The Non-Darwinian Revolution Reinterpreting a Historical Myth

By: Peter J Bowler(Author)

248 pages, illustrations

Publisher: Johns Hopkins University Press

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ISBN: 9780801843679 Paperback Mar 1992 Not in stock: Usually dispatched within 1 week
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ISBN: 9780801836787 Hardback Dec 1988 Out of Print #10069

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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.

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By: Peter J Bowler(Author)

248 pages, illustrations

Publisher: Johns Hopkins University Press

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"Timely and cogent in its aims and arguments, it should prompt debate and discussion leading to fresh critical and historiographical insights concerning all those topics that historians of science, of society, and of culture associate with 'Darwinism' and 'evolutionism.'."
– British Journal of the History of Science

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