Browne, who knows Darwin's works and their context more profoundly than almost nobody else, recognized in Darwin Voyaging4: "[In Victorian society] scientific ideas and scientific fame did not come automatically to people who worked hard and collected insects.. a love of natural history could not, on its own, take a governess or a mill-worker to the top of the nineteenth-century intellectual tree.. nor can it, on its own, explain Darwin".
As she also explained in Power of Place5, Darwin's idolization did not occur despite his ethnocentric and racist ideas and support for colonialism - although he opposed slavery - and imperialism, but in great part because of that. It is surely not a coincidence that, apart from the Origin6, it is precisely Darwin's books about humans - the Descent and Expression7 - that are nowadays so commemorated by Western scholars, as it is happening right now with Descent's 150th anniversary. There were no such huge commemorations for the 150th anniversary of his books about corals8 or volcanic islands9, for example. Desmond and Moore, who are also among the scholars that studied Darwin's life and works in more detail, also refer to this point, when they emphasize that Darwin had a state funeral in Westminster Abbey, an emblematic symbol of English power, where numerous coronations and royal weddings and funerals had taken place. In that funeral, Darwin was commemorated by the cream of the Victorian society as the symbol of "English success in conquering nature and civilizing the globe during Victoria's long reign"10. In fact, what is particularly notable about those that have a quasi-religious reverence for Darwin is that many of them have not even read the Descent and/or don't know that the scholars that know more about Darwin recognize that his works do include several ethnocentric, racist and sexist ideas.
As such scholars note, the problem is not only that Darwin wrote things such as the following, as if they were scientific facts, regarding his encounters with non-Europeans such as the Fuegians11: "I would not have believed how entire the difference between savage & civilized man is. It is greater than between a wild & domesticated animal, in as much as in man there is greater power of improvement.. their very attitudes were abject, & the expression distrustful.. their language does not deserve to be called articulate.. I believe if the world was searched, no lower grade of man could be found". The problem is that he recurrently constructed evolutionary 'facts' to support his preconceived ethnocentric and racist beliefs: Darwin was a biologist with excellent observational skills, but an anthropologist that was often blinded by his biases. For instance, not only he believed that women were mentally inferior and that the Fuegians were 'morally inferior' and were cannibals - we wrote such inaccurate assertions as 'scientific facts' in his books, instead of observing what was truly before his eyes. As put by George Orwell: "to see what is in front of one's nose needs a constant struggle". Unfortunately, Darwin often did not engage and/or was not successful in that struggle, when the object of his study was his own species.
This is ironic, because Darwin has been often used as a symbol of not only the 'victory' of Europeans and their 'civilization', but also of their knowledge and science, in contrast to 'irrational' beliefs. The ones that perceive themselves as winners within this 'double' victory are indeed those that are so afraid of any criticism of their idol, as they perceive it as a criticism of themselves. This is clearly seen in a recent e-letter of a top scientific journal written by 12 scientists - various of them being particularly renowned - in which they reacted to Fuentes' statements 1-2 by using their power of place and stating things such as: "we fear that Fuentes' vituperative exposition will encourage a spectrum of anti-evolution voices"12. That is, according to this logic, in order to not let others defend their omniscient and morally flawless God (creationists), or to not 'lose' people to them, we scientists should create our own omniscient and flawless deity: Pope Darwin13. Scientists should not be afraid of facts: that Darwin's books included racist and sexist ideas is an unequivocal fact that has nothing to do with - or be censored before of fear of - creationists or their God.
Another typical line of defense used against any criticism of Darwin is that his racist and sexist ideas were not really the product of his mind, but instead of 'his epoch', as if Darwin was an automaton that was obliged to have such ideas and to write them in his scientific books as facts. As within religious narratives about God and the Devil, the 'good' ideas were the product of Darwin's 'unique genius'; the 'bad' ones are exclusively the blame of 'his society'. Of course, this is a flawed argument: as brilliantly put by Marguerite Yourcenar, "at all times there are people who do not think like others.. that is, who do not think like those who do not think". If not, there would never be societal changes. An emblematic example of this is Alfred Russel Wallace, who lived in the same epoch and country and, contrary to Darwin, often praised the indigenous peoples he encountered in his travels, overtly condemned colonialist hierarchies and Western imperialism, and usually defined himself as a 'feminist'.
Wallace's example reinforces Browne's point, made above: also a naturalist, he developed a similar theory of evolution by natural selection - and finished writing a manuscript about it in 1858, a year before Darwin did -, but today there is no Wallacism nor such a quasi-religious idolization of Wallace. As it often happens in society, in science meritocracy is not the whole thing, and many times even not the most important thing. Any kind of idolization always involves denial: it is therefore time to discuss these topics, once for all, without taboos, omissions, idolization, demonization, or being afraid of 'others' and their Gods. We are scientists, so if we do not do so and merely continue to blindly idealize the past and idolize books such as the Descent, our kids and grandkids will be condemned to perpetuate the very same ethnocentric, racist, and sexist inaccurate beliefs defended in such books, and therefore likely continue to undertake or suffer societal abuses in the future.

1. A. Fuentes, [On the races of man] in A most interesting problem: what Darwin's Descent of Man got right and wrong about human evolution (Princeton University Press, Princeton, 2021), pp. 144-161.
2. A. Fuentes, "The Descent of Man", 150 years on. Science 372, 769 (2021).
3. C. Darwin, The descent of man, and selection in relation to sex (J. Murray, London, 1871).
4. J. Browne, Charles Darwin voyaging (Princeton University Press, Princeton, 1995).
5. J. Browne. Charles Darwin - the power of place (Princeton University Press, Princeton, 2003).
6. C. Darwin, On the origin of species by means of natural selection, or, the preservation of favored races in the struggle for life (J. Murray, London, 1859).
7. C. Darwin, The expression of the emotions in man and animals (J. Murray, London, 1872).
8. C. Darwin, The structure and distribution of coral reefs (Smith Elder and Co., London, 1842).
9. C. Darwin, Geological observations on the volcanic islands, visited during the voyage of HMS Beagle (Smith Elder and Co., London, 1844).
10. A Desmond A, Moore J. 1994. Darwin: the life of a tormented evolutionist. WWW Norton & Company, New York.
11. C. Darwin, Voyage of the Beagle-Charles Darwin's Journal of Researches (Penguin, London, 1839).
12. A. Whiten, W. Bodmer, B. Charlesworth, et al. Response to Fuentes' "The Descent of Man, 150 years on". Science E-letter, 6 June 2021.
13. R. Diogo, Meaning of life, human nature, and delusions - how tales about love, sex, races, Gods and progress affect our lives and Earth's splendor (Springer, New York, 2021).

Agustin Fuentes, in his 'celebration' (21 May 2021) of the 150th anniversary of Darwin's Descent of Man, remarks that scientists like Darwin were often blinded by prejudice in analyzing the data right before their eyes. Fuentes himself performs a complementary prejudicial interpretation of Darwin's accomplishments, reading the Descent as if it were produced in our own awakened intellectual environment. He consequently accuses Darwin of blatant racism, while ignoring Darwin's anti-slavery declarations in the Voyage of the Beagle and his "abomination" of that institution in his Autobiography. Nor does Fuentes recognize Darwin's admiration for the courage of the Patagonian Indians as opposed to the timidity of the Spanish gauchos, who were trying to exterminate them. Fuentes charges Darwin with attributing "agency" to males while assigning "passivity" to females in the evolutionary process, a charge that signals his own blindness to the fundamental role for female choice in Darwinian sexual selection. Fuentes's 'celebration' of the Descent is a moral indictment of Darwin for failure to be wiser than his times would allow. A good historian cultivates what might be called historical negative capacity, that is, the ability imaginatively to leave one's own comfortable time and come to inhabit that of one's subject. Instead, Fuentes highlights what to our eyes might seem like racist or sexist remarks, while remaining oblivious to the mitigating texts standing right before his own eyes.

Whiten et al. described Fuentes' editorial as a "distorting treatment" of Darwin's writing in Descent of Man. As counterpoint to Fuentes' points about Darwin's racism and sexism, Whiten et al. wrote that, "On sexism, Darwin suggested that education of "reason and imagination" would erase mental sex differences (1, p. 329)."

From that sentence, a reader might reason that Darwin wrote about how educating women could make them equal to men in mental powers. And, a reader might imagine that Darwin advocated for such a thing. Darwin did neither in the quoted passage which says,

"In order that woman should reach the same standard as man, she ought, when nearly adult, to be trained to energy and perseverance, and to have her reason and imagination exercised to the highest point; and then she would probably transmit these qualities chiefly to her adult daughters. The whole body of women, however, could not be thus raised, unless during many generations the women who excelled in the above robust virtues were married, and produced offspring in larger numbers than other women. As before remarked with respect to bodily strength, although men do not now fight for the sake of obtaining wives, and this form of selection has passed away, yet they generally have to undergo, during manhood, a severe struggle in order to maintain themselves and their families; and this will tend to keep up or even increase their mental powers, and, as a consequence, the present inequality between the sexes." (1, p. 329)

There is no hope for women and, by the end, Darwin is back on about how men are superior and suggests that they may evolve to be even more so. It took extraordinary imagination to read that passage from Descent of Man and present it casually in Darwin's defense as Whiten et al. did. Now that's a distorting treatment.

Holly Dunsworth
Professor of Anthropology
University of Rhode Island

(1) Darwin, C. R. 1871. The descent of man, and selection in relation to sex. London: John Murray. Volume 2. 1st edition, page 329: http://darwin-online.org.uk/content/frameset?keywords=imagination%20and%...

"The Descent of Man" 150 years on

In this 150th anniversary year of Darwin's "The Descent of Man" (1), Science published one article celebrating the progress in human evolutionary science built on Darwin's foundations (2), along with a second, Editorial article, three quarters of which instead pilloried Darwin for his "racist and sexist view of humanity" (3). Fuentes argues that students should be "taught Darwin as [a] man with injurious and unfounded prejudices that warped his view of data and experience". We fear that Fuentes' vituperative exposition will encourage a spectrum of anti-evolution voices and damage prospects for an expanded, more gender and ethnically diverse new generation of evolutionary scientists.
What Darwin wrote was of course shaped by Victorian realities and perspectives on sex and racial differences, some still extant today, but this is not a new revelation [4]. Rather than calmly noting these influences, Fuentes repeatedly puts Darwin in the dock for the Victorian sexist and racist norms within which he presented his explosive thesis that humanity evolved. Fuentes incorrectly suggests that Darwin justified genocide. Darwin was frequently and notably more modern in his thinking than most Victorians. In The Descent he demolished the slavery-justifying view of different races as separate species, so inspiring the anti-racist perspectives of later anthropologists like Boaz (5). On sexism, Darwin suggested that education of "reason and imagination" would erase mental sex differences (1, p. 329). His theory of sexual selection gave female animals a central role in mate choice and evolution (1).
Students taught about the historical context for Darwin's writing should appreciate how revolutionary Darwin's ideas were, challenging many (but not all) prevailing Victorian perspectives (6). We lament the failure to celebrate the vast impact of those ideas at the expense of the distorting treatment Fuentes offers.

Andrew Whiten1, Walter Bodmer2, Brian Charlesworth3, Deborah Charlesworth3, Jerry Coyne4, Frans de Waal5, Sergey Gavrilets6, Debra Lieberman7, Ruth Mace8, Andrea Bamberg Migliano9, Boguslaw Pawlowski10 and Peter Richerson11
1School of Psychology and Neuroscience, University of St Andrews, St Andrews, KY16 9PE, UK. 2Weatherall Institute of Molecular Medicine, University of Oxford, Oxford OX3 9DS, UK. 3School of Biological Sciences, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh EH9 3FL, UK, 4Department of Ecology and Evolution, University of Chicago, 1101 E. 57th St., Chicago, IL60637, USA. 5Psychology Department (PAIS Bldg), Suite 270, 36 Eagle Row, Emory University, Atlanta, GA 30322, USA. 6Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Univ of Tennessee Knoxville, TN 37922, USA. 7Department of Psychology, University of Miami, Coral Gables, FL 33146, USA. 8(Editor in Chief, Evolutionary Human Science) Department of Anthropology, University College London, London, UK. 9Department of Anthropology, University of Zurich, 190 Winterthurerstrasse, Zurich 8057, Switzerland. 10(President, European Human Behaviour and Evolution Association) Department of Human Biology, University of Wroclaw, ul. S. Przybyszewskiego 63, 51-148 Wrocław, Poland. 11Department of Environmental Science and Policy, University of California, Davis, CA 95616, USA.
Corresponding author. Email: [email protected]

REFERENCES
1. C. Darwin. The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex. With an introduction by J. T. Bonner and R. M. May. (Princeton University Press, Princeton, 1871/1981).
2. P. J. Richerson, S. Gavrilets, F. B. M. de Waal. Modern theories of human evolution foreshadowed by Darwin's the Descent of Man. Science 372, 806.
3. A. Fuentes. "The Descent of Man" 150 years on. Science 372, 769.
4. A. J. Desmond, J. R. Moore. Darwin. (Penguin, London, 1992).
5. P. J. Richerson, R. Hames. Busting myths about evolutionary anthropology. Anthropology News, July 18 (2017) doi: 10.1111/AN.510
6. H. E. Gruber. Darwin on Man. (Princeton University Press, Princeton, 1974).

Agustín Fuentes skillfully uses a 19th century scientific tome to call attention to the moral issues embedded within modern science. The morally dubious scientist has been an object of public apprehension for centuries, from Christopher Marlowe's Doctor Faustus, through Mary Shelley's Victor Frankenstein, and Michael Crichton's John Hammond (who, as an entrepreneur, can ominously just purchase the scientists he needs for his theme park). And if the 20th century showed anything at all about science, it showed that science is not, and can never be, amoral. It takes place along an axis of accurate/inaccurate, but as a human activity, it also takes place along an axis of good/evil.
Science once had the luxury of pretending to stand outside of politics and morality, but history also shows us that it never really did. What we are left with, then, is a modern science of human origins and diversity that explicitly rejects older values like racism, sexism, and colonialism, and more importantly, trains its practitioners to recognize and reject those values as well. Moreover, discussing the ideas that are toxic in Darwin's work in addition to those that are prescient and revolutionary helps to make Darwin seem more real, and his followers seem less cult-like.