This scholarly dissertation by Andrew Sibley tells a story which has often been repeated the history of evolution, where actual fraud is perhaps not committed (although Haeckel was a proven fraud whose faked embryo drawings are still used as 'evidence' for evolution today) but a piece of supposed evidence is grossly overinterpreted by evolutionists who desperately WANT it to be true. It is actively promoted, pronounced to be the last nail in the coffin of creationism, persuades the scientifically illiterate public, and only when, perhaps years or decades later when it is proven fake, there is either no retraction or none that is noticed, so the false 'fact' remains in the public mind as part of the background. This is not to say that all such fakes and wrong conclusions are in time exposed, there are powerful vested interests and big reputations at stake. The Bathybius deception was used to actively promote evolution for seven years. Similar deceptions are happening regularly today, and for the same reasons. SH
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1868-Bathybius haeckelii and a Reign of Terror
Thomas Henry Huxley was responsible for bringing Bathybius into the world with great enthusiasm, together with encouragement and support from his German friend Ernst Haeckel who was a firm believer in the idea that life could arise from non-life. However, this ‘find’ was later to turn into a real embarrassment for these two over confident scientists with accusations that their judgement was lost due to their Darwinian presuppositions. Huxley, like Darwin before him had spent time at sea as a naturalist. Subsequently he was examining samples of deep sea floor sediment that had been collected by the H.M.S. Cyclops in 1857, and preserved in alcohol. The Cyclops was laying a telegraph cable between Britain and America and Huxley was employed to identify the life and sediment brought up from the sea floor. Looking at one sample, to his surprise he discovered that a thin film of jelly like mucus had collected on the top of the sediment with what looked like embedded tiny granules. Upon examination under a microscope these granules appeared to move, and this raised his excitement and he later thought that he had found the original protoplasm of life in this gelatinous ooze. He regarded it as a new form of simple animated life that his friend Haeckel had recently proposed existed as the precursor of life, and Huxley also compared it to various other micro-organisms dredged up from the seabed. Protoplasm was believed to be the organic substance that formed the basis of life, and something of this nature found on the bottom of the ocean suited the evolutionary speculation of the time. His enthusiasm meant that he did not carry out sufficient chemical tests, but launched into promotion of this precipitate of jelly as the most basis form of life. He wrote to Haeckel in 1868 the following comments.
‘…a new “Moner” which lies at the bottom of the Atlantic to all appearances, and gives rise to some wonderful calcified bodies. I have christened it Bathybius Haeckelii, and I hope you will not be ashamed of your god-child. I will send you some of the mud with the paper.’
Huxley named this apparent single celled organism Bathybius haeckelii after the German naturalist Haeckel, who was at the time the foremost promoter of the theory of abiogenesis; the idea that life could arise spontaneously from non-life. Haeckel after examining Bathybius for himself claimed that it was the original primordial slime (Urschleim in German) from which all other living things have arisen. Huxley wrote a letter to Nature in 1870 commenting that Haeckel agreed with all of his main points regarding Bathybius.
‘The longest of the papers … is devoted to a careful study of Bathybius, and the associated Coccoliths and Coccospheres; and it is a mattaer [sic] of great satisfaction that Prof. Haeckel has arrived at conclusions which, in all the main points, agrees with my own respecting these remarkable organisms.’
Huxley’s enthusiasm was captivated by comparison with various zooplanktons such as Coccoliths, and with penicillin, which often develops in the dark. Haeckel was quick to heap praise on Huxley for his work in developing evolution theory and extending it from the lowest form of protoplasm to mankind in a complete cosmic progression. Haeckel wrote a glowing piece in Nature praising his friend for his contribution to Darwinism, entitled ‘Scientific Worthies: Thomas Henry Huxley.’
‘After Charles Darwin had, in 1859, reconstructed this most important biological theory, and by his epoch-making theory of Natural Selection placed it on an entirely new foundation, Huxley was the first who extended it to man, and in 1863, in his celebrated three Lectures on “Man's Place in Nature,” admirably worked out its most important developments. With luminous clearness, and convincing certainty, he has here established the fundamental law, that, in every respect, the anatomical differences between man and the highest apes are of less value than those between the highest and the lowest apes. Especially weighty is the evidence adduced for this law, in the most important of all organs, the brain; and by this, the objections of Prof. Richard Owen are, at the same time, thoroughly refuted. Not only has the Evolution Theory received from Prof. Huxley a complete demonstration of its immense importance, not only has it been largely advanced by his valuable comparative researches, but its spread among the general public has been largely due to his well-known popular writings. In these he has accomplished the difficult task of rendering most fully and clearly intelligible, to an educated public of very various ranks, the highest problems of philosophical Biology. From the lowest to the highest organisms, from Bathybius up to man, he has elucidated the connecting law of development.’
Written evidence such as this shows that Haeckel and Huxley were thinking in terms of developing a complete evolutionary map as a grand progression from simple forms to higher forms. Establishing Bathybius as a scientific fact was central to this process in the minds of those promoting Darwinism. Partly for the reason of finding further samples of Bathybius two other vessels were despatched, HMS Lightning, and HMS Porcupine to look for evidence of the protoplasm of life on the sea floor, but they failed to find samples of Bathybius. However, the Challenger expedition, which left Portsmouth in 1872, was more successful in finding the missing globules and after two years sailing towards Japan the scientists aboard noted that samples of sea floor sediment that had been preserved in alcohol also contained evidence of the elusive Bathybius, although interestingly samples stored in seawater did not. The ship’s chemist John Buchanan had the good sense to test the jelly and he found that it was nothing more than hydrated calcium sulphate (CaSO4.2H2O), caused by a reaction of the alcohol on the mud. This information was relayed back to Huxley, and he realised that he may have made a mistake and passed the Challenger’s findings on to the scientific community. In response he wrote an open letter to the journal Nature noting the view of the Challenger naturalists that Bathybius may not be organic.
‘Prof. Wyville Thomson further informs me that the best effort of the Challenger's staff have failed to discover Bathybius in a fresh state, and that it is seriously suspected that the thing to which I gave that name is little more than sulphate of lime, precipitated in a flocculent state from the sea-water by the strong alcohol in which the specimens of the deep-sea soundings which I examined were preserved.’
In correspondence with Michael Foster he wrote.
‘I have just had a long letter from Wyville Thomson. The Challenger inclines to think that Bathybius is a mineral precipitate! in which case some enemy will probably say that it is a product of my precipitation. So mind, I was the first to make that “goak.” Old Ehrenberg suggested something of the kind to me, but I have not his letter here. I shall eat my leek handsomely, if any eating has to be done.’
Although Huxley in 1875 appeared to accept the view that Bathybius was a mistake, even in 1879 he continued to leave open a measure of doubt on the basis that the matter of his ‘friend’ was not settled, stating that ‘my own judgment is in an absolute state of suspension about it.’ The apparent reason for this noncommittal at this later time was that the President of the British Association (BAAS) of that year had continued to promote Bathybius as the protoplasm of life at a BAAS meeting where Huxley was present, and Huxley was careful to save his embarrassment. One recent historian of science Angela Colling, comments that the reason there was so much reluctant to accept that Bathybius was not organic was because it played a key role in supporting the theory of evolution that many scientists wanted to be true. Secular scientists wanted to believe in the reality of Bathybius.
While many leading scientists including Huxley and Haeckel wanted to believe in Bathybius, the Duke of Argyll later commented upon the find and criticised the scientific establishment for being caught up in a wave of secular emotion that blinded their critical capacity. In an article in 1887 entitles ‘A Great Lesson’ he comments that.
‘The naturalists of the ‘Challenger' began their voyage in the full Bathybian faith. But the sturdy mind of Mr. John Murray kept its balance–all the more easily since he never could himself find or see any trace of this pelagic protoplasm when the dredges of the ‘Challenger' came fresh from bathysmal bottoms. Again and again he looked for it, but never could he discover it. It always hailed from home. The bottles sent there were reported to yield it in abuirdance,[sic] but somehow it seemed to be hatched in them. The laboratory in Jermyn Street was its unfailing source, and the great observer there was its only sponsor. The ocean never yielded it until it had been bottled. At last, one day on board the ‘Challenger' an accident revealed the mystery. One of Mr. Murray's assistants poured a large quantity of spirits of wine into a bottle containing some pure sea-water, when lo! the wonderful protoplasm Bathybius appeared. It was the chemical precipitate of sulphate of lime produced by the mixture of alcohol and sea-water. This was bathos indeed. On this announcement 'Bathybius' disappeared from science, reading us, in more senses than one, a great lesson on ‘precipitation.’’
The Duke of Argyll writing in 1887 commented that there was no logical reason for the acceptance of Bathybius by the science community. The Duke argued that Bathybius was nothing other than ‘slimy mucus,’ that was ‘structureless to all microscopic examination.’ In this respect it was much like a lot of other sedimentary material dredged from the bottom of the ocean, but some were so driven by enthusiasm to find evidence for the beginning of life that their scientific integrity failed them. The Duke suggests that such level of enthusiasm blinded their judgement so that they were unable to see the error they were making, or worse it was a deliberate conspiracy to deceive. The Duke commented.
‘Here was a grand idea. It would be well to find missing links; but it would be better to find the primordial pabulum out of which all living things had come. The ultra-Darwinian enthusiasts were enchanted. Haeckel clapped his bands and shouted out Eureka loudly. Even the cautious and discriminating mind of Professor Huxley was caught by this new and grand generalisation of the ‘physical basis of life.' It 'was announced by him to the British Association in 1868. Dr. Will. Carpenter took up the chorus. He spoke of ‘a living expanse of protoplasmic substance,' penetrating with its living substance the ‘whole mass' of the oceanic mud.’ A fine new Greek name was devised for this mother slime, and it was christened ‘Bathybius,' from the consecrated deeps in which it lay. The conception ran like wildfire through the popular literature of science, and here again there was something like a coming Plebiscite in its favour. Expectant imagination soon played its part. Wonderful movements were seen in this mysterious slime. It became an ‘irregular network,' and it could be seen gradually 'altering its form,' so that ‘entangled granules gradually changed their relative positions.’
‘This is a case in which a ridiculous error and a ridiculous credulity were the direct results of theoretical preconceptions. Bathybius was accepted because of its supposed harmony with Darwin’s speculations.’
Thomas Huxley had made a very basic mistake as a result of his clouded judgement in attempts at finding evidence to prove his godless hypothesis, and the science community was swept along with similar enthusiasm. This lack of care by Huxley is in sharp contrast to his own statement that; ‘The man of science, in fact, simply uses with scrupulous exactness the methods which we all, habitually and at every moment, use carelessly.’ However, his careless mistake served a useful purpose in promoting evolution as truth for at least seven years.
Should this error be recognised as a simple mistake? Such a level of carelessness does not tie in with Huxley’s high-ranking position as a scientist, and the error did have the effect of promoting evolution in the late nineteenth century. It would seem though that many leading scientists, including Huxley and the President of the British Association were led to believe that a chemical jelly was in fact a primitive life form. The fall out from Bathybius rumbled on for a number of years following, with the Duke of Argyll claiming that acceptance of Bathybius as the protoplasm of life was driven by Darwinian presuppositions together with a Reign of Terror for anyone who disagreed with the Darwinists. Huxley protested his innocence of such charges, but his own words and those of Haeckel as noted above show how important the establishment of Bathybius was towards the promotion of the Darwinian project. As noted previously Haeckel commented that ‘From the lowest to the highest organisms, from Bathybius up to man, he [Huxley] has elucidated the connecting law of development.’ Huxley said that ‘Haeckel has arrived at conclusions which, in all the main points, agrees with my own respecting these remarkable organisms.’
Reign of Terror
A few years later, the Duke of Argyll, a former president of the British Association began to complain of a Reign of Terror that was evident in the Royal Society against anyone who disagreed with Darwin’s theory. Although the Duke of Argyll commented at length on the Bathybius affair, the cause of his accusation of a Reign of Terror was to do with findings relating to the formation of coral by John Murray. Earlier the Duke had commented on Huxley’s use of personal attacks in arguing his case commenting that. ‘My sincere respect for Professor Huxley forbids me from following him into the field of personal polemics, even if this Review were a fitting place for such exercitations.’
Murray was apparently placed under pressure by the Darwinian establishment not to publish his research that contradicted previous claims by Darwin. Darwin followed Lyell and believed that coral grew on volcanic outcrops as a great continent in the Pacific slowly subsided into the abyssal bottom. Coral was believed to have grown on the solid rock of the sinking islands that remained close to the surface of water. Darwin did not believe that coral could grow on softer sediment. Murray on the other hand showed that coral could grow on softer sediment and that it was possible for coral on the sea bottom to be elevated towards the surface as reefs build upwards. This was in contradiction of Darwin’s ideas. The Duke of Argyll commented with regard to this episode that.
‘In a recent article in this Review I had occasion to refer to the curious power which is sometimes exercised on behalf of certain accepted opinions, or of some reputed Prophet, in establishing a sort of Reign of Terror in their own behalf, sometimes in philosophy, sometimes in science. This observation was received I expected it to be–by those who being themselves subject to this kind of terror are wholly unconscious of the subjection. It is a remarkable illustration of this phenomenon that Mr. John Murray was strongly advised against the publication of his views in derogation of Darwin's long-accepted theory of the coral islands, and was actually induced to delay it for two years. Yet the late Sir Wyville Thomson, who was at the head of the naturalists of the ‘Challenger’ expedition, was himself convinced by Mr. Murray's reasoning, and the short but clear abstract of it in the second volume of the Narrative of the Voyage has since had the assent of all his colleagues.’
‘It is that Darwin's theory [of coral formation] is a dream. It is not only unsound, but it is in many respects directly the reverse of truth. With all his conscientiousness, with all his caution, with all his powers of observation, Darwin in this matter fell into errors as profound as the abysses of the Pacific. All the acclamations with which it was received were as the shouts of an ignorant mob. It is well to know that the plebiscites of science may be as dangerous and as hollow as hose[sic] of politics. The overthrow of Darwin's speculation [of coral formation] is only beginning to be known. It has been whispered for some time. The cherished dogma has been dropping very slowly out of sight. Can it be possible that Darwin was wrong?’
Huxley objected to the Duke of Argyll’s criticism that he was driven
by evolution to accept Bathybius, and also denied that there existed a
Reign of Terror aimed at those who rejected Darwinism. In private correspondence
Huxley commented that the Duke of Argyll had been making capital out of
the circumstances surrounding Bathybius, and complained that ‘…the theologians
cannot get it out of their heads, that as they have creeds, to which they
must stick at all hazards, so have the men of science. There is no more
ridiculous delusion.’ Even in 1890 Huxley was still complaining that
‘Bathybius is too convenient a stick to beat this dog with to be ever given
up…’
A few years earlier in 1887 Huxley wrote.
‘What is meant by my being caught by a generalization about the physical
basis of life I do not know; still less can I understand the assertion
that Bathybius was accepted because of its supposed harmony with Darwin's
speculations. That which interested me in the matter was the apparent analogy
of Bathybius with other well-known forms of lower life, such as the plasmodia
of the Myxomycetes and the Rhizopods. Speculative hopes or fears had nothing
to do with the matter; and if Bathybius were brought up alive from the
bottom of the Atlantic to-morrow the fact would not have the slightest
bearing, that I can discern, upon Mr. Darwin's speculations, or upon any
of the disputed problems of biology. It would merely be one elementary
organism the more added to the thousands already known.’
The Duke of Argyll, who had also been a BAAS President for a time, pressed
home his view that all was not well with the way in which science was being
presented to the world because of a commitment to Darwinian presuppositions
by Huxley, Haeckel and others. In a paper entitled, Science falsely so
called, The Duke comments that Huxley moves from science to metaphysics
without acknowledging the switch in reasoning that he makes.
“The first of these [points] concerns the use which Professor Huxley
makes of the word ‘science.’ In common parlance this word is now very much
confined to the physical sciences, some of which may be called specially
experimental sciences, such as chemistry, and others exact sciences, such
as astronomy. But Professor Huxley evidently uses it in that wider sense
in which it includes metaphysics and philosophy. Under cover of this wide
sweep of his net, he assumes to speak with the special authority of a scientific
expert upon questions respecting which no such authority exists either
in him or in anyone else. It seems to be on the strength of this assumption
that he designates as pseudo-science any opinion, or teaching, or belief,
different from his own.
I will illustrate what I mean by an example. One of the most elaborate
of Professor Huxley's own works is his volume on The Elements of Comparative
Anatomy, published some twenty-three years ago. Comparative anatomy is
one of the branches of the larger science of Biology in which Professor
Huxley is an expert; and, like all the other branches which grow out of
the one great stem of 'Life,’ as a subject of physical investigation, it
runs up into ideas and conceptions which belong to, or border on, the region
of metaphysics. In that volume Professor Huxley deals with the well-known
question of comparative anatomy whether the vertebrate skull can, or cannot,
be ‘interpreted' as a developed vertebra. Through an elaborate argument,
strictly conducted on the observation and analysis of physical facts, Professor
Huxley comes to the conclusion that this ‘interpretation’ breaks down.
‘The vertebral hypothesis of the skull,’ he says, ‘seems to me to be altogether
abolished.’ Yet, whilst rejecting this particular ‘interpretation,’ he
accepts and enforces the general conception that there is a complete ‘unity
of organisation’ between all vertebrate skulls, from the skull of a man
down to the skull of a pike. Furthermore, Professor Huxley explains that
by this ‘unity of organisation’ he means that all vertebrate skulls ‘are
organised upon a common plan.’ Repeating the same idea in another place,
he says, ‘osseous skulls are constructed upon a uniform plan.’ ”
“I have dwelt upon this point because men are very apt to be intimidated
by authorities in ‘science,’ when in reality no sort of authority exists.
Professor Huxley talks about ‘intellectual sins’ quite in the language
and spirit of the Vatican. I know a good many scientific men of the very
highest standing who totally dissent from Professor Huxley's metaphysics
and philosophy; and are by no means inclined to accept his expositions,
even of physical science, when those expositions travel beyond the particular
branch in which he is an original observer.
In conclusion, let me express a hope that Professor Huxley will yet
do an important service to science, by entering in some detail upon a subject
to which I have only alluded in passing, but in terms which have excited
his astonishment. He says, most truly, that ‘as is the case with all new
doctrines, so with evolution, the enthusiasm of advocates has sometimes
tended to degenerate into fanaticism, and mere speculation has, at times,
threatened to shoot beyond its legitimate bounds.’ These words indicate
vaguely and tenderly, but significantly, a fact which I stated, and will
again state with emphasis. There has been not merely a tendency to degeneration
into fanaticism, but a pronounced development of it, and a widespread infection
from it in the language of science. But it will be enough if Professor
Huxley will explain fully what he means by this ‘tendency,’ and if he will
specify wherein it has been shown. This is a work which has yet to be done.
The knowledge of a great expert would help Professor Huxley to do it sooner
than it could be done by others. They can only work with the materials
which are supplied by such as he. It is a work which has begun, and which
his own warnings have encouraged. Since he has authority to deal with ‘intellectual
sins,’ let him convict, and lay bare, and anathemise this one which he
treats so gently. The tendency of new doctrines to degenerate into fanaticism
is one of the ‘laws’ to be traced in the long history of human follies,
and all those who help to resist it are among the benefactors of their
kind. I trust Professor Huxley may yet be with us for many years to come,
and that he may expand and emphasise the hints and warnings he has given.”
Summary
Whether or not Bathybius was a deliberate plan to deceive as the Duke of Argyll suggests it was, this episode certainly exposes Huxley and Haeckel to the charge that they were so driven by their own presuppositions that they were unable to conduct scientific research in a purely objective fashion. In other words, they were indeed misled by their own preconceptions about the truthfulness of Darwinian evolution. Their own words also show how important the discovery of Bathybius was to establishing the truth of a grand evolutionary progression in the late nineteenth century despite protestations to the contrary.
What is also shown with this affair is that a pattern begins to emerge, that with hindsight we can look back on see has been repeated through history, as later chapters will highlight. The pattern is that flimsy evidence for Darwinism is found and then promoted with absolute certainty, and anyone who objects is treated with fierce and personal attacks. The same abuse is dished out to those who reject Darwinism even to this day as modern promoters of Darwinism have shown. Those who oppose Darwinism face pressure to conform and those who do not are sidelined and ridiculed through use of personal polemics. The basic script of the Bathybius affair is repeated many times through history by those committed to Darwinism, and this is in effect a descent into fanaticism. Sometimes, as we shall see, deliberate conspiracies to deceive have been used on occasions, and later exposed as fraud. At other times too great a certainty is attached to some flimsy evidence than is actually warranted by facts on the ground.
Huxley. T.H., Letter to Ernst Haeckel, 6th October 1868
Huxley. T.H., Life in the Deep Sea, Nature p.187, 2nd July 1870
Haeckel, E., Scientific Worthies: Thomas Henry Huxley, Nature, p.258. February 1874.
Huxley. T.H., Notes from the Challenger, Nature, 12, pp.315-316, August 1875
Huxley. T.H., Letter to Michael Foster, 11th August 1875
Huxley. T.H., Report to BAAS, Nature, 28th August 1879
Colling, A., Science Matters: Discovering the Deep Oceans, Open University, p. 29, 1995.
Duke of Argyll, A Great Lesson, The Nineteenth Century 22, pp.293-309, September 1887
Ibid, pp.308-309
Huxley, T.H. On the Education Value of the Natural History Sciences, 1854. In Colling, A., op. cit., p.32-33.
Haeckel, Op. cit. 1874.
Huxley, Op. cit., 1870
Duke of Argyll, A Reply: Science Falsely so called, The Nineteenth Century 21, pp.771-774, May 1887
Duke of Argyll, A Great Lesson, Op. cit.
Huxley. T.H., [Letter to unknown person], 30th September 1887
Huxley. T.H., Letter to John Donnelly, 10th October 1890
Huxley, T.H., An Episcopal Trilogy, Science and the Bishops, The Nineteenth Century, 22, pp.625-40, November 1887, In: Essays on Some Controverted Questions; Collected Essays V: pp.126-59.
Duke of Argyll, A Reply: Science Falsely so called, Op. cit.,
1887.