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Reviews• Missing Some of Darwin's Brilliance Darwin on Man: a Psychological Study of Scientific Creativity Nature Vol. 253 February 6 1975 483 reviews• Missing some of Darwin's brilliance Darwin on Man: A Psychological Study of Scientific Creativity. By Howard E. Gruber. (Together with Darwin's early and unpublished notebooks, transcribed and annotated by Paul H. Barrett.) pp. xxv+495. (Wildwood House: London, September 1974.) £5.00. HOWARD E. GRUBER and Paul H. Barrett have produced a book which they hope will elucidate the roots of Charles Darwin's achievement. They believe that the six notebooks which Darwin kept in the years 1837-39 con­ tain crucial evidence for an analysis of his scientific creativity. Sir Gavin de Beer and his collaborators have already published the four notebooks on the transmutation of species. The Gruber­ Barrett volume now presents for the first time a complete transcription of Darwin's two notebooks (designated Charles Darwin: spent his life refining the original theory M and N) on man, mind, and materialism, along with several of his that Darwin's materialism is evident in recreate Darwin's creativity from these other unpublished contemporary docu­ these notebooks, and that he delayed notebooks is terribly difficult. ments on the same subjects. They also pu blication of his conception of evo­ To simplify matters, Gruber expli­ reprint some crucial passages from pre­ lution by natural selection because he citly ignores Darwin's ideas about viously published documents, primarily feared persecution and ridicule for his heredity, a serious omission which he the notebooks on transmutation of materialism. acknowledges. He then proceeds, like species. Barrett transcribed the manu­ Gruber's thesis that Darwin's a classical scholar working on Anaxi­ script materials and has provided creation of the theory of evolution by mander's one fragment, to make much detailed bibliographic notes, which are natural selection was a gradual and of little. He finds in Darwin's notebooks supplemented by Gruber's useful com­ cumulative process is convincing. But an "underlying order" which com­ mentaries summarising both the M and scientific creativity is elusive, and the pletely escapes me. In constructing N notebooks. details of Gruber's analysis are fraught logical systems out of Darwin's specu­ Gruber's primary contribution to the with difficulties. His chapters on the lations, he is led into contradictions. volume is a 257 page analysis of Dar­ Darwin family Weltanschaung and For example, Gruber argues that win's scientific creativity, in which the Darwin's teachers contain precious Darwin's brief mention of "monads" M and N notebooks play a prominent little evidence about actual influences is really a whole theory of evolution, role. Gruber presents two major theses. upon Darwin himself. The crucial and that the "monad theory contains He first argues that Darwin's invention evidence about his scientific creativity the principle of spontaneous genera­ of the theory of evolution by natural comes from the notebooks. Yet what tion". Later, Gruber argues that selection between 1837 and 1839 was are these notebooks? They contain Darwin gave up the theory of sponta­ not the result of a "golden moment of Darwin's hurriedly written impres­ neous generation, influenced by Ehren­ insight", but was instead the culmina­ sionistic speculations, including his berg's claim that extant lower tion of a gradual process involving gleanings from other literature mixed organisms were identical with fossil many levels of thought. This illustrates indistinguishably with his own ideas. forms. The problem with this scenario the belief of Gruber (and Jean Piaget, Many of the passages, especially in the is that Ehrenberg is mentioned in the who wrote a laudatory foreword to the M and N notebooks, are unclear or con­ very first passage of Darwin's supposed book) that creativity is generally a tradictory. We have no way of knowing 'monad theory'. So although Gruber's more gradual process than most people which passages Darwin considered im­ thesis about the gradual nature of realise. His second thesis is that the portant or trivial at the time that he Darwin's creativity is reasonable, the M and N notebooks hold "the key to wrote them. We can, however, agree details of his creative process remain understanding the essential role of his with Darwin's later assessment that obscure. ideas about man and mind in his think­ much in the notebooks is trivial or Gruber's second thesis, that the M ing about evolution". Gruber concludes worthless, even for the historian. To and N notebooks and associated docu- © 1975 Nature Publishing Group 484 Nature Vol. 253 February 6 1975 ments contain much about Darwin's behaviour which is utterly unpredict­ views on man, mind, and materialism able from a consideration of the special Elementary world in relation to evolution, is certainly laws governing the individual orga­ true. Indeed, the major significance of nisms. A human has, in addition, an climatology this book lies in showing that at a very internal unpredictable creativity re­ World Climatolo.gy. By John G. Lock­ early stage Darwin understood that his sulting from the interaction of the wood. Pp. xiv + 330. (Arnold: London, idea of evolution by natural selection separate parts of his thought, each of March 1974.) £8.50. had vast materialist implications for whi~h has a life of its own. So in the human evolution and psychology. end the reader discovers that in his THE study of climatic change and its Yet Gruber's conclusion that Darwin analysis of Darwin's creativity, Gruber effect on the environment is one of put off publication of his ideas is conducting the inquiry under the the most important branches of primarily from fear of persecution and assumption that the creative process is modern scicnce, in terms of the poten­ ridicule for his materialist ideas is inherently inscrutable. Darwin spent his tial direct effects on the lives of non­ drawn from shaky evidence. Gruher life reducing complex biological be­ scientists. As a result of developments even resorts to interpreting a dream haviour to materialist laws. He intensely in several fields including studies of briefly reported by Darwin, and argues disliked Wallace's mysticism about the Earth's magnetic field and that a photograph of Darwin taken in human minds, and he would have been astronomy, as well as the more con­ 1854 reveals "the strain of long years appallcd to have Gruber's vitalistic ventional aspects of meteorology of delay". theory applied to himself. (which now include use of satellite A different interpretation is possible. Does this book as a whole open up a observations and high speed com­ Darwin had high standards for his fruitful field of Darwin research? I puters), a synthesis leading to an published work. He later commented hope not. By focusing almost entirely understanding of at least some aspects that he benefitted from the delay in upon Darwin's theory construction of of climatic change seems to be in the publishing his works on evolution 1837-39, the authors have missed the offing. As a result, many people who because he was able to gather better most important and influential part of have no formal training in meteorology evidence and think through possible Darwin's genius. As he himself be­ are working in areas where some de­ objections. Perhaps he was motivated lieved, Darwin is important not because tailed understanding of the working of not so much by fear of ridicule as a he outlined the theory of evolution by the atmosphere is essential. Those materialist, as by the feeling that his natural selection in the late 18305, but people would find this book invaluable. own standards of argument and evi­ because for the rest of his life he refined World Climatology is not concerned dence had not been attained. and supplemented the theory, found with climatic change at all, but with After giving the impression that he evidence for it, and presented it in the physical basis of climatology with admires Darwin's materialism, Gruber's enormously influential published works. particular reference to environmentally last chapter, "Creative Thought: The Michael Ghise1in's The Triumph of the important aspects. It is intended, says Work of Purposeful Beings", contains Darwinian Method (The University of the author "for students taking univer­ a surprise. His theory of creativity is California Press: Berkeley and sity courses on dimatology, parti­ vitalistic nonsense. It follows the tradi­ London, 1973) is a step in the right cularly those at an advanced level" and tion of Alfred Russel Wallace's direction, but the vast and important the reader is warned that an acquaint­ mysticism (after 1864) rather than problem of Darwin's influence through ance with basic concepts of meteoro­ Darwin's materialism. Gruber's theory his letters and published works in the logy, mathematics and physics is re­ i!. that each individual organism func­ second half of the nineteenth century quired. But these assumed basics are, tions "according to its own internal has scarcely been touched. The M and in fact, at the most elementary level, laws or organisation". When two N notebooks seem inconsequential in and the book introduces gently such organisms interact, the result IS comparison. William B. Provine concepts as the Stefan- Boltzmann law of black body radiation. The first part of the book deals with the basics of climatology: radiation laws, convection and turbulence, pre­ o cipitation and evaporation, and local microclimates (ranging down tu that at the surface of a plant leaf). The second and third parts apply these basics to the low latitude atmosphere and to the atmosphere of middle and high latitude regions. With a generous sprinkling of figures-one or more clear and informative line drawings on most pages-and well written text this makes the book ideally suited for its intended readership, but equaly valu­ able to anyone trying to fill in a know­ ledge of climatology which is sketchier than it should he.
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