Biography:

BA (Cambridge), MSc (Sussex), PhD (Toronto), FBA, MRIA, Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science

Research Interests

The development and implications of Darwinism. History of the environmental sciences. Science and religion, especially twentieth century. Popular science writing.

Current research is on the production of popular science literature in early twentieth-century Britain, with particular emphasis on the role played by professional scientists.

Select Publications

'Experts and Publishers: Writing Popular Science in Early Twentieth-Century Britain,' British Journal for the History of Science, 39 (2006).

Evolution: The History of an Idea. 3rd edn. (California, 2003).

Reconciling Science and Religion: The Debate in Early Twentieth-Century Britain. (Chicago, 2001).

Lifes Splendid Drama: Evolutionary Biology and the Reconstruction of Lifes Ancestry, 1960-1940. (Chicago, 1996).

Charles Darwin: The Man and his Influence. (Cambridge, 1996).

Abstract:

The Variety of Religious Responses to Darwinism

In the West, there is a widespread assumption that Darwinism and religious belief are incompatible. Scientists such as Richard Dawkins argue that the theory of natural selection is incompatible with belief in a Creator, while fundamentalist Christians stress that evolutionism necessarily destroys faith. The modern conflict is often portrayed as a battle in a war between science and religion. In fact the situation is far more complex, and the history of the relationship between evolutionism and religion can help us to understand the many factors involved. There are many different forms of religious belief, each with a different perspective on the situation. Fundamentalists believe in the literal wording of scriptural accounts of creation, which seem incompatible with the whole scientific worldview. Many find the idea that humans have evolved from animals difficult to reconcile with belief in the immortality of the soul. But when we look back to Darwins own time, we find that many religious believers were willing to accept the evolutionary viewpoint, providing it could be argued that evolution was a purposeful process that could be seen as the working out of Gods design. Here the complexity of scientific evolutionism is crucial. Darwins theory of natural selection is hard to reconcile with design, but alternatives were suggested which seemed more compatible with the idea of a purposeful trend in evolution. These seemed to have been discredited in the twentieth century, but the triumph of modern neo-Darwinism no longer seems quite so secure.