Before Darwin: Reconciling God and Nature - Softcover
Scientists and theologians had long been debating the religious implications of evolutionary theory when Darwin announced his theory of natural selection.
For 200 years before the publication of Darwin’s On the Origin of Species,findings in the sciences of the earth and of nature threatened religious belief based on the literal truth of the Bible. This book traces out the multiple conflicts and accommodations within religion and the new sciences through the writings of such heroes of the English Enlightenment as David Hume, Robert Hooke, John Ray, Erasmus Darwin (Charles’ grandfather), Thomas Burnet, and William Whiston. Keith Thomson brings us back to a time when many powerful clerics were also noted scientific scholars and leading scientists were often believers. He celebrates the force and elegance of their prose along with the inventiveness of their arguments, their certitude, and their not infrequent humility and caution. Placing Charles Darwin’s work in the context of earlier writers on evolutionary theory, Thomson finds surprising and direct connections between the anti-evolutionary writings of natural theologians like William Paley and the arguments that Darwin employed to turn anti-evolutionist ideas upside-down. This is an illuminating chronicle of an important period in the history of ideas and one that casts interesting light on the anti-evolution/creationist controversies of our own time.
For 200 years before the publication of Darwin’s On the Origin of Species,findings in the sciences of the earth and of nature threatened religious belief based on the literal truth of the Bible. This book traces out the multiple conflicts and accommodations within religion and the new sciences through the writings of such heroes of the English Enlightenment as David Hume, Robert Hooke, John Ray, Erasmus Darwin (Charles’ grandfather), Thomas Burnet, and William Whiston. Keith Thomson brings us back to a time when many powerful clerics were also noted scientific scholars and leading scientists were often believers. He celebrates the force and elegance of their prose along with the inventiveness of their arguments, their certitude, and their not infrequent humility and caution. Placing Charles Darwin’s work in the context of earlier writers on evolutionary theory, Thomson finds surprising and direct connections between the anti-evolutionary writings of natural theologians like William Paley and the arguments that Darwin employed to turn anti-evolutionist ideas upside-down. This is an illuminating chronicle of an important period in the history of ideas and one that casts interesting light on the anti-evolution/creationist controversies of our own time.
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Long before Darwin published his On the Origin of Species, scientific discoveries and developments threatened religious beliefs based on the literal truth of the Bible. This book looks at these conflicts through the writings of Enlightenment thinkers, casting interesting light on the history of ideas and on such contemporary controversies as creationism and intelligent design.
Keith Thomson is professor emeritus of natural history, University of Oxford; senior research fellow, American Philosophical Society; and research associate, Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia.
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- PublisherYale University Press
- Publication date2007
- ISBN 10 030012600X
- ISBN 13 9780300126006
- BindingPaperback
- Edition number1
- Number of pages314
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Before Darwin: Reconciling God and Nature
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Yale University Press
(2007)
ISBN 10: 030012600X
ISBN 13: 9780300126006
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