An introduction to the history of genetics and the rethinking of evolutionism.

In this wide-ranging survey, Peter J. Bowler explores the phenomenon of futurology: predictions about the future development and impact of science and technology on society and culture in the twentieth century. Utilising science fiction, popular science literature and the novels of the literary elite, Bowler highlights contested responses to the potential for revolutionary social change brought about by real and imagined scientific innovations. Charting the effect of social and military developments on attitudes towards innovation in Europe and America, Bowler shows how conflict between the enthusiasm of technocrats and the pessimism of their critics was presented to the public in books, magazines and exhibitions, and on the radio and television. A series of case studies reveals the impact of technologies such as radio, aviation, space exploration and genetics, exploring rivalries between innovators and the often unexpected outcome of their efforts to produce mechanisms and machines that could change the world.

In this wide-ranging survey, Peter J. Bowler explores the phenomenon of futurology: predictions about the future development and impact of science and technology on society and culture in the twentieth century. Utilising science fiction, popular science literature and the novels of the literary elite, Bowler highlights contested responses to the potential for revolutionary social change brought about by real and imagined scientific innovations. Charting the effect of social and military developments on attitudes towards innovation in Europe and America, Bowler shows how conflict between the enthusiasm of technocrats and the pessimism of their critics was presented to the public in books, magazines and exhibitions, and on the radio and television. A series of case studies reveals the impact of technologies such as radio, aviation, space exploration and genetics, exploring rivalries between innovators and the often unexpected outcome of their efforts to produce mechanisms and machines that could change the world.

Upon publication, Charles Darwin's The Origin of Species excited much debate and controversy, challenging the foundations of Christianity, nonetheless underpinning the Victorian concept of progress. It still evokes powerful and contradictory responses today. Peter Bowler's study of Darwin's life, first published in 1990, combines biography and cultural history. Emphasizing in particular the impact of Darwin's work, he shows how Darwin's contemporaries were unable to appreciate precisely those aspects of his thinking that are considered scientifically important today. He also demonstrates that Darwin was a product of his time, but he also transcended it by creating an idea capable of being exploited by twentieth-century scientists and intellectuals who had very different values from his own.

Upon publication, Charles Darwin's The Origin of Species excited much debate and controversy, challenging the foundations of Christianity, nonetheless underpinning the Victorian concept of progress. It still evokes powerful and contradictory responses today. Peter Bowler's study of Darwin's life, first published in 1990, combines biography and cultural history. Emphasizing in particular the impact of Darwin's work, he shows how Darwin's contemporaries were unable to appreciate precisely those aspects of his thinking that are considered scientifically important today. He also demonstrates that Darwin was a product of his time, but he also transcended it by creating an idea capable of being exploited by twentieth-century scientists and intellectuals who had very different values from his own.

In this new edition of the top-selling coursebook, seasoned historians Peter J. Bowler and Iwan Rhys Morus expand on their authoritative survey of how the development of science has shaped our world. Exploring both the history of science and its influence on modern thought, the authors chronicle the major developments in scientific thinking, from the revolutionary ideas of the seventeenth century to contemporary issues in genetics, physics, and more. Designed for entry-level college courses and as a single-volume introduction for the general reader, Bowler and Morus present the history of science not as a series of names and dates but as an interconnected and complex web of relationships joining science and society. Thoroughly revised and expanded, the second edition draws on the latest research and scholarship. It also contains two entirely new chapters: one that explores the impact of computing on the development of science and another that surveys the complex interaction of Western science with the cultures of the rest of the world.

In this pioneering study of the first major challenges to Darwinism, Peter J. Bowler examines the competing theories of evolution, identifies their intellectual origins, and describes the process by which the modern concept of evolution emerged. Describing the variety of influences that drove scientists to challenge Darwin's conclusions, Bowler reevaluates the influence of social forces on the scientific community and explores the broad philosophical, ideological, and social implications of scientific theories.

Concise and clearly written, "The Non-Darwinian Revolution" sets forth a convincing argument for a reappraisal of Darwin's importance not only for the history of science but for the history of ideas as well. Bowler finds no fault with Darwin's theory, only with the mistaken notion of its revolutionary effect on nineteenth-century thought. Examining the work of such figures as Owen, Spencer, Kelvin, Huxley, Haeckel, and Freud, Bowler discovers a near-universal tendency to accept evolutionism while rejecting Darwin's central premise: natural selection. Instead, leading scientists and thinkers stubbornly clung to the Lamarckian theory of evolution as guided, purposeful development until they were forced by the twentieth century's "rediscovery" of Mendelian law to concede otherwise.

This book in the highly respected Cambridge History of Science series is devoted to the history of the life and earth sciences since 1800. It provides comprehensive and authoritative surveys of historical thinking on major developments in these areas of science, on the social and cultural milieus in which the knowledge was generated, and on the wider impact of the major theoretical and practical innovations. The articles were written by acknowledged experts who provide concise accounts of the latest historical thinking coupled with guides to the most important recent literature. In addition to histories of traditional sciences, the book covers the emergence of newer disciplines such as genetics, biochemistry, and geophysics. The interaction of scientific techniques with their practical applications in areas such as medicine is a major focus of the book, as is its coverage of controversial areas such as science and religion and environmentalism.

Since its original publication in 1989, "Evolution: The History of an Idea" has been recognized as a comprehensive and authoritative source on the development and impact of this most controversial of scientific theories. This twentieth anniversary edition is updated with a new preface examining recent scholarship and trends within the study of evolution.

Die Geschichte der Naturwissenschaften und der Technik ist in den letzten Jahrzehnten um wichtige neue Aspekte und Interpretationen bereichert worden. Diese Ergebnisse waren aber bis jetzt nur in Spezialistenkreisen bekannt und verbreitet. Mit dieser Reihe werden nun die vielen Einzelergebnisse zusammengefasst und einem breiten Publikum prasentiert. International anerkannte Wissenschafts-Historiker schreiben uber ihr Spezialgebiet, ohne nur die Fakten aufzuhaufen, sondern unter Betonung der gemeinsamen Themen uber lange Zeitraume und uber alle Grenzen hinweg.
(...) Eine interessante und sehr komplexe Darstellung des Themas (...)
ekz-Bibl. Bereich 1997"

Die Geschichte der Naturwissenschaften und der Technik ist in den letzten Jahrzehnten um wichtige neue Aspekte und Interpretationen bereichert worden. Diese Ergebnisse waren aber bis jetzt nur in Spezialistenkreisen bekannt und verbreitet. Mit dieser Reihe werden nun die vielen Einzelergebnisse zusammengefasst und einem breiten Publikum prasentiert. International anerkannte Wissenschafts-Historiker schreiben uber ihr Spezialgebiet, ohne nur die Fakten aufzuhaufen, sondern unter Betonung der gemeinsamen Themen uber lange Zeitraume und uber alle Grenzen hinweg."

Progress Unchained reinterprets the history of the idea of progress using parallels between evolutionary biology and changing views of human history. Early concepts of progress in both areas saw it as the ascent of a linear scale of development toward a final goal. The 'chain of being' defined a hierarchy of living things with humans at the head, while social thinkers interpreted history as a development toward a final paradise or utopia. Darwinism reconfigured biological progress as a 'tree of life' with multiple lines of advance not necessarily leading to humans, each driven by the rare innovations that generate entirely new functions. Popular writers such as H. G. Wells used a similar model to depict human progress, with competing technological innovations producing ever-more rapid changes in society. Bowler shows that as the idea of progress has become open-ended and unpredictable, a variety of alternative futures have been imagined.

This authoritative volume chronicles humanity's long quest to understand its own origins. Peter J. Bowler brilliantly synthesizes discoveries in geography, geology, and evolutionary biology that have brought us to our current knowledge of the fragility and connectedness of life on earth and created the new science of ecology. Bowler adeptly balances a long historical perspective with discussion of specific developments in the major fields relating to the physical and organic environment. He brings to life theoretical debates surrounding the notion of nature as an interconnected whole and addresses the controversial ethical questions raised by the ways we investigate our world and our use of the planet's resources. This book is not only the history of a discipline but also a wide-ranging study of scientific and theoretical innovations and the cultural and professional factors that influence the way scientists explain and understand their observations.

The story of life's splendid drama has captivated generations of the general public, just as it has intrigued biologists, especially those who began to try to solve evolutionary puzzles in the years immediately after the publication of Darwin's Origin of Species in 1859. Yet histories of the Darwinian revolution have paid far more attention to theoretical debates and have largely ignored the researchers who struggled to comprehend the deeper evolutionary significance of fossil bones and the structures of living animals. Peter J. Bowler recovers some of this lost history in Life's Splendid Drama, the definitive account of evolutionary morphology and its relationships with paleontology and bio-geography. "Intriguing and insightful."-William Kimler, American Scientist "[A] volume of impressive scholarship and extensive references."-Library Journal "One of Bowler's best."-Kevin Padian, Nature "[Bowler's] comprehensive review of the various debates and ideas in taxonomy, morphology, and vertebrate evolution . . . deserves the attention of biologists and other scholars interested in the history of ideas."-Choice "The persistence of pre-Darwinian modes of thought in contemporary biology underlines the importance of Bowler's book. Its value is not only in the history it provides, but also in the way it illumines the present."-Peter J. Causton, Boston Book Review

From the beginning, Darwin s dangerous idea has been a snake in the garden, denounced from pulpits then and now as incompatible with the central tenets of Christian faith. Recovered here is the less well-known but equally long history of thoughtful engagement and compromise on the part of liberal theologians. Peter J. Bowler doesn t minimize the hostility of many of the faithful toward evolution, but he reveals the existence of a long tradition within the churches that sought to reconcile Christian beliefs with evolution by finding reflections of the divine in scientific explanations for the origin of life. By tracing the historical forerunners of these rival Christian responses, Bowler provides a valuable alternative to accounts that stress only the escalating confrontation.

Our polarized society, Bowler says, has all too often projected its rivalries onto the past, concealing the efforts by both scientists and theologians to find common ground. Our perception of past confrontations has been shaped by an oversimplified model of a war between science and religion. By uncovering the complexity of the debates sparked by Darwin s theory, we might discover ways to depolarize our own debates about where we came from and why we are here.