On our first night here in London, our troop, made up of eight Harvard undergraduates and one from Princeton, went out to dinner at an English pub/restaurant, Angel Sea Arms. There we met our course heads, Anne Harrington, who's history of psychiatry class I had taken previously, and John Durant, her husband and a professor at MIT. The dinner was meant to be a welcoming for us, the students, and to give us a chance to meet one another and also to acquaint ourselves with our professors. Our table was long, so we broke into conversations with those closest to us. I was on the end opposite the professors, but from across the table, Professor Durant held up a ten pound note and asked if we recognized the gentleman depicted on it. I was too far away to really see the man's face written on the bill, but Seth, another student in the program, immediately identified the face as belonging to Charles Darwin, the 19th century English naturalist who is known as the father of the theory of Evolution. Now although I have not explicitly asked each individual in our group where they stand on the whole "Evolution vs. Creationism" debate, I feel fairly safe in assuming that as Ivy League students studying science or its history, all of us are comfortable with the legitimacy of evolution, and recognize Darwin as an extremely positive and influential force in both science and history. However, soon after Darwin's mug had been identified, Professor Durant added, "You wouldn't see the likes of him on American Currency!" with a laugh. Those may not have been his exact words, but you get the idea (I may remember Professor Durant saying it like this just because he's an Englishman, and the phrase "the likes of" just sounds British to me). Though the professor's quick poke at American “culture” was just meant to be a joke part of the light dinner table conversation, it certainly made me think. I had had no idea that somebody like Charles Darwin was on English currency. And it's true, if such a thing as putting Charles Darwin on the ten dollar bill was proposed in the United States (dismissing any sentiment associated with the slighting of our dear Mr. Hamilton), there would be an uproar; people would be swift and merciless in quashing the proposal before the idea had time to get off the ground. But why? What makes the UK and the US so different on this matter?
The next day we had our first day of class. We were informed that our first week would be an introductory period; we would be studying science, technology, and medicine in Victorian England, so logically the first thing we did was learn a bit about the Victorian period, what it was, and what questions we could ask to better understand the time period. In discussing the ancient universities, Oxford and Cambridge, it came up that, to be eligible to study at either university during the Victorian age, one had to have been a registered member of the national church of Britain. Then, as now, and unlike the U.S., England was a Christian state. Not only that, but many influential men of science in the Victorian age were also members of the clergy. But wait, I thought the United States had a problem with evolution because Christians feel it contradicts creationism? Americans get riled up that evolution, an investigative science, and not creationism, a set of religious assumptions, is taught in science classes in the U.S., despite the fact that we have an explicit separation of church and state. Britain, however, not only does not have as big an “Evolution vs Creationism” problem, it celebrates Darwin for his achievements to science and the world. So what is the difference between the US and the UK in this regard? I think it might be pride.
The English are proud of their achievements, and proud of their notable heroes that brought about those achievements. Just walking around London for a day or two you see Darwin’s name everywhere. "To your left we’re coming up on the Darwin museum, on your right you’ll see the Darwin center of this or that, and straight ahead folks, that sidewalk is where Darwin once helped an old lady across the street." Seriously, he’s everywhere. And it’s fantastic! Why is it that Britain doesn’t seem to have an underlying hatred of this narrow-minded anti-religion theory we Americans call evolution? Because England had time to weigh the issue. The theory was brought up in England by an Englishman with good standing amongst other Englishmen as a member of the middle upper class. I’m sure plenty of people had problems with Darwin at first; the creationism debate undoubtedly permeated the conversation. But England in the mid 19th century was in an age of discovery. They were hungry for invention and exploration. And who were making the discoveries? Gentlemen. Clergymen. The occasional scholar. Who was Darwin originally? Certainly not a naturalist. He had gone to medical school and was hired on the Beagle as the captain’s companion. Not to say that keeping a ship captain company isn’t a big responsibility, but it’s not what you’d expect of one of biology’s forefathers. The point is, scientists, by this name, didn’t really exist in Victorian England until much later. Professors at universities weren’t lecturing on the side and doing their own specific research primarily. For example, we learned in class that John Herschel (1792-1871), a mathematician, physicist, and astronomer, actually turned down a professorship at Cambridge because it was easier to do his research simply as a well-to-do gentleman than as a professor at a leading university. So science as a profession didn’t really exist. And so when theories, such as evolution, were proposed, it wasn’t like there were distinct science and religion camps that were constantly in conflict with one another. Scientific discoveries were weighed and debated in an overarching culture amongst an elite free of engrained prejudices. Today in the US, it seems like there are religion and science “teams,” and no matter what one team says, the other team doesn’t like it. I’ve been rambling for a while now, and may have lost my point. I think I’ll separate myself from this post for a while, and possibly come back later and point out my… point. Oh, and Seth found a two pound coin minted in 2009 commemorating Darwin’s 200th anniversary and the 150th anniversary of the publishing of Darwin’s “On The Origin of Species.” He’s everywhere.
For now, signing out.
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