Lone Voices?

This chapter asks if Draper and White were indeed the sole originators of the conflict thesis, or whether there were others before and/or alongside them. Journeying from the French Revolution through to late Victorian England, key players are identified and discussed. These include Auguste Comte, Herbert Spencer, John Tyndall, Thomas Huxley, the X Club, and many more influential characters who spoke on or wrote about the relationship between science and religion. The conclusion is that Draper and White were far from alone: many other highly significant public figures had argued that there was an inherent conflict between theology and the scientific method in one way or another. The chapter then teases why it might be that Draper and White are so forcefully put forward in the literature as being the lone progenitors of the idea.

Modern Evolutionist Naturalism And Šankara’s Arguments Contra Sankhya

This comparative study aims at juxtaposition of modern Western naturalistic evolutionism and the mostly similar attitude in the classic Indian philosophy in the shape of Sankhya’s cosmology in the context of their corresponding critiques by contemporary creationists and Advaita-Vedanta. The long and pointed polemics with Sankhya in the Brahmasutrabhasya by Šankaracharya (7th-8th centuries A.D.) is in the focus of this investigation along with numerous references to the Sankhya-karika by Isvarakrsna (5th century A.D.) as the basic text of the philosophical school criticized by its most powerful opponent. Comparing Western and Indian evolutionism reveals some very important differences to such a degree that the Indian species of the genus would be, in the author’s opinion, better identified as not evolutionism in the strict sense but as a “développisme” combining features of evolutionism with those of emanationism. As to Sankhya’s naturalism, it turns to be much more “sophisticated” than that, e.g., of Thomas Huxley or the so-called New Atheists because its “stuff” is more psychological than material. Nevertheless, crucial logical gaps remain the same in both cases (along with an antitheistic “faith” instead of rationalism), while their taking into account by opponents of naturalism offers a challenge for comparative philosophical theology.

Thomas Henry Huxley e o parentesco entre dinossauros e aves

Este trabalho consiste em uma tradução do artigo “On the Animals which are most nearly intermediate between Birds and the Reptiles”, de autoria de Thomas Huxley (1825-1895), publicado no Annals and Magazine of Natural History, em fevereiro de 1868. Nesse artigo, Thomas Henry Huxley (1825-1895) lidou com a hipótese da existência de uma relação de parentesco entre répteis e aves após ter observado diversas similaridades entre dois fósseis pertencentes a esses grupos: Compsognathus e Archeopteryx. Apesar das inúmeras evidências apontadas por Huxley, e outros pesquisadores, a hipótese de que aves descendiam de dinossauros perdeu força na década de 1920. Só seria retomada na década de 1970, e desde então é consenso na comunidade científica.

As contribuições de Kropotkin para a teoria da evolução: Contribuições para o ensino de biologia

In one of his most important works, "Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution" (1902/2009), the Russian anarchist Pyotr Kropotkin outlined his ethnological and ethological observations that led him to propose that, although what later came to be called "fitness" in evolutionary biology is greatly influenced by competition between individuals, cooperation is also an important factor in the evolution of populations and species. Darwin (1859/2018) considered the problem of cooperation a difficulty for his theories, but it were his followers - especially Thomas Huxley and Herbert Spencer - who ignited a vigorous debate around the subject in the 19th century. Building on Helen Longino's epistemology, I argue that both approaches are value-laden and have political goals, from a libertarian approach in the Kropotkinian camp to a liberal approach in the Huxley-Spencerian camp. This value-ladenness represents an important feature of the Nature of Science that should not be neglected in science teaching, especially in the teaching of evolution. The debate promoted by Kropotkin can be used, in the classroom, to teach the role of cooperation in the evolution of species, as well as to discuss the role of the external context in establishing scientific objectivity, sensu Longino.

Coined with Intent

Although most deliberately coined neologisms disappear without a trace, some durable words have been coined with intent. Linguists call them de novo terms. Such neologisms are typically created by combining existing words and clauses, adding prefixes and suffixes, and adapting terms borrowed from other languages (as when Thomas Huxley turned to Greek for agnostic, Richard Dawkins for meme, and Norbert Wiener for cybernetics). An elite group of neologizers don’t just tap existing terminology to produce new words, they create them from scratch. The results, notable for their scarcity, can be thought of as scratch words. In addition to recoining the chemical term bromide to refer to soporific pronouncements, humorist Gelett Burgess cut blurb and goop from whole cloth. Playwright George S. Kaufman did the same thing when coining widget. Any number of brand names, such as Kodak and nylon were also created from scratch.

La labor paleontológica de Thomas Huxley

Si toda la vida en la Tierra comparte un ancestro común, con la evolución como mecanismo diversificando gradualmente a través del tiempo, entonces, el registro fósil debería proporcionar formas graduadas intermedias. Sin embargo, para 1859 (año de la publicación de El origen de las especies), éstas aún no habían sido descubiertas. Para Charles Darwin (1809-1882), esto representaba una seria objeción a su teoría evolutiva e intentó explicar esta evidencia negativa a través de la imperfección del registro fósil. Por lo tanto, la paleontología era la clave que podía presentar evidencia a favor de la evolución. Thomas Henry Huxley (1825-1895), hallaría formas de transición que unirían grandes grupos animales sin relación aparente, por ejemplo, las aves con los reptiles a través de los dinosaurios. El objetivo del presente trabajo fue llevar a cabo una investigación sobre la obra paleontológica de Thomas Huxley, haciendo un especial énfasis en su apoyo a las ideas evolutivas de Darwin. Se llegó a la conclusión de que su labor paleontológica demostró que los hechos de la paleontología, en lo que concierne a las aves y a los reptiles, no se oponen a la doctrina de la evolución, sino que, al contrario, eran muy parecidos a los que la doctrina nos llevaría a esperar.

La labor paleontológica de Thomas Huxley

Si toda la vida en la Tierra comparte un ancestro común, con la evolución como mecanismo diversificando gradualmente a través del tiempo, entonces, el registro fósil debería proporcionar formas graduadas intermedias. Sin embargo, para 1859 (año de la publicación de El origen de las especies), éstas aún no habían sido descubiertas. Para Charles Darwin (1809-1882), esto representaba una seria objeción a su teoría evolutiva e intentó explicar esta evidencia negativa a través de la imperfección del registro fósil. Por lo tanto, la paleontología era la clave que podía presentar evidencia a favor de la evolución. Thomas Henry Huxley (1825-1895), hallaría formas de transición que unirían grandes grupos animales sin relación aparente, por ejemplo, las aves con los reptiles a través de los dinosaurios. El objetivo del presente trabajo fue llevar a cabo una investigación sobre la obra paleontológica de Thomas Huxley, haciendo un especial énfasis en su apoyo a las ideas evolutivas de Darwin. Se llegó a la conclusión de que su labor paleontológica demostró que los hechos de la paleontología, en lo que concierne a las aves y a los reptiles, no se oponen a la doctrina de la evolución, sino que, al contrario, eran muy parecidos a los que la doctrina nos llevaría a esperar.

Between Intuition and Empiricism

William Benjamin Carpenter was a central figure in the Metaphysical Society. Aware of the tensions between the theists and the scientific naturalists in the Society he offered a middle ground. Although his early work in physiology had led him to doubt his own Unitarian faith, his mentor James Martineau had reassured him. However, as his studies in science developed, Carpenter found physiological evidence to underpin his faith. Although Carpenter failed to convince the most extreme among his friends in the Society; namely, Richard Holt Hutton and Thomas Huxley, or his lifelong mentor, Martineau, his ideas were attractive to many others. Henry Edward Manning adopted Carpenter’s ideas in defence of his own theism, for instance, and his ideas were publicized and appreciated in the wider scientific community.

Censoring Huxley and Wilberforce: A new source for the meeting that the Athenaeum ‘wisely softened down’

In mid July 1860, the Athenaeum published a summary of the discussions about Charles Darwin's theory that took place at the British Association meeting in Oxford. Its account omitted the famous exchange between Samuel Wilberforce, Bishop of Oxford, and Thomas Huxley, the rising man of science. A fuller report of the meeting was published a week later in a local weekly, the Oxford Chronicle , but this has gone unnoticed by historians. The Oxford Chronicle supplies a new version of Wilberforce's question to Huxley, with more material about religious objections to human evolution and the proper role of authority in popular scientific discussions. Excerpts from the Athenaeum and Oxford Chronicle accounts show that they likely had a common ancestor, and other sources corroborate details given only in the Oxford Chronicle . This discovery reveals that the Athenaeum narrative—until now the longest and best known—was censored to remove material that was considered objectionable. The Oxford Chronicle gives us a fuller story of what was said and how the audience reacted to the encounter between Huxley and Wilberforce.

Dr James Hunt Revisited: The quest for awakening Robert Knox's ideas and reterritorialization of his racial theories into the mainstream scientific discourse in mid-Victorian Britain

This paper aims to explore James Hunt's role in the rehabilitation of Dr Robert Knox's diminished reputation by careful choice of original theories from "Races of Men" to establish ideological underpinning for political agenda of Anthropological Society of London (1863-1871). Additionally, Hunt had become empowered with the reliable tool to oppose Thomas Huxley, and his fellow Darwinists efforts to homogenise mid-Victorian Anthropology under the banner of Darwinism. Although Hunt had to pay the steep price for such accomplishment, since he had to de-radicalise core elements of Knox's racialist vision. Moreover, Hunt's orchestrated resurrection of modified version of Knox's writings helped him to smuggle a cunningly significant number of both Knox's original and upgraded racialist elements into contemporary Social Darwinism. Hence, the legacy of James Hunt should not be underestimated as a marginal contribution to further development of racism in following two decades after his death. Additionally, the purpose of this paper is to demonstrate how James Hunt managed to popularise and bring into the foreground racial theories pioneered by Robert Knox.The central thesis of this paper is to analyse the process of Hunt’s intentional manipulation with original ideas developed by Robert Knox to shape them for his political purpose and consequent popularisation of expanded corpus of racialist theory. We shall begin with a brief introduction to Robert Knox, who indeed inspired James Hunt to popularise racist views in mid-Victorian society, though Hunt later modified Knoxian racial doctrine rather unfaithfully to the original theory. This paper analyses Hunt’s transition from Knox’s admirer to a populariser of broader racist doctrine including not Knox, but elements of racial theories of Paul Broca, George Gliddon, Samuel Morton and Josiah Nott as well. The final part of the paper follows Hunt's shift from the populariser of toxic racist ideas to a wily political manipulator, who shaped his condensed racist beliefs and methods along with changes in British colonial policy to pass down ultimate racist underpinning for emerging wave of a new ideology of uncompromising imperialism.