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Lyell’ın, Lamarck’ın Evrim Kuramını Eleştirisinin Bir Değerlendirmesi

Lamarck’ın kuramı, Darwin’in kuramından önceki en kapsamlı evrim kuramıdır. Fakat maddeciliği, bazı konulara yaklaşımının fazlasıyla spekülatif olması ve dönemin aydınları tarafından iyi bilinmemesi nedeniyle Lamarck’ın kuramı çağdaşlarının pek çoğu tarafından ne destek gördü ne de yeterince dikkate alındı. Ancak Lyell bu açıdan bir istisna sayılabilir çünkü Jeolojinin İlkeleri adlı kitabının ikinci cildinin bazı bölümlerini Lamarck’ın kuramına ayırmış ve onu Darwin dâhil tüm Britanyalı doğa bilimcilere tanıtmıştır. Bu yazıda ben önce Lamarck’ın kuramını ve Lyell’ın eleştirilerini gözden geçiriyorum. Sonra da, her ne kadar Lyell’ın eleştirel incelemesinin, genel olarak adil bir değerlendirme olsa da bazı noktalarda Lamarck’ın kuramına karşı, Lyell’ın sandığı kadar etkili olmadığını göstermeye çalışıyorum.

An Evaluation of Lyell’s Critisizm of Lamarck’s Theory of Evolution

Lamarck’s theory is the single most comprehensive theory of evolution before Darwin’s theory. However, it was neither persuaded nor even entertained by most of his contemporaries, due probably to its materialism, speculative character, and failure to be publicized well among intellectuals. Lyell seems to be the only exception who dedicated several chapters of the second volume of his Principles of Geology to Lamarck’s theory and introduced it to British naturalists including Darwin. In this paper I review both Lamarck’s theory and Lyell’s criticism and then argue that although Lyell’s critical examination of Lamarck’s theory is, in general, a fair treatment of this theory, there are certain cases in which Lyell’s arguments are not as persuasive as he thought them to be.

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