What do you think?
Rate this book
Darwinism Comes to America
In 1997, even as Pope John Paul II was conceding that evolution was "more than just a theory," local school boards and state legislatures were still wrangling over the teaching of origins--and nearly half of all Americans polled believed in the recent special creation of the first humans. Why do so many Americans still resist the ideas laid out by Darwin in On the Origin of Species ? Focusing on crucial aspects of the history of Darwinism in America, Ronald Numbers gets to the heart of this question.
Judiciously assessing the facts, Numbers refutes a host of widespread about the impact of Darwin's work on the religious ideas of scientists, about the character of the issues that exercised scientists of the immediate post-Darwin generation, about the Scopes trial of 1925 and its consequences for American schools, and about the regional and denominational distribution of pro- and anti-evolutionary sentiments.
Displaying the expertise that has made Numbers one of the most respected historians of his generation, Darwinism Comes to America provides a much-needed historical perspective on today's quarrels about creationism and evolution--and illuminates the specifically American nature of this struggle.
Judiciously assessing the facts, Numbers refutes a host of widespread about the impact of Darwin's work on the religious ideas of scientists, about the character of the issues that exercised scientists of the immediate post-Darwin generation, about the Scopes trial of 1925 and its consequences for American schools, and about the regional and denominational distribution of pro- and anti-evolutionary sentiments.
Displaying the expertise that has made Numbers one of the most respected historians of his generation, Darwinism Comes to America provides a much-needed historical perspective on today's quarrels about creationism and evolution--and illuminates the specifically American nature of this struggle.
216 pages, Paperback
First published October 1, 1998
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
May 10, 2022
This is the point in the semester where I started getting a little tired of what I'll call the "Complicated Crowd" of scholarship on science and religion.
What do I mean by that? Well, in reaction to the overplayed and largely inaccurate notion that science and religion are necessarily or inherently in conflict, a new school of thought – which by now is not really new at all, given it's been around for three or four decades – began arguing that in fact it's more complicated than that. I mean, sure, of course. But there also is quite a lot of conflict, no? And there are certain strains of religion that do seem to inherently conflict with certain fields or strains of science, so simply saying "it's complicated" feels a little like not really saying much at all.
Anyway, Ronald Numbers is like the preeminent scholar of science and religion in America, so this all feels a little petty. But speaking honestly, this isn't his best work. It's a collection of essays about the reception of Darwinism in the United States, all of which appeared elsewhere first, and the result is pretty uneven, even a little frustrating. By the end, I was asking: Can we say anything about science and religion? Is it all just too complicated? If so, it feels less like an argument and more like a copout.
If I gleaned anything from them, it's that among conservative Christians in the early 20th century, the more experiential (i.e., charismatic or Pentecostal) you were, the less likely you were to struggle with the implications of Darwinism for your faith. Which makes sense because the Fundamentalists were very text-based, and if Darwinism threw anything into question, it was the biblical creation narrative. For charismatics and Pentecostals, strict adherence to the literal Bible was simply not as important as the experience of the Holy Spirit in your life.
Overall, an important read for the historiography of science and religion, but not one that demands reading for the more casually interested.
What do I mean by that? Well, in reaction to the overplayed and largely inaccurate notion that science and religion are necessarily or inherently in conflict, a new school of thought – which by now is not really new at all, given it's been around for three or four decades – began arguing that in fact it's more complicated than that. I mean, sure, of course. But there also is quite a lot of conflict, no? And there are certain strains of religion that do seem to inherently conflict with certain fields or strains of science, so simply saying "it's complicated" feels a little like not really saying much at all.
Anyway, Ronald Numbers is like the preeminent scholar of science and religion in America, so this all feels a little petty. But speaking honestly, this isn't his best work. It's a collection of essays about the reception of Darwinism in the United States, all of which appeared elsewhere first, and the result is pretty uneven, even a little frustrating. By the end, I was asking: Can we say anything about science and religion? Is it all just too complicated? If so, it feels less like an argument and more like a copout.
If I gleaned anything from them, it's that among conservative Christians in the early 20th century, the more experiential (i.e., charismatic or Pentecostal) you were, the less likely you were to struggle with the implications of Darwinism for your faith. Which makes sense because the Fundamentalists were very text-based, and if Darwinism threw anything into question, it was the biblical creation narrative. For charismatics and Pentecostals, strict adherence to the literal Bible was simply not as important as the experience of the Holy Spirit in your life.
Overall, an important read for the historiography of science and religion, but not one that demands reading for the more casually interested.
March 22, 2011
Truly interesting when the author details the conflicted reception of Darwinism in American science, and when he goes into the details of the famous Scopes trial, the book becomes impenetrable and obnoxious when he discusses in mind-numbing detail the inner debates about evolutionism in Presbyterian, Holiness, and Fundamentalist Christian sects. Three chapters are great. Three are boring beyond belief.
The great takeaway from the chapter on American naturalists is that although Darwin's 1859 "On the Origin of Species" dealt a near fatal blow to the existing concept of "special creations" (which was not necessarily religious or Biblical, as exemplified by Louis Agassiz's concept of "plural creation") it did not replace it with anything in particular, since Darwin, in this pre-Mendelian era, admitted his own "ignorance of the laws of variation." Despite the supposed debate between Darwinists and Lamarckians (who advocated inheritance of features through use in a lifetime), Darwin's increased popularity in America actually paved the way for what in the 1870s became referred to as "Neo-Lamarckianism." Debates about the nature of inheritance and "directed" evolution continued in the scientific community throughout the century. Also, even though naturalists generally supported some form of evolution, most held on to a divine act of creation of humans of matter or of life, or of theistically directed evolution.
From the Scopes trial chapter the big takeaway is that William Jennings Bryan's "concession" that the Earth was not necessarily made in 6 "24 hour days" was actually no concession at all, but reigning Fundamentalist orthodoxy, known as the "days-age theory." It was only in the 1960s that most Fundamentalist Christians, angered by new science textbooks funded by the feds in the post-Sputnik era, began to embrace the 6 day "Creationist" belief.
So, the book may be worth a read to anybody who's willing to skip over a couple chapters.
The great takeaway from the chapter on American naturalists is that although Darwin's 1859 "On the Origin of Species" dealt a near fatal blow to the existing concept of "special creations" (which was not necessarily religious or Biblical, as exemplified by Louis Agassiz's concept of "plural creation") it did not replace it with anything in particular, since Darwin, in this pre-Mendelian era, admitted his own "ignorance of the laws of variation." Despite the supposed debate between Darwinists and Lamarckians (who advocated inheritance of features through use in a lifetime), Darwin's increased popularity in America actually paved the way for what in the 1870s became referred to as "Neo-Lamarckianism." Debates about the nature of inheritance and "directed" evolution continued in the scientific community throughout the century. Also, even though naturalists generally supported some form of evolution, most held on to a divine act of creation of humans of matter or of life, or of theistically directed evolution.
From the Scopes trial chapter the big takeaway is that William Jennings Bryan's "concession" that the Earth was not necessarily made in 6 "24 hour days" was actually no concession at all, but reigning Fundamentalist orthodoxy, known as the "days-age theory." It was only in the 1960s that most Fundamentalist Christians, angered by new science textbooks funded by the feds in the post-Sputnik era, began to embrace the 6 day "Creationist" belief.
So, the book may be worth a read to anybody who's willing to skip over a couple chapters.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews