7. The 1860 debate over evolution at Oxford
Seven months after the publication of On the Origin of Species the British Association (a society and charity) held its annual meeting at Oxford. Charles Darwin was not present. Thomas Huxley was, as were Richard Owen, Samuel Wilberforce, and several others on both sides of the debate over evolution and natural selection. The main argument against Darwin had by then devolved into whether humanity had, through the process of natural selection and transmutation of species, descended from the same source as the apes. Though many opponents to Darwin accepted the theory of evolution (including Owen), they denied that humanity had been part of the process.
The debate was not a formal debate, but an argument which arose out of a discussion over a paper presented by John Draper of New York University, which discussed Darwin’s impact on Europe. The debate has often been presented as having been a victory of science over religion, though it was not. Most famously, Huxley responded to a question from Wilberforce, over whether he minded his grandmother being descended from a monkey with a retort. He said that he would not be ashamed to be descended from a monkey, but that he, “would be ashamed to be connected to a man who used great gifts to obscure a truth”.
