Synopses & Reviews
The ideas and terminology of Darwinism are so pervasive these days that it seems impossible to avoid them, let alone imagine a world without them. But in this remarkable rethinking of scientific history, Peter J. Bowler does just that. He asks:and#160;What if Charles Darwin had not returned from the voyage of the
Beagle and thus did not write
On the Origin of Species? Would someone else, such as Alfred Russel Wallace, have published the selection theory and initiated a similar transformation? Or would the absence of Darwinandrsquo;s book have led to a different sequence of events, in which biology developed along a track that did not precipitate a great debate about the impact of evolutionism? Would there have been anything equivalent to social Darwinism, and if so would the alternatives have been less pernicious and misappropriated?
In Darwin Deleted, Bowler argues that no one else, not even Wallace, was in a position to duplicate Darwinandrsquo;s complete theory of evolution by natural selection.and#160;Evolutionary biology would almost certainly have emerged, but through alternative theories, which were frequently promoted by scientists, religious thinkers, and moralists who feared the implications of natural selection. Because non-Darwinian elements of evolutionism flourished for a time in the real world, it is possible to plausibly imagine how they might have developed, particularly if the theory of natural selection had not emerged until decades after the acceptance of the basic idea of evolution. Bowlerandrsquo;s unique approach enables him to clearly explain the non-Darwinian traditionandmdash;and in doing so, he reveals how the reception of Darwinism was historically contingent. By taking Darwin out of the equation, Bowler is able to fully elucidate the ideas of other scientists, such as Richard Owen and Thomas Huxley, whose work has often been misunderstood because of their distinctive responses to Darwin.
Darwin Deleted boldly offers a new vision of scientific history. It is one where the sequence of discovery and development would have been very different and would have led to an alternative understanding of the relationship between evolution, heredity, and the environmentandmdash;and, most significantly, a less contentious relationship between science and religion. Far from mere speculation, this fascinating and compelling book forces us to reexamine the preconceptions that underlie many of the current controversies about the impact of evolutionism. It shows how contingent circumstances surrounding the publication of On the Origin of Species polarized attitudes in ways that still shape the conversation today.and#160;
Review
andldquo;Using his unrivaled knowledge of Charles Darwin and the revolution associated with his name, Peter J. Bowler digs deeply and profoundly into the ideas and events that Darwinandrsquo;s On the Origin of Species started by asking what would have happened had Darwin died young and the Origin never been written.and#160;Would science have gone on much the same; would social ideas associated with Darwin make no appearance?and#160;Bowler raises and discusses these and related questions in a work that is fun and informative.and#160;Whether or not he is right or wrong in his judgments, he makes you rethink yours.and#160;Buy the book and challenge Bowlerandrsquo;s counterfactual history.andrdquo;
Review
andldquo;A coup in counterfactual history. Only Peter J. Bowler, with his unique command of intellectual history, would dare to propose this bookandrsquo;s radical heresy. Darwinian atheists will excommunicate him; andlsquo;God delusionistsandrsquo; will slate him for deposing their tribal deity. But it is only by denying Darwinandrsquo;s historical necessity that the freedom to augur a world of post-Darwinian alternatives becomes possible.andrdquo;
Review
andldquo;What would science, and the world, have been like if Charles Darwin had never published
On the Origin of Species?and#160;This exhilarating book is Peter Bowlerandrsquo;s answer.and#160;He draws on unrivalled knowledge of evolutionary theorizing and its social lives to build up a compelling case for what might have been.and#160;Along the way, he shows by example how to pursue andlsquo;counterfactualandrsquo; inquiry into the scientific past and why, if we seek genuine understanding of that past, we need to do so.andrdquo;
Review
andquot;Without Darwin, Peter Bowler concludes, we would probably have ended up in much the same place we are today, with an evolutionary theory based largely on natural selection, and with most of the big historical events of the past century unfolding as they did. Where Darwin really mattered was in timing. Here, ironically, the shock of his book, and the polarisation it caused, may have delayed the acceptance of evolution. The great man was ahead of his time, and science may have paid a price for that.andquot;
Review
andquot;Darwin Deleted does the scientific community a great service by reminding it of ideas that are often mentioned only in passing, if at all, in basic biology classes, or even those that teach evolutionary theory. The mainstream history of science so dominants the story that failed contingencies of history have little bearing once a scientific theory becomes fact. Unless one is a science historian, learners should be engaged in studying and applying the best ideas, rather than retracing dead ends. But the dead ends can present their own fascination. Ideas like inheritance without genetics, the rigid view that once a species emerged it remained unchanged, or spontaneous generation from primitive forms, created ideas against which evidence could be applied.andquot;
Review
"In this extremely entertaining and meticulously detailed book, Peter J. Bowler explores the development of evolutionary biology
sans the grand old bearded one. . . . Removing Darwin from the picture altogether might be seen as rather drastic and many will raise an eyebrow at the approach Bowler adopts, yet it is a powerful and stimulating idea."
Review
and#8220;A sterling set of essays that lifts the lid on T. H. Huxleyand#8217;s propagandist network in the Victorian afternoon. Out goes the old paradigm of a monolithic group of professionalizers; in its place we have a probing study of disparate characters, for whom nature was the new source of cultural authority. The authors enhance our understanding of and#8216;scientific naturalismand#8217; as it was pushed into the curriculum, into pulpit-replacing Sunday lectures, and even into the moral bedrock.and#8221;
Review
and#8220;As a rule, books about -isms are boring: bloodless, spectral accounts of impalpable abstractions. Victorian Scientific Naturalism breaks that rule decisively. It lifts the curtain on a cast of hundreds, with their ideas fleshed out in committees, clubs, and ad hoc coalitions. Positivists and theists, agnostics and idealists, Broad Churchmen and Broad Scientists, dissenters and Dissenters, freethinking ladies among themand#8212;genial antagonists and cobelligerents, all united in spurring liberal and secular trends. As in good theater, the characters develop through their relationships as well as their beliefs, actors arrayed in shifting tableaux before a noisy popular chorus. Art, politics, literature, and religion are integral to the unfolding drama, not just backdrop. The authors of Victorian Scientific Naturalism, like their subjects, do not always speak with one voice, but for this reason alone, in their multiple fresh perspectives, we have our best guide yet to the roles of the and#8216;scientificand#8217; in Victorian culture.and#8221;
Review
and#8220;If they are to stay useful, historiansand#8217; categories require constant vetting. In this outstanding volume, and#8216;Victorian scientific naturalismand#8217; gets the probing analysis it has long deserved. The resultsand#8212;sometimes surprising and always engagingand#8212;will be obligatory reading for anyone interested in Victorian science, Victorian religion, and their complex interactions and legacies.and#8221;
Review
and#8220;Darwin Deleted offers a journey into the history of evolutionism well worth taking. Through his scenario in which the Origin never appeared, Bowler improves our ability to think about the assumptions underlying contemporary debates.and#8221;
Review
andldquo;In this fascinating new book on the history of evolutionary biology, Hale explores the effects of Darwinism on the intertwined political, social, and natural economies of nineteenth-century Britain. Yet it is Darwinism with a difference. Instead of Charles Darwin, it is Malthus who is the focus of attentionandmdash;and the rise and fall of Malthusandrsquo;s ideas of competition, survival, overproduction, and success. Some biological thinkers rejected Malthusian ideas expressly because of their link with capitalism and explored other forms of evolutionary progress in human society. Others such as Thomas Henry Huxley continued to believe in a Malthusian gladiatorial arena. Hale presents incisive accounts of theorists such as Spencer, Mill, Hume, and the Duke of Argyle, and relocates Darwinandrsquo;s theories of moral and social evolution into the broader context of political change. This new light on the explosion of evolutionary thought after Darwin is extremely welcome.andrdquo;
Review
andldquo;In his exploration of the crucial role of Malthusian thought in the evolutionary theory of liberal radicalism, Hale has provided scholars with a sort of sequel to Adrian Desmondandrsquo;s Politics of Evolution. Hale shows that the debate over the validity of Malthus split liberal radicals into opposing camps.andnbsp;This is a novel approach to the relationship of evolution and political thought in the Victorian and Edwardian periods. It makes sense of what previously has been a confusing mass of debates involving important political thinkers and scientists who at first glance appeared to be allies. Impressive in its scope, Political Descent is a bold and exciting book.andrdquo;
Review
andldquo;Haleandrsquo;s survey reveals the full complexity of the political views that were derived from Darwinandrsquo;s theory, with significant implications for how we view that theory today. He also demonstrates the roles played by non-Darwinian evolutionary theories, which influenced both the supporters and opponents of andlsquo;social Darwinism.andrsquo;andrdquo;
Review
andldquo;Political Descent by Hale is a provocative and fresh rereading of the Victorian debates after Darwin about cooperation and altruism among humans. I never realized that I could learn so much new or that so often I would be forced to go back and reevaluate long-held beliefs. This is scholarship at its best and even better is a really good read. Highly recommended.andrdquo;
Review
andldquo;Darwin Deleted is an important contribution to the history of science and is essential reading for students and scholars interested in the biological sciences and evolutionary thought. More importantly, however, it is an accessible book that will engage general readers and should be read by anyone who wants an informed view on the relationship between evolution and religion.andrdquo;
Review
andquot;Dawson and Lightman have assembled twelve probative contributions that reveal how scientific naturalism was more (and less) than a label for secular commitments among intellectual elites who seized cultural authority from the Anglican establishment under the aegis of professionalized science. The community of adherents was forged from sublime experiences during Alpine mountaineering, political maneuvering for unfettered science funding, battles over foundational principles in paleontology, and a system of education by standardized examination. . . . These analyses are significant for problematizing scientific naturalism as a historiographical category and showing how variations on the theme illuminate the Victorian period. Recommended.andquot;
Review
andquot;Succeeds wonderfully in fleshing out the idea of scientific naturalism. . . . Taken together, this volumeand#39;s essays provide a valuable overview of scientific naturalism and, even more so, a winning introduction to the movementandrsquo;s charismatic personalities and their relationships with one another. The book will prove profitable reading for historians of science and for students of Victorian culture.andquot;
Review
andquot;[A] wide-ranging historical narrative. . . . Ambitious.andquot;
Review
andquot;Haleandrsquo;s welcome study tracks freshly for us the wide array of social and political ends and ideals to which knowledge of natural history could be put. It is an important contribution.andquot;
Review
andquot;A revelatory group portrait of socialist-Darwinian London of the 1880s and 90s.andquot;
Review
andquot;Meticulously researched and compellingly argued. . . . Ideas can, and do, take on lives of their own and impact in ways beyond the conception of their originators. One could safely argue that Malthus, a priest schooled in the Church of Englandandrsquo;s 39 articles of religion at the University of Cambridge, would at the very least have been troubled by Darwinandrsquo;s work, just as Darwin disagreed with those who sought to subvert his theory to suit their own views of how the world should look.andquot;
Review
andquot;Makes significant contributions to a wide range of interconnected historiographies and will become a standard work on the intersection of biology and politics. . . . The book will also come to be considered also as a significant contribution to an emerging new historiography on Malthus: the figure who seldom appears in person in Political Descent but haunts its discussions throughout.andquot;
Synopsis
Over the years questions have been raised about the cohesiveness and the cultural status of scientific naturalism, and this book brings together the latest scholarship, offering a series of new perspectives that produce a radically different understanding of the movement. Well known scientific naturalists, such as Thomas Henry Huxley, John Tyndall, Herbert Spencer, and Leslie Stephen are considered, but so are less well-known members of the group and figures who are not often thought of as scientific naturalists but who made significant contributions to the movement.and#160;Victorian Scientific Naturalismand#160;makes plain that scientific naturalism had a second generation of followers who both venerated and simultaneously critiqued their celebrated forebears, maintaining certain aspects of their agenda into the early twentieth century, even while markedly transmuting others.
Synopsis
Victorian Scientific Naturalism examines the secular creeds of the generation of intellectuals who, in the wake of The Origin of Species, wrested cultural authority from the old Anglican establishment while installing themselves as a new professional scientific elite. These scientific naturalistsand#151;led by biologists, physicists, and mathematicians such as William Kingdon Clifford, Joseph Dalton Hooker, Thomas Henry Huxley, and John Tyndalland#151;sought to persuade both the state and the public that scientists, not theologians, should be granted cultural authority, since their expertise gave them special insight into society, politics, and even ethics. and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; In Victorian Scientific Naturalism, Gowan Dawson and Bernard Lightman bring together new essays by leading historians of science and literary critics that recall these scientific naturalists, in light of recent scholarship that has tended to sideline them, and that reevaluate their place in the broader landscape of nineteenth-century Britain. Ranging in topic from daring climbing expeditions in the Alps to the maintenance of aristocratic protocols of conduct at Kew Gardens, these essays offer a series of new perspectives on Victorian scientific naturalismand#151;as well as its subsequent incarnations in the early twentieth centuryand#151;that together provide an innovative understanding of the movement centering on the issues of community, identity, and continuity.
Synopsis
Reading the sixth edition of Thomas Robert Malthusand#8217;s
Essay on the Principle of Population famously led Charles Darwin to arrive at his theory of natural selection, for many have studied what Darwin took from Malthus and the influence of political economy on the theory of natural selection. In a bold move, Piers J. Hale contends that this focus on Malthus and his effect on Darwinand#8217;s evolutionary thought has neglected a strong anti-Malthusian tradition in English intellectual life, one that not only predated the 1859 publication of the
Origin of Species but which persisted throughout the Victorian period at least until the First World War.
Political Descent reveals that there were two evolutionary and political traditions that developed in tandem in England: the one Malthusian, the other decidedly anti-Malthusian and owing much to the transmutationist ideas of the French naturalist Jean Baptiste Lamarck. The split mirrored the rift in English radicalism that followed in the wake of the 1832 Reform Act. These two traditions developed in a context of mutual hostility, debate, and refutation.and#160;
and#160;
Synopsis
Historians of science have long noted the influence of the nineteenth-century political economist Thomas Robert Malthus on Charles Darwin. In a bold move, Piers J. Hale contends that this focus on Malthus and his effect on Darwinand#8217;s evolutionary thought neglects a strong anti-Malthusian tradition in English intellectual life, one that not only predated the 1859 publication of the
Origin of Species but also persisted throughout the Victorian period until World War I.
Political Descent reveals that two evolutionary and political traditions developed in England in the wake of the 1832 Reform Act: one Malthusian, the other decidedly anti-Malthusian and owing much to the ideas of the French naturalist Jean Baptiste Lamarck. and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;
and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;
These two traditions, Hale shows, developed in a context of mutual hostility, debate, and refutation. Participants disagreed not only about evolutionary processes but also on broader questions regarding the kind of creature our evolution had made us and in what kind of society we ought therefore to live. Significantly, and in spite of Darwinand#8217;s acknowledgement that natural selection was and#147;the doctrine of Malthus, applied to the whole animal and vegetable kingdoms,and#8221; both sides of the debate claimed to be the more correctly and#147;Darwinian.and#8221; By exploring the full spectrum of scientific and political issues at stake, Political Descent offers a novel approach to the relationship between evolution and political thought in the Victorian and Edwardian eras.
About the Author
Peter J. Bowler is professor emeritus of the history of science at Queenandrsquo;s University, Belfast. He has written several books on the development and impact of evolutionism and on science and religion, including
Evolution: The History of an Idea,
The Eclipse of Darwinism,
The Non-Darwinian Revolution,Charles Darwin: The Man and His Influence,
Monkey Trials and Gorilla Sermons,
Lifeandrsquo;s Splendid Drama, and
Reconciling Science and Religion, the latter two also published by the University of Chicago Press.
Table of Contents
Introduction,
Gowan Dawson and Bernard LightmanForging Friendships
1 and#147;The Great O. versus the Jermyn St. Petand#8221;: Huxley, Falconer, and Owen on Paleontological Method
Gowan Dawson
2 Evolutionary Naturalism on High: The Victorians Sequester the Alps
Michael S. Reidy
3 Paradox: The Art of Scientifi c Naturalism
George Levine
Institutional Politics
4 Huxley and the Devonshire Commission
Bernard Lightman
5 Economies of Scales: Evolutionary Naturalists and the Victorian Examination System
James Elwick
6 Odd Man Out: Was Joseph Hooker an Evolutionary Naturalist?
Jim Endersby
Broader Alliances
7 Sunday Lecture Societies: Naturalistic Scientists, Unitarians, and Secularists Unite against Sabbatarian Legislation
Ruth Barton
8 The Conduct of Belief: Agnosticism, the Metaphysical Society, and the Formation of Intellectual Communities
Paul White
9 Where Naturalism and Theism Met: The Uniformity of Nature
Matthew Stanley
New Generations
10 The Fate of Scientifi c Naturalism: From Public Sphere to Professional Exclusivity
Theodore M. Porter
11 The Successors to the X Club? Late Victorian Naturalists and Nature, 1869and#150;1900
Melinda Baldwin
12 From Agnosticism to Rationalism: Evolutionary Biologists, the Rationalist Press Association, and Early Twentieth-Century Scientific Naturalism
Peter J. Bowler
Acknowledgments
Bibliography of Major Works on Scientific Naturalism
List of Contributors
Index