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Evolution: The Remarkable History of a Scientific Theory
Edward J. Larson
?Larson?s acclaimed gifts as a writer who can make the history of science exciting to a wide audience are visible again. The story, which takes seriously the cultural meanings of new science, has many twists and turns and is told with humor and vivacity.?
Modern Library Chronicles
Modern Library
May 2004
368 pages ISBN: 0679642889 Hardcover
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Non-Fiction
“I often said before starting, that I had no doubt I
should frequently repent of the whole undertaking.” So
wrote Charles Darwin aboard The Beagle, bound for the
Galapagos Islands and what would arguably become the
greatest and most controversial discovery in scientific
history. But the theory of evolution did not spring full-
blown from the head of Darwin. Since the dawn of humanity,
priests, philosophers, and scientists have debated the
origin and development of life on earth, and with modern
science, that debate shifted into high gear. In this lively, deeply erudite work, Pulitzer Prize–winning
science historian Edward J. Larson takes us on a guided
tour of Darwin’s “dangerous idea,” from its theoretical
antecedents in the early nineteenth century to the
brilliant breakthroughs of Darwin and Wallace, to Watson
and Crick’s stunning discovery of the DNA double helix, and
to the triumphant neo-Darwinian synthesis and rising
sociobiology today. Along the way, Larson expertly places the scientific
upheaval of evolution in cultural perspective: the social
and philosophical earthquake that was the French
Revolution; the development, in England, of a laissez-faire
capitalism in tune with a Darwinian ethos of “survival of
the fittest”; the emergence of Social Darwinism and the
dark science of eugenics against a backdrop of industrial
revolution; the American Christian backlash against
evolutionism that culminated in the famous Scopes trial;
and on to today’s world, where religious fundamentalists
litigate for the right to teach “creation science”
alongside evolution in U.S. public schools, even as the
theory itself continues to evolve in new and surprising
directions. Throughout, Larson trains his spotlight on the lives and
careers of the scientists, explorers, and eccentrics whose
collaborations and competitions have driven the theory of
evolution forward. Here are portraits of Cuvier, Lamarck,
Darwin, Wallace, Haeckel, Galton, Huxley, Mendel, Morgan,
Fisher, Dobzhansky, Watson and Crick, W. D. Hamilton, E. O.
Wilson, and many others. Celebrated as one of mankind’s
crowning scientific achievements and reviled as a threat to
our deepest values, the theory of evolution has utterly
transformed our view of life, religion, origins, and the
theory itself, and remains controversial, especially in the
United States (where 90% of adults do not subscribe to the
full Darwinian vision). Replete with fresh material and new
insights, Evolution will educate and inform while
taking readers on a fascinating journey of discovery.
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