WEBVTT - Thomas Henry Huxley 0:00:01.320 --> 0:00:04.240 Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production 0:00:04.400 --> 0:00:13.960 of iHeartRadio. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Holly 0:00:14.000 --> 0:00:15.360 Frye and I'm prayse A V. 0:00:15.480 --> 0:00:17.280 Wilson. This is an. 0:00:17.120 --> 0:00:20.520 Episode that we are recording while we are on a 0:00:20.600 --> 0:00:22.960 visit to the Bahamas. We are in the studio at 0:00:22.960 --> 0:00:26.360 Baha Mar So I wanted to do something that related 0:00:26.480 --> 0:00:30.639 to marine biology. It is a little related to marine biology. 0:00:30.720 --> 0:00:33.240 There is a lot more to the story of Thomas 0:00:33.240 --> 0:00:37.160 Henry Huxley than the embarrassing scientific blunder in marine biology 0:00:37.159 --> 0:00:40.000 that he made, although that is one of the most 0:00:40.520 --> 0:00:44.280 famous events of his life, and he actually, in my opinion, 0:00:44.320 --> 0:00:46.920 offers up a pretty good example of having a good 0:00:46.960 --> 0:00:50.519 attitude about learning in public, about making a gaff and 0:00:50.560 --> 0:00:54.800 then acknowledging errors and learning from them. He also is 0:00:54.840 --> 0:00:58.720 sort of famously known by his nickname Darwin's Bulldog for 0:00:58.800 --> 0:01:02.120 his very vocal support part of Darwin's work, and he 0:01:02.160 --> 0:01:06.399 also just generally wanted to promote science and education, particularly 0:01:06.400 --> 0:01:09.520 people that normally did not have access to those things. 0:01:10.160 --> 0:01:12.360 He wrote late in his life quote, it is with 0:01:12.480 --> 0:01:16.480 this intent that I have subordinated any reasonable or unreasonable 0:01:16.600 --> 0:01:20.440 ambition for scientific fame, which I may have permitted myself 0:01:20.480 --> 0:01:24.520 to entertain, to other ends, to the popularization of science, 0:01:24.720 --> 0:01:28.720 to the development and organization of scientific education, to the 0:01:28.840 --> 0:01:33.000 endless series of battles and skirmishes over evolution, and to 0:01:33.240 --> 0:01:38.800 untiring opposition to that ecclesiastical spirit, that clericalism, which in England, 0:01:38.959 --> 0:01:42.400 as everywhere else, and to whatever denomination it may belong, 0:01:42.840 --> 0:01:47.080 is the deadly enemy of science. So he's pretty interesting. 0:01:47.440 --> 0:01:51.680 Heads up, there is so much documentation written about and 0:01:51.840 --> 0:01:54.880 by Thomas Huxley that there's no way to cover it all. 0:01:54.960 --> 0:01:57.320 So if you are a Thomas Huxley scholar, you may 0:01:57.320 --> 0:01:58.760 be like you're leaving some stuff out. 0:01:59.040 --> 0:02:02.720 There's no way not to just know that there is. 0:02:02.720 --> 0:02:07.640 Also plenty that is edited out of his story here, 0:02:07.840 --> 0:02:10.120 But also that means there is plenty that is readily 0:02:10.200 --> 0:02:13.200 available and easy to access. If you look at our 0:02:13.200 --> 0:02:16.200 show notes for today's episode, you will find plenty of 0:02:16.240 --> 0:02:19.120 things that he wrote and people wrote about him. Also, 0:02:19.280 --> 0:02:20.760 we just have to say, right out of the gate, 0:02:20.840 --> 0:02:26.280 this man had spectacular sideburns. Thomas Henry Huxley was born 0:02:26.480 --> 0:02:30.560 May fourth, eighteen twenty five and ealing England today. 0:02:30.600 --> 0:02:31.880 That is part of London. 0:02:32.120 --> 0:02:34.480 At the time, it was a village outside of London, 0:02:34.520 --> 0:02:37.720 but the city eventually just absorbed it. It became part 0:02:37.720 --> 0:02:41.200 of the greater city through urban expansion. His father, George, 0:02:41.240 --> 0:02:44.639 was a schoolmaster who ran a small but respected school 0:02:44.680 --> 0:02:48.800 for boys. George and his wife Rachel, had seven children, 0:02:48.960 --> 0:02:52.359 and Thomas was the youngest. Only six of those children 0:02:52.400 --> 0:02:55.919 lived past infancy, though Thomas was born in their home, 0:02:56.280 --> 0:02:58.880 which was an apartment above a butcher's shop, and he 0:02:58.919 --> 0:03:03.480 wrote a humorous story about his early childhood later in 0:03:03.520 --> 0:03:07.040 his life, saying quote, I am not aware that any 0:03:07.160 --> 0:03:10.560 portence preceded my arrival in this world, But in my 0:03:10.680 --> 0:03:13.760 childhood I remember hearing a traditional account of the manner 0:03:13.800 --> 0:03:16.680 in which I lost the chance of an endowment of 0:03:16.760 --> 0:03:20.840 great practical value. The windows of my mother's room were 0:03:20.840 --> 0:03:24.280 open in consequence of the unusual warmth of the weather. 0:03:24.919 --> 0:03:28.680 For the same reason, probably a neighboring beehive had swarmed, 0:03:28.680 --> 0:03:32.000 and the new colony, pitching on the windowsill, was making 0:03:32.040 --> 0:03:35.520 its way into the room when the horrified nurse shut 0:03:35.600 --> 0:03:39.600 down the sash. If that well meaning woman had only 0:03:39.640 --> 0:03:43.680 abstained from her ill timed interference, the swarm might have 0:03:43.800 --> 0:03:47.240 settled on my lips, and I should have been endowed 0:03:47.280 --> 0:03:51.080 with that molefluous eloquence, which in this country leads far 0:03:51.160 --> 0:03:54.840 more surely than worth capacity or honest work, to the 0:03:54.920 --> 0:03:59.960 highest places in church and state. But the opportunity was lost, 0:04:00.000 --> 0:04:02.640 and I have been obliged to content myself through life 0:04:02.720 --> 0:04:05.960 with saying what I mean in the plainest of plain 0:04:06.400 --> 0:04:09.760 language than which I suppose there is no habit more 0:04:09.840 --> 0:04:14.640 ruinous to a man's prospects of advancement. Beyond that, he 0:04:14.680 --> 0:04:16.800 wrote quote, I have next to nothing to say about 0:04:16.839 --> 0:04:19.480 my childhood. I love him, and I know that was 0:04:19.520 --> 0:04:21.520 a long story to read, but I wanted to include 0:04:21.520 --> 0:04:23.720 it because it really sets you up for what they're 0:04:23.760 --> 0:04:27.400 going to get from Thomas Huxley. He's a little of 0:04:27.480 --> 0:04:32.880 self deprecating all the time, but he's also very simultaneously 0:04:33.000 --> 0:04:36.680 able to kind of stick a little jab in at 0:04:36.720 --> 0:04:39.320 what he thinks is the pompous nature of a lot 0:04:39.400 --> 0:04:44.040 of the institutions of English society. And also, I don't 0:04:44.080 --> 0:04:45.920 know why getting stung by bees would have made him 0:04:45.920 --> 0:04:49.680 more eloquent, but I think it was that they would alight, oh, 0:04:49.720 --> 0:04:52.599 they would alight onto his mouth and give him the 0:04:52.640 --> 0:04:55.039 gift of speech, not that they would sting him, they 0:04:55.080 --> 0:05:00.880 would make him buzz and buzz. Although Thomas grew up 0:05:00.920 --> 0:05:04.039 in an educator's household, he only had two years of 0:05:04.080 --> 0:05:08.440 formal schooling. He attended his father's school starting at age eight, 0:05:08.720 --> 0:05:11.440 but the school closed in eighteen thirty seven and that 0:05:11.600 --> 0:05:14.719 was the end of that. George moved out of education 0:05:15.000 --> 0:05:18.160 and he moved into a career in banking. The family 0:05:18.200 --> 0:05:21.400 did continue to struggle financially, and from the age of 0:05:21.440 --> 0:05:25.840 ten on, Thomas's education was entirely self directed. It wasn't 0:05:25.839 --> 0:05:27.839 like they could afford to send him to a school. 0:05:28.680 --> 0:05:32.679 His father had amassed a significant library though, through his teaching, 0:05:32.760 --> 0:05:35.279 so Thomas just decided he would sort of work his 0:05:35.320 --> 0:05:38.600 way through that. He not only read books in English, 0:05:38.680 --> 0:05:41.640 but he also taught himself French and German, so he 0:05:41.640 --> 0:05:45.080 could read books written in those languages as well, including 0:05:45.120 --> 0:05:48.760 the works of Descartes and Guerta. Although his father had 0:05:48.800 --> 0:05:51.719 been a teacher, it was Rachel, his mother, who he 0:05:51.760 --> 0:05:55.000 really credited with giving him the gift of natural intelligence. 0:05:55.240 --> 0:05:57.800 He wrote of her quote, with no more education than 0:05:57.839 --> 0:06:00.479 other women of the middle class in her day, she 0:06:00.560 --> 0:06:05.279 had an excellent mental capacity. Her most distinguishing characteristic, however, 0:06:05.440 --> 0:06:09.320 was rapidity of thought. If one ventured to suggest she 0:06:09.360 --> 0:06:12.360 had not taken much time to arrive at any conclusion, 0:06:12.480 --> 0:06:16.240 she would say, I cannot help it. Things flash across me. 0:06:16.960 --> 0:06:20.160 That peculiarity has been passed on to me in full strength. 0:06:20.600 --> 0:06:23.680 It has often stood me in good stead, it has 0:06:23.920 --> 0:06:28.400 sometimes played me sad tricks, and it has always been 0:06:28.440 --> 0:06:31.240 a danger. But after all, if my time were to 0:06:31.279 --> 0:06:34.320 come over again, there is nothing I would less willingly 0:06:34.440 --> 0:06:39.080 part with than my inheritance of mother. Wit Zelle Huxley 0:06:39.200 --> 0:06:41.840 was raised in an Anglican family. By the time he 0:06:41.880 --> 0:06:45.600 was a teenager, he was starting to question religion, and 0:06:45.680 --> 0:06:48.640 is often described as having aligned with the dissenters of 0:06:48.720 --> 0:06:52.080 nineteenth century England, who rebelled against the dogma of the 0:06:52.160 --> 0:06:56.239 Church of England and sought their own path. Throughout his life, 0:06:56.640 --> 0:07:00.159 Huxley moved farther and farther away from religion as he 0:07:00.240 --> 0:07:03.960 examined its place in the human social structure and viewed 0:07:04.000 --> 0:07:08.320 it from a progressively more scientific lens. When he was thirteen, 0:07:08.480 --> 0:07:12.640 Huxley was apprenticed to John Charles Cook, a doctor who 0:07:12.680 --> 0:07:17.840 was also his sister Ellen's husband. Encyclopedia Britannica described Cook 0:07:17.880 --> 0:07:22.720 as a medical materialist, meaning someone who believes that all maladies, 0:07:22.800 --> 0:07:27.560 including psychological ones, traced back to a physical problem, but 0:07:27.880 --> 0:07:31.960 Holly didn't find much about Cook anywhere to really verify that. 0:07:32.560 --> 0:07:36.120 Huxley didn't stay with Cook for long, though, and eventually 0:07:36.160 --> 0:07:39.120 moved on to a different apprenticeship in London with a 0:07:39.200 --> 0:07:43.320 doctor who served the city's poor. But Huxley acknowledged that 0:07:43.480 --> 0:07:47.160 medicine in terms of actually treating patients had never been 0:07:47.160 --> 0:07:50.600 a passion for him. He was really just interested in 0:07:50.640 --> 0:07:55.160 physiology and was trying to find a way out of poverty. Yeah, 0:07:55.160 --> 0:07:59.400 it's said that he was really very struck by the 0:07:59.440 --> 0:08:03.360 horrible soircumstances that London's poor were living in, and that 0:08:03.520 --> 0:08:07.360 part of his apprenticeship really impacted the way he thought 0:08:07.400 --> 0:08:10.320 about education for the rest of his life and what. 0:08:10.320 --> 0:08:11.560 He could do to help people. 0:08:12.320 --> 0:08:16.080 Huxley described once going to an autopsy with his friends 0:08:16.120 --> 0:08:19.640 as a boy drawn near because he was interested in physiology, 0:08:20.200 --> 0:08:25.240 and he described what he called dissection poisoning, although in 0:08:25.280 --> 0:08:27.600 this account where he talks about it, he says that 0:08:27.680 --> 0:08:30.400 he didn't cut himself in any way like there was 0:08:30.480 --> 0:08:34.600 no place for anything kind of dangerous to enter his 0:08:34.720 --> 0:08:38.840 skin or his blood stream. But even so he didn't 0:08:38.880 --> 0:08:41.760 get better. He continued to get sick, and he describes 0:08:41.840 --> 0:08:44.600 having to go to the country to a farm to 0:08:44.640 --> 0:08:48.360 get better, stating quote, I soon recovered, but for years 0:08:48.400 --> 0:08:52.439 I suffered from occasional paroxysms of internal pain. And from 0:08:52.480 --> 0:08:57.400 that time my constant friend hypochondriacal dyspepsia commenced his half 0:08:57.480 --> 0:09:01.839 century of co tendancy of my flesh Lee Tabernacle. At 0:09:01.840 --> 0:09:05.679 the age of seventeen, Huxley had acquired enough knowledge and 0:09:05.760 --> 0:09:07.960 the ability to apply it that he was given a 0:09:08.000 --> 0:09:12.079 scholarship to study medicine. This was through the charing Cross 0:09:12.160 --> 0:09:16.960 Hospital at London University, and Huxley met this opportunity with enthusiasm. 0:09:17.559 --> 0:09:20.240 He won a gold medal for his achievement in anatomy 0:09:20.280 --> 0:09:24.960 and physiology from the school. Just after Huxley's graduation from 0:09:25.000 --> 0:09:28.360 London University in eighteen forty five, he made his first 0:09:28.440 --> 0:09:32.320 mark on the scientific world through his observations of hair 0:09:32.400 --> 0:09:36.760 follicles under a microscope. He identified a layer between the 0:09:36.800 --> 0:09:40.480 outer layer and the interior cuticle that gives hair its 0:09:40.520 --> 0:09:44.560 strength by connecting keratin filaments, and that is now known 0:09:44.600 --> 0:09:49.199 as Huxley's Layer. We will talk about Huxley's next somewhat 0:09:49.240 --> 0:09:52.600 surprising career move after we pause for a sponsor break. 0:10:02.320 --> 0:10:06.760 In eighteen forty six, Thomas Huxley joined the Royal Navy. 0:10:06.800 --> 0:10:09.920 This was, by his account, something one of his friends 0:10:10.000 --> 0:10:14.040 encouraged him to do so. He had graduated from medical school, 0:10:14.080 --> 0:10:16.480 but he was still too young to become a member 0:10:16.520 --> 0:10:19.920 of the College of Surgeons, and he needed some kind 0:10:19.960 --> 0:10:22.880 of income, so his friends suggested that he write to 0:10:22.960 --> 0:10:25.680 the Director General for the Medical Service of the Navy, 0:10:25.960 --> 0:10:29.400 Sir William Burnett. And Huxley actually thought this was way 0:10:29.400 --> 0:10:32.040 too forward, but he was desperate enough that he did 0:10:32.040 --> 0:10:36.000 it anyway, and to his surprise, Burnett asked him to meet, 0:10:36.240 --> 0:10:39.560 and after a brief interview, Huxley was in the Navy 0:10:40.240 --> 0:10:42.800 because of his medical background. He was assigned first to 0:10:42.800 --> 0:10:46.400 Haslar Hospital and then several months later to the HMS 0:10:46.520 --> 0:10:51.120 Rattlesnake as the ship's assistant surgeon. The Rattlesnake had orders 0:10:51.160 --> 0:10:54.000 to embark on a multi year mission to the South Pacific. 0:10:54.760 --> 0:10:59.079 Huxley describes this time on this journey as exceptionally rough, 0:10:59.480 --> 0:11:01.520 but he also he said it was really good for him, 0:11:01.559 --> 0:11:04.120 stating quote, it was good for me to live under 0:11:04.160 --> 0:11:07.479 sharp discipline, to be down on the realities of existence 0:11:07.520 --> 0:11:11.360 by living on bare necessities, to find out how extremely 0:11:11.440 --> 0:11:14.000 well worth living life seemed to be when one woke 0:11:14.120 --> 0:11:17.000 up from a night's rest on a soft plank, with 0:11:17.080 --> 0:11:20.520 the sky for canopy and cocoa, and weevily biscuit the 0:11:20.600 --> 0:11:24.760 soul prospect for breakfast, and more especially to learn to 0:11:24.800 --> 0:11:27.080 work for the sake of what I got for myself 0:11:27.120 --> 0:11:29.360 out of it, even if it all went to the 0:11:29.360 --> 0:11:33.040 bottom and I along with it. The Rattlesnake was on 0:11:33.080 --> 0:11:36.840 a surveying mission, and in addition to fulfilling his daily 0:11:36.960 --> 0:11:40.760 work duties, Huxley took on a side project. He studied 0:11:40.880 --> 0:11:45.040 sea anemones and jellyfish throughout the voyage, and he compiled 0:11:45.040 --> 0:11:47.200 his findings into a paper that he sent to the 0:11:47.240 --> 0:11:49.280 Royal Society in eighteen forty nine. 0:11:49.720 --> 0:11:51.120 That paper was titled on. 0:11:51.240 --> 0:11:55.200 The Anatomy and the Affinities of the Family of the Medusa, 0:11:56.160 --> 0:11:59.440 but he never heard anything back from the Society. Upon 0:11:59.480 --> 0:12:02.160 his return to London in eighteen fifty he was very 0:12:02.200 --> 0:12:05.400 surprised to learn that his paper had been received, published 0:12:05.440 --> 0:12:09.920 and lauded by the scientific community. Huxley also came home 0:12:10.000 --> 0:12:13.000 an engaged man. While he was on that journey, he 0:12:13.080 --> 0:12:16.000 met a young woman while the ship was docked in Sydney, Australia. 0:12:16.360 --> 0:12:20.000 Her name was Henrietta Ann Heathorne. The two of them 0:12:20.000 --> 0:12:22.560 fell in love and they agreed to be married. But 0:12:22.760 --> 0:12:25.360 when the ship left, it wasn't like Henrietta could just 0:12:25.520 --> 0:12:28.800 go with them, so she agreed to wait for Thomas 0:12:28.880 --> 0:12:31.680 in Sydney until the time came that they could be together. 0:12:32.480 --> 0:12:36.439 In eighteen fifty one, because of his paper on anemones 0:12:36.520 --> 0:12:40.240 and other critters, Huxley became a Fellow of the Royal Society. 0:12:40.800 --> 0:12:43.040 He continued his naval career for a while, but he 0:12:43.120 --> 0:12:47.000 was also always working on his own research projects. A 0:12:47.080 --> 0:12:49.680 year after he became a fellow, he submitted a paper 0:12:49.840 --> 0:12:52.679 on invertebrate animals, and he won a gold medal for it. 0:12:53.240 --> 0:12:56.959 Huxley had a couple of factors leading him away from 0:12:56.960 --> 0:13:00.880 his military career in the early eighteen fifties. For one, 0:13:00.920 --> 0:13:04.120 he was feeling ready to transition into research being his 0:13:04.160 --> 0:13:08.240 full time occupation. For another, there were arguments between the 0:13:08.320 --> 0:13:12.240 Admiralty and the scientific community about whether the Navy should 0:13:12.280 --> 0:13:15.200 pay for some of the printing costs of Huxley's work. 0:13:16.000 --> 0:13:17.640 That was not out of the blue. 0:13:17.679 --> 0:13:20.880 The military had made promises that they would support and 0:13:21.000 --> 0:13:25.440 encourage officers doing scientific work, but after several years of 0:13:25.520 --> 0:13:29.120 back and forth, the Navy, according to Huxley quote cut 0:13:29.240 --> 0:13:32.000 short the discussion by ordering me to join a ship, 0:13:32.400 --> 0:13:35.600 which thing I declined to do. So he was on 0:13:35.679 --> 0:13:38.360 his own in London without a job, and if he 0:13:38.400 --> 0:13:40.760 had been born into a wealthy family, this is the 0:13:40.760 --> 0:13:42.439 point where he could have just set up his own 0:13:42.520 --> 0:13:45.720 lab and dedicated himself to research while living off the 0:13:45.760 --> 0:13:48.280 family fortune. A lot of people we've talked about on 0:13:48.320 --> 0:13:51.640 the show have done just that, but Huxley needed a job, 0:13:51.720 --> 0:13:54.120 and leaving the stability of the Navy was actually a 0:13:54.160 --> 0:13:58.000 pretty risky move. But he didn't only want to fund 0:13:58.040 --> 0:14:01.559 his research. He also wanted to make enough money that 0:14:01.679 --> 0:14:04.680 he could send for Henrietta and bring her to London 0:14:04.760 --> 0:14:05.840 so that they could start. 0:14:05.600 --> 0:14:06.400 A life together. 0:14:07.120 --> 0:14:10.120 Huxley had already made a name for himself, and because 0:14:10.160 --> 0:14:14.199 of that name, he landed two jobs. One was as 0:14:14.240 --> 0:14:18.120 a curator at the Museum of practical geography. The other 0:14:18.360 --> 0:14:21.640 was a professor position at the Royal School of Mines, 0:14:21.800 --> 0:14:26.840 where he was to teach paleontology and natural history. This 0:14:27.120 --> 0:14:29.800 was not a job he actually wanted because he was 0:14:29.840 --> 0:14:34.160 not an expert at paleontology, so he accepted the job provisionally. 0:14:34.880 --> 0:14:37.520 He wrote that he told his new employer quote that 0:14:37.640 --> 0:14:40.320 I did not care for fossils, and that I should 0:14:40.360 --> 0:14:42.840 give up natural history as soon as I could get 0:14:42.880 --> 0:14:46.080 a physiological post. But I held the office for thirty 0:14:46.080 --> 0:14:48.360 one years, and a large part of my work has 0:14:48.400 --> 0:14:53.880 been paleontological. Neither of Huxley's new positions was especially high paying, 0:14:54.000 --> 0:14:56.960 but the two combined meant that he could finally send 0:14:56.960 --> 0:15:00.800 for Henrietta, and they got married in eighteen fifty five. Yeah, 0:15:00.800 --> 0:15:04.080 they were, by all accounts, very very happy together. In 0:15:04.120 --> 0:15:08.640 his thirties, Huxley committed himself fully to promoting the new 0:15:08.720 --> 0:15:12.480 ideas arising in science, and this often meant that he 0:15:12.600 --> 0:15:15.720 was at odds with the establishment, because so much of 0:15:15.840 --> 0:15:19.320 thought and culture in Britain, Europe and the US was 0:15:19.360 --> 0:15:22.520 built around biblical ideology, and a lot of the emerging 0:15:22.560 --> 0:15:26.000 science was very counter to that. This was a period 0:15:26.040 --> 0:15:29.120 of time when scientists were really focusing on the origin 0:15:29.160 --> 0:15:32.560 of humans, which even today gets people riled up sometimes, 0:15:32.600 --> 0:15:35.520 so you can imagine how contentious it could be for 0:15:35.560 --> 0:15:39.960 an idea like evolution to be introduced in nineteenth century England. 0:15:40.680 --> 0:15:44.360 But though Huxley was eager to understand where human life began, 0:15:45.040 --> 0:15:48.640 that didn't mean that he supported all scientific ideas that 0:15:48.720 --> 0:15:53.520 explored that topic. In eighteen oh nine, French naturalist Jean 0:15:53.600 --> 0:15:58.720 Baptiste Lamarque had published a book titled Philosophy Zoologice. That 0:15:58.760 --> 0:16:02.160 book built on work that Lamarck had been doing for years, 0:16:02.360 --> 0:16:05.720 and it laid out the origin of life as having 0:16:05.760 --> 0:16:09.320 been the result of spontaneous generation with regards to the 0:16:09.320 --> 0:16:13.160 simplest forms of life, and then suggested that two drivers 0:16:13.240 --> 0:16:16.720 led to more complex forms of life. One was what 0:16:16.800 --> 0:16:20.000 he called the power of life, which he described as 0:16:20.000 --> 0:16:24.480 a natural progression toward increased complexity. The other was an 0:16:24.560 --> 0:16:28.560 environmental effect. The needs of an organism's environment would cause 0:16:28.680 --> 0:16:33.440 them to adopt various behaviors for survival, and those behaviors 0:16:33.480 --> 0:16:37.000 would change their bodies, and those changes would be inherited 0:16:37.000 --> 0:16:40.400 by their offspring. The classic example that he used for 0:16:40.480 --> 0:16:43.440 this was giraffes. He made the case that as they 0:16:43.520 --> 0:16:46.920 stretched to reach high leaves in trees for food, their 0:16:46.960 --> 0:16:52.120 necks elongated, and that that elongation made it into subsequent generations. 0:16:52.840 --> 0:16:56.200 Of course that was incorrect, but it was the beginning 0:16:56.280 --> 0:17:02.520 of scientific discourse about evolution, and writing several decades later 0:17:02.560 --> 0:17:05.800 about it, thought that Lamark had some really interesting ideas, 0:17:06.200 --> 0:17:08.920 but that he was not correct in his assessment, and 0:17:09.000 --> 0:17:11.200 that he had made some leaps that were not really 0:17:11.240 --> 0:17:15.160 supported by any kind of scientific evidence. He wrote, quote 0:17:15.280 --> 0:17:19.200 Lamarck sagacious, as many of his views were mingled them 0:17:19.240 --> 0:17:22.240 with so much that was crude and even absurd, as 0:17:22.280 --> 0:17:25.760 to neutralize the benefit which his originality might have affected 0:17:26.119 --> 0:17:29.719 had he been a more sober and cautious thinker. In 0:17:29.840 --> 0:17:34.320 eighteen forty four, Robert Chambers published a book titled Vestiges 0:17:34.400 --> 0:17:38.480 of the Natural History of Creation. No one knew that 0:17:38.560 --> 0:17:41.879 it was Chambers who wrote it. The book was published anonymously, 0:17:42.119 --> 0:17:45.360 and Chambers, who was a Scottish publisher, was not revealed 0:17:45.400 --> 0:17:48.600 to be the author until forty years later. He had 0:17:48.600 --> 0:17:51.120 withheld his name because he knew it would be controversial 0:17:51.520 --> 0:17:54.960 and he didn't want the potential fearer to destroy his livelihood. 0:17:55.720 --> 0:17:58.480 He was really correct to be worried about this. This 0:17:58.640 --> 0:18:00.960 was not a case where he was scientists who had 0:18:00.960 --> 0:18:04.399 discovered something so new that it would break people's understanding 0:18:04.400 --> 0:18:07.359 of the world. He was parroting things that a bunch 0:18:07.359 --> 0:18:10.640 of other people had claimed and kind of combining them 0:18:10.680 --> 0:18:14.040 into one scientific history of the world from the beginning 0:18:14.080 --> 0:18:15.560 to the point where humans appeared. 0:18:16.160 --> 0:18:18.040 And the work repeated a lot. 0:18:17.840 --> 0:18:21.280 Of things that the scientific community had already dismissed as 0:18:21.400 --> 0:18:23.800 incorrect and in some cases even silly. 0:18:24.200 --> 0:18:25.679 Yeah, it was like he did no vetting. 0:18:26.720 --> 0:18:29.040 He read the internet and said I did my research, 0:18:29.119 --> 0:18:31.080 and he wrote one big paper about it, and then 0:18:31.160 --> 0:18:33.920 everyone was like, oh my dude, that's not it. 0:18:34.160 --> 0:18:34.919 No, nope. 0:18:35.040 --> 0:18:39.639 Uh. Huxley's writing about this work is frequently described as scathing. 0:18:40.040 --> 0:18:43.199 Scathing is the word almost everyone uses, and that is 0:18:43.600 --> 0:18:46.960 really pretty accurate. He wrote, quote, we grudged no man 0:18:47.040 --> 0:18:50.240 either the glory or the prophet to be obtained from Charlotteanery. 0:18:50.720 --> 0:18:52.919 And we can hardly expect that those who are so 0:18:53.080 --> 0:18:56.200 ignorant of science as to be misled by the vestiges 0:18:56.520 --> 0:18:58.800 will read what we have to say upon the subject. 0:18:59.320 --> 0:19:02.960 But a book like a weed acquire an importance by 0:19:03.040 --> 0:19:06.000 neglect which it could have attained in no other mode. 0:19:06.400 --> 0:19:10.480 And therefore it becomes our somewhat unpleasant duty to devote 0:19:10.480 --> 0:19:13.119 a few of our pages to an examination of some 0:19:13.240 --> 0:19:16.480 of the leading points of this once attractive and still 0:19:16.520 --> 0:19:20.720 notorious work of fiction. Indeed, we feel the more called 0:19:20.800 --> 0:19:24.399 upon to undertake this criticism at present, since, as we 0:19:24.480 --> 0:19:28.520 shall see, the vestigiarian has bolstered up his case by 0:19:28.560 --> 0:19:32.520 the use of names and authorities which were justifiable might 0:19:32.560 --> 0:19:35.959 give a certain value to his statements. But then, in 0:19:36.000 --> 0:19:40.040 eighteen fifty nine, Charles Darwin published On the Origin of Species, 0:19:40.119 --> 0:19:43.760 which changed science forever, and it became a pivotal work 0:19:43.800 --> 0:19:48.080 in Huxley's life and career. Unlike the Lamarck and Chambers 0:19:48.160 --> 0:19:53.000 writing on evolution, Darwin's work captured Huxley's attention, and that 0:19:53.119 --> 0:19:56.480 started before it was ever published. Darwin had brought the 0:19:56.520 --> 0:19:59.439 work to Huxley for review before it went to print, 0:19:59.760 --> 0:20:02.800 and Huxley had made an in depth study of the manuscript. 0:20:03.359 --> 0:20:06.840 Andy felt that the reasoning and science of natural selection 0:20:06.960 --> 0:20:11.440 as outlined in Darwin's work really stood up the reason 0:20:11.440 --> 0:20:14.720 why Huxley got the nickname of Darwin's bulldog was because 0:20:14.720 --> 0:20:18.960 he was comfortable embracing the conflict around this controversial writing 0:20:18.960 --> 0:20:20.800 and just towing up with the detractors. 0:20:21.359 --> 0:20:23.680 But Darwin was not Yeah. 0:20:23.680 --> 0:20:25.119 It was like Darwin was like, I don't want to 0:20:25.119 --> 0:20:27.200 fight about this, and Huxley was like, oh, I will 0:20:27.240 --> 0:20:30.800 bring it off. We are going to talk about some 0:20:30.920 --> 0:20:33.399 of these debates after we hear from the sponsors that 0:20:33.520 --> 0:20:45.960 keep stuff you missed in history class going. Huxley got 0:20:46.000 --> 0:20:49.280 into a lot of public debates about Darwin's writing, and 0:20:49.359 --> 0:20:52.399 the most famous of those was a formal debate staged 0:20:52.440 --> 0:20:56.080 at Oxford University on June thirtieth, eighteen sixty. It has 0:20:56.119 --> 0:20:59.199 actually come to be known as the Great Debate, and 0:20:59.240 --> 0:21:02.119 this event was part of the ceremony to open the 0:21:02.200 --> 0:21:06.840 new University Museum, and it pitted Huxley against Samuel Wilberforce, 0:21:07.160 --> 0:21:10.960 who is the Bishop of Oxford. Wilberforce was a fellow 0:21:11.000 --> 0:21:13.520 of the Royal Society in addition to being a leader 0:21:13.520 --> 0:21:15.760 in the Anglican Church, so it wasn't like he didn't 0:21:15.800 --> 0:21:19.000 know about talking about science. He was a very strong 0:21:19.040 --> 0:21:22.760 public speaker and he was there to defend creation as 0:21:22.760 --> 0:21:25.840 it is portrayed in the Bible as the true origin 0:21:25.880 --> 0:21:30.239 of man. There is actually no full detailed account of 0:21:30.280 --> 0:21:33.440 how the debate played out that evening. I sure wish 0:21:33.520 --> 0:21:35.120 there were, and I know I'm not the only one, 0:21:36.080 --> 0:21:38.359 But there is a moment that has lived on in 0:21:38.400 --> 0:21:41.520 accounts of the debate and has been told by many people. 0:21:41.960 --> 0:21:43.480 It was written about by a lot of people that 0:21:43.480 --> 0:21:47.080 were there. And this moment is one in which Wilberforce 0:21:48.600 --> 0:21:51.920 tries to throw the theory of evolution in Huxley's face 0:21:52.000 --> 0:21:54.960 by suggesting that if he believes this, that means he 0:21:55.040 --> 0:21:57.879 has to acknowledge that one of his forebears must have 0:21:57.960 --> 0:22:02.359 been an ape. And Huxley Famesley replied, quote, if then 0:22:02.440 --> 0:22:04.480 the question is put to me whether I would rather 0:22:04.560 --> 0:22:07.400 have a miserable ape for a grandfather, or a man 0:22:07.840 --> 0:22:11.200 highly endowed by nature and possessed of great means of influence, 0:22:11.560 --> 0:22:15.199 and yet employs these faculties and that influence for the 0:22:15.240 --> 0:22:19.920 purpose of introducing ridicule into a grave scientific discussion. I 0:22:20.040 --> 0:22:25.000 unhesitatingly affirm my preference for the ape. You'll see other 0:22:25.080 --> 0:22:27.960 variations of that sentiment that are written a little bit differently, 0:22:28.000 --> 0:22:33.199 because again we're getting them through everybody's secondhand accounts, but 0:22:33.560 --> 0:22:35.960 they all say essentially the same thing, like they're very 0:22:35.960 --> 0:22:39.320 pro ape. The room where that debate took place and 0:22:39.320 --> 0:22:42.480 where Wilberforce is recognized as having kind of gotten the 0:22:42.520 --> 0:22:45.879 SmackDown is known as the Huxley Room today, and it 0:22:45.920 --> 0:22:50.359 houses more than one million insect specimens. Huxley's story and 0:22:50.440 --> 0:22:53.359 his writing also offer up an opportunity to sort of 0:22:53.400 --> 0:22:57.520 set the record straight regarding humanity's place and the order 0:22:57.560 --> 0:23:01.280 of things and what Darwin did and didn't say about it. 0:23:02.080 --> 0:23:05.400 A lot of people who argue against the idea that 0:23:05.560 --> 0:23:09.560 humanity and apes share a common ancestor kind of blame 0:23:09.880 --> 0:23:13.480 that idea on Darwin, when it was really Huxley who 0:23:13.520 --> 0:23:17.399 went hard on it. Darwin's writing on the origin of 0:23:17.440 --> 0:23:21.080 species did not ever make the leap to saying anything 0:23:21.760 --> 0:23:25.600 about the humans and this discussion of various species having 0:23:25.600 --> 0:23:29.840 common ancestors. He literally puts off the question, including it 0:23:29.880 --> 0:23:33.399 as an example of something that will likely be researched later. 0:23:34.280 --> 0:23:37.639 He states quote in the distant future, I see open 0:23:37.760 --> 0:23:42.200 fields for far more important researches. Psychology will be based 0:23:42.200 --> 0:23:45.320 on a new foundation that of the necessary acquirement of 0:23:45.359 --> 0:23:49.560 each mental power and capacity by gradation, light will be 0:23:49.640 --> 0:23:52.600 thrown on the origin of man and his history. 0:23:53.600 --> 0:23:56.000