In the 1830s the
Bridgewater Treatises were published "On the Power, Wisdom, and Goodness of God, as manifested in the Creation." They were popular and influential at the time. The third such essay was
Astronomy and General Physics by
William Whewell (1794-1866) whose name is pronounced "hew-el." If this work was published today, his arguments would seem to be a lame attempt to support creationism even to many creationists. Yet Whewell was not stupid, was not a fool, and was (for his time) very knowledgeable both in general and in the subject he was writing. His influence remains to this day. He coined the word "scientist" as well as "
hypothetico-deductive" and "
consilience." The latter-two terms being very important for understanding how modern scientists do what they do and why they think what they think.
His work was first published in 1833, but I am using the
1836 fifth edition via
Google Books. He thought that yearly cycles of plants and animals just so happening to match the orbital period of the Earth (and hence the seasons) required a designer:
But in the existing state of things, the duration of the earth's revolution round the sun, and the duration of the revolution of the vegetable functions of most plants are equal. These two periods are adjusted to each other....
Now such an adjustment must surely be accepted as a proof of design, exercised in the formation of the world. Why should the solar year be so long and no longer? or, this being of such a length, why should the vegetable cycle be exactly of the same length? Can this be chance? And this occurs, it is to be observed, not in one, or in a few species of plants, but in thousands....
He concluded that "There must be in their structure some reference to time" and asked "how did such a reference occur?" and "how was it determined to the particular time of the earth's revolution round the sun?" His answer was to invoke
William Paley's famous
watchmaker:
We are left therefore with this manifest adjustment before us, of two parts of the universe, at first sight so remote; the dimensions of the solar system and the powers of vegetable life. These two things are so related, that one has been made to fit the other. The relation is as clear as that of a watch to a sundial. If a person were to compare the watch with a dial, hour after hour, and day after day, it would be impossible for him not to believe that the watch had been contrived to accommodate itself to the solar day. We have at least ten thousand kinds of vegetable watches of the most various forms, which are all accommodated to the solar year; and the evidence of contrivance seems to be no more capable of being eluded in this case than in the other.
Today thanks to work of many scientists, but especially to Darwin, we know that we don't have to invoke either pure chance nor a designer to explain what would seemed to Whewell to otherwise be a monstrous coincidence.
Natural selection will do the job just fine—an organism the follows a twelve-month cycle will be far more likely to have descendants that themselves will successfully reproduce than an organism with an eleven-month cycle. If you don't understand how this would work I would recommend that you read
The Blind Watchmaker by Richard Dawkins.
Intelligent design proponents, the term used today for creationists who
don't want to be called creationists, are the modern holders of the flame of design though they jazz it up with terms like "
irreducible complexity" and tend to retreat from the easy to explain stuff like what Whewell discussed or even the
evolution of the eye. The would rather discuss the microscopic and biochemical details of life that are alien to most of their followers and
claim that science has found no explanation and thus via an
argument from ignorance conclude that it had to be God—whoops an intelligent designer. Many of the systems the discuss
can be explained by modern science. But even if it was not so, what reassurances can intelligent design proponents really give us that what they
claim can only be explained by a designer will not someday be readily and obviously explained as knowledge and understanding increases? Yes they imply the sheer improbability of some feature to back up their argument that is was not a matter of chance (as did Whewell) but always remember that evolution does not proceed by chance alone.
So people can have a better idea of how Whewell "proved" his designer I immediately below reproduce the full Whewell's entire Chapter II of Book I "The Length of the Year." It is not too long and can be quite easily read. I fixed some errors that Google's
optical character recognition made, put back in the italics, placed footnotes in brackets, and removed spaces in front of various punctuation marks. Those who want an even fuller context can read the
whole book at Google which includes Whewell's other such arguments like the length of the day, mass of the earth, how much ocean and atmosphere the Earth has, the nature of the Solar System, the law of gravity, etc.
The Length of the Year.
A Year is the most important and obvious of the periods which occur in the organic, and especially in the vegetable world. In this interval of time the cycle of most of the external influences which operate upon plants is completed. There is also in plants a cycle of internal functions, corresponding to this succession of external causes. The length of either of these periods might have been different from what it is, according to any grounds of necessity which we can perceive. But a certain length is selected in both instances, and in both instances the same. The length of the year is so determined as to be adapted to the constitution of most vegetables; or the construction of vegetables is so adjusted as to be suited to the length which the year really has, and unsuited to a duration longer or shorter by any considerable portion. The vegetable clock-work is so set as to go for a year.
The length of the year or interval of recurrence of the seasons is determined by the time which the earth employs in performing its revolution round the sun: and we can very easily conceive the solar system so adjusted that the year should be longer or shorter than it actually is. We can imagine the earth to revolve round the sun at a distance greater or less than that which it at present has, all the forces of the system remaining unaltered. If the earth were removed towards the centre by about one-eighth of its distance, the year would be diminished by about a month; and in the same manner it would be increased by a month on increasing the distance by one-eighth. We can suppose the earth at a distance of 84 or 108 millions of miles, just as easily as at its present distance of 96 millions: we can suppose the earth with its present stock of animals and vegetables placed where Mars or where Venus is, and revolving in an orbit like one of theirs: on the former supposition our year would become twenty-three, on the latter seven of our present months. Or we can conceive the present distances of the parts of the system to continue what they are, and the size, or the density of the central mass, the sun, to be increased or diminished in any proportion; and in this way the time of the earth's revolution might have been increased or diminished in any degree; a greater velocity, and consequently a diminished period, being requisite in order to balance an augmented central attraction. In any of these ways the length of the earth's natural year might have been different from what it now is: in the last way without any necessary alteration, so far as we can see, of temperature.
Now, if any change of this kind were to take place, the working of the botanical world would be thrown into utter disorder, the functions of plants would be entirely deranged, and the whole vegetable kingdom involved in instant decay and rapid extinction.
That this would be the case, may be collected from innumerable indications. Most of our fruit trees, for example, require the year to be of its present length. If the summer and the autumn were much shorter, the fruit could not ripen; if these seasons were much longer, the tree would put forth a fresh suit of blossoms, to be cut down by the winter. Or if the year were twice its present length, a second crop of fruit would probably not be matured, for want, among other things, of an intermediate season of rest and consolidation, such as the winter is. Our forest trees in like manner appear to need all the seasons of our present year for their perfection; the spring, summer, and autumn, for the developement of their leaves and consequent formation of their
proper juice, and of wood from this; and the winter for the hardening and solidifying the substance thus formed.
Most plants, indeed, have some peculiar function adapted to each period of the year, that is of the now existing year. The sap ascends with extraordinary copiousness at two seasons, in the spring and in the autumn, especially the former. The opening of the leaves and the opening of the flowers of the same plants are so constant to their times, (their
appointed times, as we are naturally led to call them,) that such occurrences might be taken as indications of the times of the year. It has been proposed in this way to select a series of botanical facts which should form a calendar; and this has been termed a
calendar of Flora. Thus, if we consider the time of putting forth leaves,* [* Loudon, Encyclopedia of Gardening, 848.] the honeysuckle protrudes them in the month of January; the gooseberry, currant, and elder in the end of February, or beginning of March; the willow, elm, and lime-tree in April; the oak and ash, which are always the latest among trees, in the beginning or towards the middle of May. In the same manner the flowering has its regular time: the mezereon and snow-drop push forth their flowers in February; the primrose in the month of March; the cowslip in April; the great mass of plants in May and June; many in July, August, and September; some not till the month of October, as the meadow saffron; and some not till the approach and arrival of winter, as the laurustinus and arbutus. The fact which we have here to notice, is the recurrence of these stages in the developement of plants, at intervals precisely or very nearly of twelve months. Undoubtedly, this result is in part occasioned by the action of external stimulants upon the plant, especially heat, and by the recurrence of the intensity of such agents. Accordingly, there are slight differences in the times of such occurrences, according to the backwardness or forwardness of the season, and according as the climate is genial or otherwise. Gardeners use artifices which will, to a certain extent, accelerate or retard the time of developement of a plant. But there are various circumstances which show that this recurrence of the same events and at equal intervals is not entirely owing to external causes, and that it depends also upon something in the internal structure of vegetables. Alpine plants do not wait for the stimulus of the sun's heat, but exert such a struggle to blossom, that their flowers are seen among the yet unmelted snow. And this is still more remarkable in the naturalization of plants from one hemisphere to the other. When we transplant our fruit trees to the temperate regions south of the equator, they continue for some years to flourish at the period which corresponds to our spring. The reverse of this obtains, with certain trees of the southern hemisphere. Plants from the Cape of Good Hope, and from Australia, countries whose summer is simultaneous with our winter, exhibit their flowers in the coldest part of the year, as the heaths.
This view of the subject agrees with that maintained by the best Botanical writers. Thus Decandolle observes that after making allowance for all meteorological causes, which determine the epoch of flowering, we must reckon as another cause the peculiar nature of each species. The flowering once determined, appears to be subject to a law of periodicity and habit.* [Decandolle. Physiologic. vol. ii. 478.]
It appears then that the functions of plants have by their nature a periodical character; and the length of the period thus belonging to vegetables is a result of their organization. Warmth and light, soil and moisture, may in some degree modify, and hasten or retard the stages of this period; but when the constraint is removed the natural period is again resumed. Such stimulants as we have mentioned are not the causes of this periodicity. They do not produce the varied functions of the plant, and could not occasion their performance at regular intervals, except the plant possessed a suitable construction. They could not alter the length of the cycle of vegetable functions, except within certain very narrow limits. The processes of the rising of the sap, of the formation of proper juices, of the unfolding of leaves, the opening of flowers, the fecundation of the fruit, the ripening of the seed, its proper deposition in order for the reproduction of a new plant;—all these operations require a certain portion of time, and could not be compressed into a space less than a year, or at least could not be abbreviated in any very great degree. And on the other had, if the winter were greatly longer than it now is, many seeds would not germinate at the return of spring. Seeds which have been kept too long require stimulants to make them fertile.
If therefore the duration of the seasons were much to change, the processes of vegetable life would be interrupted, deranged, distempered. What, for instance, would become of our calendar of Flora, if the year were lengthened or shortened by six months? Some of the dates would never arrive in the one case, and the vegetable processes which mark them would be superseded; some seasons would be without dates in the other case, and these periods would be employed in a way hurtful to the plants, and no doubt speedily destructive. We should have not only
a year of confusion, but, if it were repeated and continued, a year of death.
But in the existing state of things, the duration of the earth's revolution round the sun, and the duration of the revolution of the vegetable functions of most plants are equal. These two periods are
adjusted to each other. The stimulants which the elements apply come at such intervals and continue for such times, that the plant is supported in health and vigour, and enabled to reproduce its kind. Just such a portion of time is measured out for the vegetable powers to execute their task, as enables them to do so in the best manner.
Now such an adjustment must surely be accepted as a proof of design, exercised in the formation of the world. Why should the solar year be so long and no longer? or, this being of such a length, why should the vegetable cycle be exactly of the same length? Can this be chance? And this occurs, it is to be observed, not in one, or in a few species of plants, but in thousands. Take a small portion only of known species, as the most obviously endowed with this adjustment, and say ten thousand. How should all these organized bodies be constructed for the same period of a year. How should all these machines be wound up so as to go for the same time? Even allowing that they could bear a year of a month longer or shorter, how do they all come within such limits? No chance could produce such a result. And if not by chance, how otherwise could such a coincidence occur, than by an intentional adjustment of these two things to one another? by a selection of such an organization in plants, as would fit them to the earth on which they were to grow; by an adaptation of construction to conditions; of the scale of the construction to the scale of conditions.
It cannot be accepted as an explanation of this fact in the economy of plants, that it is necessary to their existence; that no plants could possibly have subsisted, and come down to us, except those which were thus suited to their place on the earth. This is true; but this does not at all remove the necessity of recurring to design as the origin of the construction by which the existence and continuance of plants is made possible. A watch could not go, except there were the most exact adjustment in the forms and positions of its wheels; yet no one would accept it as an explanation of the origin of such forms and positions, that the watch would not go if these were other than they are. If the objector were to suppose that plants were originally fitted to years of various lengths, and that such only have survived to the present time, as had a cycle of a length equal to our present year, or one which could be accommodated to it; we should reply, that the assumption is too gratuitous and extravagant to require much consideration; but that, moreover, it does not remove the difficulty. How came the functions of plants to be
periodical at all? Here is, in the first instance, an agreement in the form of the laws that prevail in the organic and in the inorganic world, which appears to us a clear evidence of design in their Author. And the same kind of reply might be made to any similar objection to our argument. Any supposition that the universe has gradually approximated to that state of harmony among the operations of its different parts, of which we have one instance in the coincidence now under consideration, would make it necessary for the objector to assume a previous state of things preparatory to this perfect correspondence. And in this preparatory condition we should still be able to trace the rudiments of that harmony, for which it was proposed to account: so that even the most unbounded license of hypothesis would enable the opponent to obliterate the traces of an intentional adaptation of one part of nature to another.
Nor would it at all affect the argument, if these periodical occurrences could be traced to some proximate cause: if for instance it could be shown, that the budding or flowering of plants is brought about at particular intervals, by the nutriment accumulated in their vessels during the preceding months. For the question would still remain, how their functions were so adjusted, that the accumulation of the nutriment necessary for budding and flowering, together with the operation itself, comes to occupy exactly a year, instead of a month only, or ten years. There must be in their structure some reference to time: how did such a reference occur? how was it determined to the particular time of the earth's revolution round the sun? This could be no otherwise, as we conceive, than by design and appointment.
We are left therefore with this manifest adjustment before us, of two parts of the universe, at first sight so remote; the dimensions of the solar system and the powers of vegetable life. These two things are so related, that one has been made to fit the other. The relation is as clear as that of a watch to a sundial. If a person were to compare the watch with a dial, hour after hour, and day after day, it would be impossible for him not to believe that the watch had been
contrived to accommodate itself to the solar day. We have at least ten thousand kinds of vegetable watches of the most various forms, which are all accommodated to the solar year; and the evidence of contrivance seems to be no more capable of being eluded in this case than in the other.
The same kind of argument might be applied to the animal creation. The pairing, nesting, hatching, fledging, and flight of birds, for instance, occupy each its peculiar time of the year; and, together with a proper period of rest, fill up the twelve months. The transformations of most insects have a similar reference to the seasons, their progress and duration. " In every species" (except man), says a writer* [Fleming. Zool. i. 400.] on animals, "there is a particular period of the year in which the reproductive system exercises its energies. And the season of love and the period of gestation are so arranged that the young ones are produced at the time wherein the conditions of temperature are most suited to the commencement of life." It is not our business here to consider the details of such provisions, beautiful and striking as they are. But the prevalence of the great law of periodicity in the vital functions of organized beings will be allowed to have a claim to be considered in its reference to astronomy, when it is seen that their periodical constitution derives its use from the periodical nature of the motions of the planets round the sun; and that the duration of such cycles in the existence of plants and animals has a reference to the arbitrary elements of the solar system: a reference which, we maintain, is inexplicable and unintelligible, except by admitting into our conceptions an intelligent Author, alike of the organic and inorganic universe.
Most perfect hat tip:
Michael Ruse.
