Title Darwinism as religion : what literature tells us about evolution / Michael Ruse

Published New York, NY : Oxford University Press, [2017] ©2017

Click on the following:
EBSCO eBooks

Copies

Description 1 online resource (xvi, 310 pages) Contents Prologue -- The eighteenth century -- Before Darwin -- The Darwinian theory -- Reception -- God -- Origins -- Humans -- Race and class -- Morality -- Sex -- Sin and redemption -- The future -- Darwinism as background -- Darwinian theory comes of age -- The divide continues -- Conflicting visions -- Epilogue Summary 'Darwinism as Religion' argues that the theory of evolution given by Charles Darwin in the nineteenth century has always functioned as much as a secular form of religion as anything purely scientific. Through the words of novelists and poets, Michael Ruse argues that Darwin took us from the secure world of Christian faith into a darker, less friendly world of chance and lack of meaning "Through the lens of poetry and fiction, Darwinism as Religion tells the history of evolutionary theory, arguing that Charles Darwin was the significant figure in this story, that his Origin of Species published in 1859 was the key work, and that the revolution he brought about was less one of science and more one of religion. Evolutionary thinking focusing on Darwin's mechanism of natural selection formed a rival worldview to the Christianity from which his ideas in major respects derived. Darwinism as Religion is unique in combing a deep feeling for literature with a synoptic knowledge of the theory of evolution and its past, from the early days when it was essentially a pseudoscience resting on the back of enthusiasm for the ideology of Progress, a direct challenge to the Christian commitment to Providence, through the years after the Origin when it was the great popular science of the museums and lecture halls, and on to the professionalism of the genetically informed twentieth century. Drawing on novelists including George Eliot, Thomas Hardy, and D.H. Lawrence and poets including Alfred Tennyson, Emily Dickinson, and Robert Frost, the tale is told of Darwinism growing and rivaling and challenging Christianity, continuing the story to the present, through such Darwinian writers as the poet Philip Appleman and the novelist Ian McEwan, and such Christian writers as the poet Pattiann Rogers and the Calvinist novelist Marilynne Robinson."--Provided by publisher Bibliography Includes bibliographical references (pages 285-298) and index Notes Online resource; title from digital title page (Oxford Scholoarship Online platform, viewed April 7, 2017) Subject Darwin, Charles, 1809-1882 -- Influence SUBJECT Darwin, Charles, 1809-1882 fast Subject English literature -- 19th century -- History and criticism Literature and science -- Great Britain -- History Religion and literature -- Great Britain -- History Evolution (Biology) in literature. Nature in literature. Religion in literature. Religion and science. Religion and Science LITERARY CRITICISM -- European -- English, Irish, Scottish, Welsh. English literature Evolution (Biology) in literature Influence (Literary, artistic, etc.) Literature and science Nature in literature Religion and literature Religion and science Religion in literature Great Britain Genre/Form Criticism, interpretation, etc. History Form Electronic book ISBN 9780190241056 0190241055 9780190241032 0190241039

  Permalink