Ruse, Michael (Author)
The Darwinian Revolution--the change in thinking sparked by Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species, which argued that all organisms including humans are the end product of a long, slow, natural process of evolution rather than the miraculous creation of an all-powerful God--is one of the truly momentous cultural events in Western Civilization. Darwinism as Religion is an innovative and exciting approach to this revolution through creative writing, showing how the theory of evolution as expressed by Darwin has, from the first, functioned as a secular religion. Drawing on a deep understanding of both the science and the history, Michael Ruse surveys the naturalistic thinking about the origins of organisms, including the origins of humankind, as portrayed in novels and in poetry, taking the story from its beginnings in the Age of Enlightenment in the 18th century right up to the present. He shows that, contrary to the opinion of many historians of the era, there was indeed a revolution in thought and that the English naturalist Charles Darwin was at the heart of it. However, contrary also to what many think, this revolution was not primarily scientific as such, but more religious or metaphysical, as people were taken from the secure world of the Christian faith into a darker, more hostile world of evolutionism. In a fashion unusual for the history of ideas, Ruse turns to the novelists and poets of the period for inspiration and information. His book covers a wide range of creative writers - from novelists like Voltaire and poets like Erasmus Darwin in the eighteenth century, through the nineteenth century with novelists including Elizabeth Gaskell, George Eliot, Thomas Hardy, Henry James and H. G. Wells and poets including Robert Browning, Alfred Tennyson, Walt Whitman, Emily Dickinson and Gerard Manley Hopkins, and on to the twentieth century with novelists including Edith Wharton, D. H. Lawrence, John Steinbeck, William Golding, Graham Greene, Ian McEwan and Marilynne Robinson, and poets including Robert Frost, Edna St Vincent Millay and Philip Appleman. Covering such topics as God, origins, humans, race and class, morality, sexuality, and sin and redemption, and written in an engaging manner and spiced with wry humor, Darwinism as Religion gives us an entirely fresh, engaging and provocative view of one of the cultural highpoints of Western thought.
...MoreEssay Review John Hedley Brooke (2017) Darwinism as Religion. Science and Education (pp. 171-174).
Review Bernard Lightman (2017) Review of "Darwinism as Religion: What Literature Tells Us about Evolution". Isis: International Review Devoted to the History of Science and Its Cultural Influences (pp. 923-924).
Article
Marco Mazzeo;
(2013)
Gli errori di Darwin? Evoluzione e storia naturale
(/isis/citation/CBB744523130/)
Book
McGrath, Alister E.;
(2011)
Darwinism and the Divine: Evolutionary Thought and Natural Theology
(/isis/citation/CBB001220972/)
Book
Silva, Ignacio Alberto;
(2014)
Latin American Perspectives on Science and Religion
(/isis/citation/CBB001422634/)
Book
Brown, William;
Fabian, Andrew C.;
(2010)
Darwin
(/isis/citation/CBB001023129/)
Book
Prochiantz, Alain;
(2010)
Darwin, 200 ans
(/isis/citation/CBB001024540/)
Article
Hull, David L.;
(2011)
Defining Darwinism
(/isis/citation/CBB001023980/)
Book
Saul, Nicholas;
James, Simon J.;
(2011)
The Evolution of Literature: Legacies of Darwin in European Cultures
(/isis/citation/CBB001202029/)
Book
Ruse, Michael;
(2013)
The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Darwin and Evolutionary Thought
(/isis/citation/CBB001211881/)
Book
Young, Christian C.;
Largent, Mark A.;
(2007)
Evolution and Creationism: A Documentary and Reference Guide
(/isis/citation/CBB000700832/)
Book
Ruse, Michael;
Travis, Joseph;
(2009)
Evolution: The First Four Billion Years
(/isis/citation/CBB001232307/)
Chapter
Ruse, Michael;
(2010)
Evolution and the Idea of Social Progress
(/isis/citation/CBB001020305/)
Thesis
Yegge, John G.;
(2014)
A Historical Analysis of the Relationship of Faith and Science and its Significance within Education
(/isis/citation/CBB001567599/)
Chapter
Numbers, Ronald L.;
(2010)
Creationism, Intelligent Design, and Modern Biology
(/isis/citation/CBB001020307/)
Book
Bowler, Peter J.;
(2007)
Monkey Trials and Gorilla Sermons: Evolution and Christianity from Darwin to Intelligent Design
(/isis/citation/CBB000774288/)
Article
Shapiro, Adam R.;
(2014)
Darwin's Foil: The Evolving Uses of William Paley's Natural Theology 1802--2005
(/isis/citation/CBB001420094/)
Book
Michael Ruse;
(2021)
Philosophy after Darwin
(/isis/citation/CBB952503073/)
Thesis
Cherico, Rebecca Vitz;
(2004)
The Struggle with Darwin in the Turn-of-the-Century Spanish Novel: Emilia Pardo Bazan, Miguel de Unamuno, and Pio Baroja
(/isis/citation/CBB001562038/)
Chapter
Jones, Steve;
(2010)
The Evolution of Utopia
(/isis/citation/CBB001023134/)
Chapter
Compagnon, Antoine;
(2010)
Darwin en littérature
(/isis/citation/CBB001024555/)
Thesis
Perera, Nirshan;
(2012)
Dickens and Darwin
(/isis/citation/CBB001562808/)
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