Modern Ideas of Evolution as Related to Revelation and Science

An energetic polemic against Darwin's theory of evolution, which remains of interest to historians of science today.

John William Dawson (Author)

9781108000239, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 20 July 2009

248 pages
21.6 x 14 x 1.4 cm, 0.32 kg

Darwin's theory of evolution generated a storm of controversy within the scientific community in the later nineteenth century, and Sir J. William Dawson, a renowned geologist of his time, was one of those who vehemently opposed it. In Modern Ideas of Evolution as related to Revelation and Science, first published in 1890, Dawson maintains that it is religion alone that forms a stable base for all new ideas. He dismisses the theory of evolution as a crude and heretical hypothesis, inconsistent with religion and undeserving of acceptance. If adopted as proven truth, he argues, it would lead to unscientific and unspiritual degeneration of the mind. More than a century later, evolution is generally accepted but still not 'proven', and the debates continue. Dawson's energetic polemic remains a key document for historians of science concerned with the Victorian reception of Darwinism and the rise of evolutionary theory.

1. Present aspects of the question
2. What is evolution? 3. The origin of life
4. The apparition of species in geological time
5. Monistic evolution
6. Agnostic evolution
7. Theistic evolution
8. God in nature
9. Man in nature
10 General conclusions
Appendix 1
Appendix 2.

Subject Areas: History of ideas [JFCX]