A01=Peter J. Bowler
Author_Peter J. Bowler
Category=PDA
Category=PSAJ
eq_bestseller
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
eq_science
Product details
- ISBN 9780801843679
- Weight: 340g
- Dimensions: 152 x 229mm
- Publication Date: 26 Apr 1992
- Publisher: Johns Hopkins University Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Paperback
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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.
Peter J. Bowler is reader in the history of philosophy of sceince at the Queen's University of Belfast, Northern Ireland. His other books include The Eclipse of Darwinism: Anti-Darwinian Evolution Theories in the Decades around 1900, The Mendelian Revolution, and Theories of Human Evolution.
