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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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."

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.

Recent scholarship has revealed that pioneering Victorian scientists endeavored through voluminous writing to raise public interest in science and its implications. But it has generally been assumed that once science became a profession around the turn of the century, this new generation of scientists turned its collective back on public outreach. "Science for All" debunks this apocryphal notion.

Peter J. Bowler surveys the books, serial works, magazines, and newspapers published between 1900 and the outbreak of World War II to show that practicing scientists were very active in writing about their work for a general readership. "Science for All" argues that the social environment of early twentieth-century Britain created a substantial market for science books and magazines aimed at those who had benefited from better secondary education but could not access higher learning. Scientists found it easy and profitable to write for this audience, Bowler reveals, and because their work was seen as educational, they faced no hostility from their peers. But when admission to colleges and universities became more accessible in the 1960s, this market diminished and professional scientists began to lose interest in writing at the nonspecialist level.

Eagerly anticipated by scholars of scientific engagement throughout the ages, "Science for All "sheds light on our own era and the continuing tension between science and public understanding.

The ideas and terminology of Darwinism are so pervasive these days that it seems impossible to avoid them, let alone imagine a world without them. But in this remarkable rethinking of scientific history, Peter J. Bowler does just that. He asks: What if Charles Darwin had not returned from the voyage of the Beagle and thus did not write "On the Origin of Species"? Would the absence of Darwin's book have led to a different sequence of events, in which biology developed along a track that did not precipitate a great debate about the impact of evolutionism? Would there have been anything equivalent to "social Darwinism," and if so would the alternatives have been less pernicious and misappropriated? In "Darwin Deleted", Bowler argues that no one else was in a position to duplicate Darwin's complete theory of evolution by natural selection. Evolutionary biology would almost certainly have emerged, but through alternative theories, which were frequently promoted by scientists, religious thinkers, and moralists who feared the implications of natural selection. Because non-Darwinian elements of evolutionism flourished for a time in the real world, it is possible to plausibly imagine how they might have developed. Bowler's unique approach enables him to clearly explain the non-Darwinian tradition and fully elucidate the ideas of other scientists, such as Richard Owen and Thomas Huxley, whose work has often been misunderstood because of their distinctive responses to Darwin. "Darwin Deleted" boldly offers a new vision of scientific history. It is one where the sequence of discovery and development could have led to an alternative understanding of the relationship between evolution, heredity, and the environment-and, most significantly, a less contentious relationship between science and religion, avoiding the polarized attitudes that shape the conversation today.

In 1928, paleontologist William Diller Matthew wrote, "The story of life on earth is a splendid drama". This story has captivated generations of biologists, including those working in the years immediately following publication of Darwin's Origin of Species in 1859. Yet histories of the Darwinian revolution have ignored the main nineteenth-century application of evolution: the attempt to reconstruct the history of life on earth. Now Peter J. Bowler seeks to recover some of this lost history in Life's Splendid Drama, the definitive account of evolutionary morphology and its relationships with paleontology and biogeography. As Bowler tracks major scientific debates over the emergence of the vertebrates, the origins of the main types of living animals, and the rise and extinction of groups such as the dinosaurs, his richly detailed accounts bring to light complex interactions among specialists in various fields of biology. Charting the role of Darwin's ideas and the degree and direction of their influence, Bowler shows how these interactions constituted an interdisciplinary program with a focus on reconstructing the past rather than on mechanisms of evolutionary change. Bowler also examines the socially laden metaphors used by early biologists to describe the history of life, and argues that such usage influenced the development of modern evolutionism by exploiting Darwinian principles outside the context of the genetical theory of natural selection. Much of the rhetoric of "social Darwinism" may thus have been derived not directly from natural selection theory but from the application of Darwinian principles to the rise and fall of different animal groups over time. Bowler's magisterialwork will appeal to historians of science and ideas and also to biologists - particularly those working in evolutionary biology, paleontology, and systematicsinterested in the roots of their disciplines, as well as to the many readers fascinated by Darwin and his influence.