A writer for both the New York Times Magazine and the Scientific American Mind, David Dobbs spoke at the DUJS seminar event last Thursday about the precedent that Darwin established between deductive and inductive reasoning through his theory on coral reef formation.
Dobbs described Darwin’s upbringing and adolescent character as largely unfocused, which is in stark contrast to the scientific icon that Darwin has become. According to Dobbs, the young Darwin spent most of his time at his uncle Josiah’s estate, where he practiced his only real passion: hunting.
The first scientific pursuit that sparked any interest in Darwin was the geology research of Charles Lyell. Lyell’s theory, that gradual force, rather than monolithic changes impacted the geological landscape, was an approach that contradicted the religious influences that typified science before the late 19th century.
Because of Lyell’s groundbreaking research, geology, rather than zoology, was the prevailing focus of Darwin’s trip on the HMS Beagle.
Fortuitously, while Darwin was in the Andes Mountains during his research expedition, a massive earthquake hit Chile. This quake caused the Andes to rise a yard out the ocean exposing animals that were previously submerged.
Dobbs described the impact that this quake had on Darwin in terms of confirming both his avid interest in geology and his conviction in regards to the theories of Lyell.
It was at this point in Darwin’s career as a scientist that coral first became a question. He concluded that if the mountains were rising, then part of the Pacific Ocean must have been dropping.
Darwin’s answer to the question of a dropping pacific ocean was related to the tips of the coral islands that he could see just barely peaking above the surface of the water. He deduced that as the landmass of an island gradually sinks via tectonic activity, coral grows and eventually constitutes the majority of an island’s mass.
Dobbs described the introduction of this theory to the scientific community, and Darwin’s subsequent induction into the geological society, as occasions of extreme accomplishment to Darwin. In fact Darwin was quoted as saying that “no other theory gave him so much pleasure.”
Darwin’s next puzzle, however, proved to be a major disappointment.
He suggested that the “parallel roads” that crisscrossed the hills of Scotland, which had long been a geological mystery, were a result of Lyell’s theory of “uplift.” Despite the initial acceptance and praise of this proposal, another geologist named Louis Agassiz soon brought crippling evidence overlooked by Darwin to the fore.
This failure, according to Dobbs, marked a significant turning point in Darwin’s scientific method, because it provided an example of the “story-telling” tendencies of early scientific endeavors.
When Alex Agassiz, who was the son of the geologist who had disproved the uplift theory, embarked on a worldwide journey to debunk Darwin’s coral theory it looked as though his extensive use of empirical evidence would eventually unseat Darwin once again.
However, Alex died after years of collecting massive amounts of data. It was not until modern drilling was implemented that Darwin’s coral theory was proven right.
Thus, the importance of the coral theory is not simply in its accurate depiction of reality, but also in that it creates a balance between the idealism of deductive reasoning and the inconclusiveness of inductive reasoning.