Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
  1. Home
  2. Search

Refine search

Refine search

Access:
Content type:
Publication date:
Apply   From and To filters
Subject: Show more
Journals Show more
Publishers: Show more
Societies Show more
Series: Show more
Collections: Show more

Actions for selected content:

Select all | Deselect all
  • View selected items
  • Export citations
  • Download PDF (zip)
  • Save to Kindle
  • Save to Dropbox
  • Save to Google Drive

Save Search

You can save your searches here and later view and run them again in "My saved searches".

Please provide a title, maximum of 40 characters.
Cancel
×

2 results

  • 2 - Before Darwin

  • Peter J. Bowler, Queen's University Belfast
  • Book:
    Evolution for the People
    Published online:
    21 November 2024
    Print publication:
    28 November 2024, pp 25-55

  • Summary

    Evolutionary ideas were in circulation before Charles Darwin began his work and were widely disseminated, arousing much controversy. In addition to the writings of Erasmus Darwin (Charles’ grandfather), French ideas gained some currency in the English-speaking world, especially the views of J. B. Lamarck. These ideas were taken up by radical thinkers who rejected divine creation, to the horror of conservatives. Early discoveries of fossils played a significant role in arousing public interest in the history of life and were often seen as evidence that life had ascended a scale of development (the chain of being) toward humanity. The first-known dinosaurs were fitted into the chain as gigantic lizards, not as evidence of creatures totally unlike anything now alive. This model was adapted to middle-class values in Robert Chambers’ Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation in 1844, again arousing controversy but gradually gaining some credibility beyond the scientific community.

Evolution for the People
  • Shaping Popular Ideas from Darwin to the Present
  • Peter J. Bowler
  • Published online:
    21 November 2024
    Print publication:
    28 November 2024
  • From Darwin's The Origin of Species to the twenty-first century, Peter Bowler reinterprets the long Darwinian Revolution by refocussing our attention on the British and American public. By applying recent historical interest in popular science to evolutionary ideas, he investigates how writers and broadcasters have presented both Darwinism and its discontents. Casting new light on how the theory's more radical aspects gradually grew in the public imagination, Evolution for the People extends existing studies of the popularization of evolutionism to give a more comprehensive picture of how attitudes have changed through time. In tracing changes in public perception, Bowler explores both the cultural impact and the cultural exploitation of these ideas in science, religion, social thought and literature.