赫胥黎与自然选择

Huxley and Natural Selection

在赫胥黎向公众宣传达尔文进化论时,他对于自然选择的态度是复杂多变的。他在不同的社会、政治和文化状况下采取了不同的立场和策略,常常使人们误以为他毫无保留地支持和宣传自然选择。但事实上,赫胥黎终其一生都对自然选择持保留态度,怀疑它是否能够真正地产生出新的物种。他就杂交不育问题对自然选择提出了直接质疑,坚持认为它只是"假说"而非"理论"。达尔文没有解决杂交不育问题,从而也未能说服赫胥黎将自然选择作为"理论"接受。

When Huxley supported and defended Darwin's theory in public, he had different attitudes to Natural Selection indifferent social context. Huxley remained skeptical his entire life of the power of natural selection to create new species. He arguedthat natural selection is a only hypothesis, and not yet the theory of species, before Darwin resolved the problem of hybrid sterility.