This book is the first systematic investigation of the response of evangelical intellectuals in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries to Darwin's evolutionary theories. Despite evidence to the contrary, many people continue to believe that warfare between science and religion over the issue of evolution broke out as soon as Darwin published The Origin of the Species in 1859. In fact, as David Livingstone points out, a substantial number of that era's leaders in science and technology had little trouble reconciling their conservative theological views to Darwin's new theories. The author contends that the sort of pitched battle being waged by the "creationist" movement today has its roots not in the evangelical heritage of the nineteenth century but in the fundamentalism that emerged during the early decades of the twentieth century. This study, which sheds new light on previously neglected aspects of the Darwinian controversies, should have appeal for all who are interested in the relationship between science and religion. -- from back cover

There may be no group in American society that is more talked about but so little understood as Evangelical Christians. Sometimes dismissed as violent fundamentalists and ignorant flat earthers, few can doubt the political, cultural, and religious significance of the Evangelicals. Barry Hankins puts the Evangelical movement in historical perspective, reaching back to its roots in the Great Awakening of the eighteenth century and leading up to the formative moments of contemporary conservative Protestantism. Taking on key topics such as the standing of science, the authority of scripture, and gender and racial equality, Hankins analyzes what is most essential for us to understand today about this potent movement.

A history of science text imagining how evolutionary theory and biology would have been understood if Darwin had never published his "Origin of Species" and other works.--publisher summary.

First, the authors explore how the scriptures were interpreted before the time of Darwin. Part II presents essays on the real history of the Darwin controversies, exploding the myths about this period. The final chapter deals with the rise of creationism in its current social context.

In 1858 Charles Darwin was forty-nine years old, a gentleman scientist living quietly at Down House in the Kent countryside, respected by fellow biologists and well liked among his wide and distinguished circle of acquaintances. He was not yet a focus of debate; his “big book on species” still lay on his study desk in the form of a huge pile of manuscript. For more than twenty years he had been accumulating material for it, puzzling over questions it raised, trying—it seemed endlessly—to bring it to a satisfactory conclusion. Publication appeared to be as far away as ever, delayed by his inherent cautiousness and wish to be certain that his startling theory of evolution was correct. It is at this point that the concluding volume of Janet Browne’s biography opens. The much-praised first volume, Voyaging, carried Darwin’s story through his youth and scientific apprenticeship, the adventurous Beagle voyage, his marriage and the birth of his children, the genesis and development of his ideas. Now, beginning with the extraordinary events that finally forced the Origin of Species into print, we come to the years of fame and controversy. For Charles Darwin, the intellectual upheaval touched off by his book had deep personal as well as public consequences. Always an intensely private man, he suddenly found himself and his ideas being discussed—and often attacked—in circles far beyond those of his familiar scientific community. Demonized by some, defended by others (including such brilliant supporters as Thomas Henry Huxley and Joseph Hooker), he soon emerged as one of the leading thinkers of the Victorian era, a man whose theories played a major role in shaping the modern world. Yet, in spite of the enormous new pressures, he clung firmly, sometimes painfully, to the quiet things that had always meant the most to him—his family, his research, his network of correspondents, his peaceful life at Down House. In her account of this second half of Darwin’s life, Janet Browne does dramatic justice to all aspects of the Darwinian revolution, from a fascinating examination of the Victorian publishing scene to a survey of the often furious debates between scientists and churchmen over evolutionary theory. At the same time, she presents a wonderfully sympathetic and authoritative picture of Darwin himself right through the heart of the Darwinian revolution, busily sending and receiving letters, pursuing research on subjects that fascinated him (climbing plants, earthworms, pigeons—and, of course, the nature of evolution), writing books, and contending with his mysterious, intractable ill health. Thanks to Browne’s unparalleled command of the scientific and scholarly sources, we ultimately see Darwin more clearly than we ever have before, a man confirmed in greatness but endearingly human. Reviewing Voyaging, Geoffrey Moorhouse observed that “if Browne’s second volume is as comprehensively lucid as her first, there will be no need for anyone to write another word on Darwin.” The Power of Place triumphantly justifies that praise.

Traces the life of the great British scientist, describes his travels as a naturalist, and traces the development of his theories.

This book investigates the debates around religion and science at the influential Victoria Institute. Founded in London in 1865, and largely drawn from the evangelical wing of the Church of England, it had as its prime objective the defence of ‘the great truths revealed in Holy Scripture’ from ‘the opposition of science, falsely so called’. The conflict for them was not between science and religion directly, but what exactly constituted true science. Chapters cover the Victoria Institute’s formation, its heyday in the late nineteenth century, and its decline in the years following the First World War. They show that at stake was more than any particular theory; rather, it was an entire worldview, combining theology, epistemology, and philosophy of science. Therefore, instead of simply offering a survey of religious responses to evolutionary theory, this study demonstrates the complex relationship between science, evangelical religion, and society in the years after Darwin’s Origin of Species. It also offers some insight as to why conservative evangelicals did not display the militancy of some American fundamentalists with whom they shared so many of their intellectual commitments. Filling in a significant gap in the literature around modern attitudes to religion and science, this book will be of keen interest to scholars of Religious Studies, the History of Religion, and Science and Religion.

Darwin's theory of evolution is accepted by most educated Americans as simple fact. This easy acceptance, however, hides from us the many ways in which evolution—as an idea—shapes our thinking about a great many things. What if this idea is wrong? Berkeley law professor Phillip E. Johnson looks at the evidence for Darwinistic evolution the way a lawyer would—with a cold dispassionate eye for logic and proof. His discovery is that scientists have put the cart before the horse. They prematurely accepted Darwin's theory as fact and have been scrambling to find evidence for it. Darwin on Trial is a cogent and stunning tour de force that not only rattles the cages of conventional wisdom, but could provide the basis for a fundamental change in the way educated Americans regard themselves, their origins, and their fate.

Whereas scholarly study of Creationism usually places it in the context of religion and the history or philosophy of science, The Creationist Debate, here revised and completely updated in its second edition, has been written in the conviction that creationism is ultimately about the status of the Bible in the modern world. Creationism as a modern ideology exists in order to defend the authority of the Bible as a repository of transhistorical truth from the challenges of any and all historical sciences. It belongs to and is inseparable from Protestant Fundamentalists' desire to resubject the modern world to the authority of the inerrant Bible. Intelligent Design creationism, to the extent that it distinguishes itself from reactionary biblicism, is a program advocating a supernaturalist, providentialist understanding of the world. Accordingly, The Creationist Debate situates Creationism and Intelligent Design in relation to the rise, from the early modern period onwards, of historical thinking in various scientific and scholarly disciplines (including theories of the earth, chronology, civil history, geology, biblical criticism, paleontology, evolutionary biology, and anthropology) in their complex relationship to the status of the Bible as an historical authority. It argues that the debate over Creationism is at bottom a debate over how to interpret the biblical text rather than over how to interpret the world.