Synopses & Reviews
During the Victorian period, the practice of science shifted from a religious context to a naturalistic one. It is generally assumed that this shift occurred because naturalistic science was distinct from and superior to theistic science. Yet as
Huxleyand#8217;s Church and Maxwelland#8217;s Demon reveals, most of the methodological values underlying scientific practice were virtually identical for the theists and the naturalists: each agreed on the importance of the uniformity of natural laws, the use of hypothesis and theory, the moral value of science, and intellectual freedom. But if scientific naturalism did not rise to dominance because of its methodological superiority, then how did it triumph?
and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;
Matthew Stanley explores the overlap and shift between theistic and naturalistic science through a parallel study of two major scientific figures: James Clerk Maxwell, a devout Christian physicist, and Thomas Henry Huxley, the iconoclast biologist who coined the word agnostic. Both were deeply engaged in the methodological, institutional, and political issues that were crucial to the theistic-naturalistic transformation. What Stanleyand#8217;s analysis of these figures reveals is that the scientific naturalists executed a number of strategies over a generation to gain control of the institutions of scientific education and to reimagine the history of their discipline. Rather than a sudden revolution, the similarity between theistic and naturalistic science allowed for a relatively smooth transition in practice from the old guard to the new.
Review
and#8220;Concentrating on two towering intellectual figures, James Clerk Maxwell and Thomas Henry Huxley, Stanley offers an innovative perspective on late nineteenth-century British science in which he deploys an original argument to challenge the controversial view that science and religion wereand#8212;and still areand#8212;in conflict. Instead, through a careful reading of Maxwell, Huxley, and several of their contemporaries, Stanley shows that there were major areas of agreement between those who adopted a theistic approach to science and the rising band of naturalists, who viewed the natural world as governed by nothing other than a collection of laws. By emphasizing points of agreementand#8212;for example, over the uniformity of natureand#8212;Stanley also throws the differences between these two approaches into clearer relief. Moreover, he provides a nuanced, sensitive, and firmly grounded understanding of both Huxley and Maxwell, and one that not only undermines the conflict thesis but also provides the reader with a deeper understanding of the interrelations between science and religion. An impressive achievement!and#8221;
Review
and#8220;In his penetrating study of the methodological values of Victorian scientists, Stanley has carefully traced the process whereby religious ideas and values were pushed out of scientific practice. He argues that science became naturalistic with relatively little bloodshed despite the heated controversies over evolutionary theory. Naturalistic scientists like Thomas Henry Huxley shrewdly adapted the methodological values of theistic science, which included such principles as the uniformity of nature, the limits of scientific knowledge, the moral value of science, and intellectual freedom. Then, through the use of institutional strategies, they gained control of science and thoroughly naturalized how research was conducted. They succeeded so well that today it is difficult to conceive of science as anything other than naturalistic. Stanleyand#8217;s provocative book offers a fresh perspective on the complex relationship between naturalism and theism both now and in the nineteenth century.and#8221;
Review
Nothing characterizes modern science more than its rejection of appeals to God in explaining the workings of nature. Nevertheless, historians have written relatively little about the development of this methodological practice. Stanleyand#8217;s Huxleyand#8217;s Church and Maxwelland#8217;s Demon vividly describes how nineteenth-century British naturalists won the victory over their theistic rivals. It stands as a major contribution to the literature on the history of science and religion.and#8221;
Review
and#8220;Matthew Stanley has written an absorbing, meticulously researched book that usefully complicates our understanding of the exclusion of God as an explanatory agent from the sciences.and#160; Using James Clerk Maxwell and Thomas H. Huxley as representative figures, he shows that for much of the nineteenth century proponents of theistic science and scientific naturalism in Great Britain worked side by side and shared similar views of the uniformity of nature, the limits of scientific investigation, and the values and goals of science education.and#160; Stanley rejects the notion that the triumph of and#8220;methodological naturalismand#8221; in science was the result of a victory of enlightenment over obscurantism; it was rather the result of shrewd strategic decisions on the part of scientific naturalists.and#160; A stimulating and persuasive account of Victorian scientific theory and practice.and#8221;
Review
andldquo;The portrait of the geological past to a public hungry for drama and instruction is explored with great verve by Oandrsquo;Connor. . . . One could argue that the awareness of deep time has changed human perception of our place in the cosmos more than any other discovery. Anyone interested in how such new ideas are promulgated at large will enjoy Ralph Oandrsquo;Connorandrsquo;s work.andrdquo;
Review
andquot;Matthew Stanleyandrsquo;s wonderful new book introduces us to Maxwell and Huxley as they embodied theistic and naturalistic science, respectively, in Victorian Britain. Moving well beyond the widespread assumption that modern science and religion are and always have been fundamentally antithetical to one another, Huxleyandrsquo;s Church and Maxwellandrsquo;s Demon offers a history of scientific naturalism that illustrates the deep and fundamental commonalities between positions on the proper practice of science that began to diverge relatively late and in very particular historical circumstances.andquot;
Review
andquot;Stanley has produced a book that will challenge the general reader, stimulate academic discussion, and contribute much to understanding the subtleties and diversities of past and present scientific practice and religious debate.andquot;
Synopsis
Threatened by the proliferation of cheap, mass-produced publications, the Religious Tract Society issued a series of publications on popular science during the 1840s. The books were intended to counter the developing notion that science and faith were mutually exclusive, and the Society's authors employed a full repertoire of evangelical techniquesand#8212;low prices, simple language, carefully structured narrativesand#8212;to convert their readers. The application of such techniques to popular science resulted in one of the most widely available sources of information on the sciences in the Victorian era.
A fascinating study of the tenuous relationship between science and religion in evangelical publishing, Science and Salvation examines questions of practice and faith from a fresh perspective. Rather than highlighting works by expert men of science, Aileen Fyfe instead considers a group of relatively undistinguished authors who used thinly veiled Christian rhetoric to educate first, but to convert as well. This important volume is destined to become essential reading for historians of science, religion, and publishing alike.
Synopsis
At the turn of the nineteenth century, geologyand#8212;and its claims that the earth had a long and colorful prehuman historyand#8212;was widely dismissed
as
dangerous nonsense. But just fifty years later, it was the most celebrated of Victorian sciences. Ralph Oand#8217;Connor tracks the astonishing growth of geologyand#8217;s prestige in Britain, exploring how a new geohistory far more alluring than the standard six days of Creation was assembled and sold to the wider Bible-reading public.
Shrewd science-writers, Oand#8217;Connor shows, marketed spectacular visions of past worlds, piquing the public imagination with glimpses of man-eating mammoths, talking dinosaurs, and sea-dragons spawned by Satan himself. These authorsand#8212;including men of science, women, clergymen, biblical literalists, hack writers, blackmailers, and prophetsand#8212;borrowed freely from the Bible, modern poetry, and the urban entertainment industry, creating new forms of literature in order to transport their readers into a vanished and alien past.
In exploring the use of poetry and spectacle in the promotion of popular science, Oand#8217;Connor proves that geologyand#8217;s success owed much to the literary techniques of its authors. An innovative blend of the history of science, literary criticism, book history, and visual culture, The Earth on Show rethinks the relationship between science and literature in the nineteenth century.
About the Author
Aileen Fyfe is lecturer in modern British history at the University of St Andrews, United Kingdom. She is the author of Science in Salvation and coeditor of Science in the Marketplace, both published by the University of Chicago Press, and editor of Science for Children.
Table of Contents
Introduction
Chapter 1and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; Religious Lives
Chapter 2and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; The Uniformity of Natural Laws
Chapter 3and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; The Limits of Science
Chapter 4and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; The Goals of Science Education: The Working Menand#8217;s College
Chapter 5and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; Intellectual Freedom
Chapter 6and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; Free Will and Natural Laws
Chapter 7and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160;and#160; How the Naturalists and#147;Wonand#8221;
Conclusion
and#160;
Acknowledgments
Notes
Bibliography
Index