In fact, we may distinguish five theories that Darwin combined: evolution as such, common descent, gradualism, multiplication of species, and natural selection. 198), there is no single Darwinian theory of evolution. This apparently easy solution is not uncontroversial. It is possible to consider Darwinism merely as Darwin’s theory. At this point, it is not irrelevant to rethink the meaning and scope of what we term Darwinism. Obviously, the influence of Darwinian ideas on several scientific proposals about the origin of life during the late nineteenth century and afterwards is quite another matter. In fact, he explicitly eluded public discussion about the origin of life because he considered that science was unable to answer this question correctly at that time (Mayr 1982, p. We know that Darwin’s interest in the origin of life was never a central concern within his theoretical framework. In any case, the mid-nineteenth century was characterized by a waning popularity of the theory, and this was the context experienced by Charles Darwin. 43–45) finds idiosyncratic theological reasons for this position. Opposed to these trends, British naturalists and philosophers were generally hard opponents of spontaneous generation. In any case, he took a discreet but real interest in the matter, despite all his doubts. His ideas on chemistry hindered an open acceptance of the transformation of mineral substances into living ones (Tirard 2006).
Certainly, Lamarck hesitated about the problem of the origin of life. But it could also represent the “primordial start” of the history of life on Earth.
This spontaneous generation must be seen as the beginning of each series of organisms, which are generated by the inner directive forces of transformation. In France, Jean-Baptiste Lamarck (1744–1829) suggested that the starting point of the continuous transformative process of living beings was just a phenomenon of spontaneous generation (Lamarck 1986). Even though this idea is not exactly a hypothesis about the origin of life, it is an obvious option when considering the distant roots of life. In 1804, in a letter to a friend, he explained that certain geological changes would produce some organic bodies (Richards 2002, pp. 31–39)-we find the proposal by Carl Friedrich Kielmeyer (1765–1844), who posed a parallel between the developmental aspects of Earth’s history, the series of organic forms and individual development, united under a common causal force. In the German cultural world-very given to recognizing such spontaneous generation (Farley 1977, pp. Before Charles Darwin, some evolutionary systems had already incorporated a postulate of restricted spontaneous generation that could potentially explain the mystery of the origin of life without direct divine causation. Historically, ideas on the origins of life have been mingled with the emergence of a generalized evolutionary account. The search for a theory on the origin of life is a major issue in contemporary evolutionary biology, presenting both a philosophical (Griesemer 2008) and educational challenge (Lazcano and Peretó 2010). By recognizing the shift in the features characterizing Darwinism, we can understand its relationship with theories on the origin of life in a non-dogmatic line. We propose that Darwinism represents a genuine example of an adaptive scientific framework.
At the turn of the twentieth century, some authors adopted non-Darwinian views on the origin of life, exemplified in this paper by the neovitalism of some Catholic scientists. The scientific study of the origin of life, established in the 1920s, required abandoning the idea of a unique chance event and considering a view of life emerging as the result of a long evolutionary process. Nevertheless, Pasteur’s experiments were a major obstacle for scientific acceptance of the sudden emergence of life.
Some of his followers adopted this materialistic position and advocated some sort of spontaneous generation in the distant past. Darwin avoided discussing the origin of the very first species in public although he acknowledged the possibility that life originated by natural causes. Historically, ideas on the origins of life have been mingled with evolutionary explanations.