
eBook - PDF
Reconciling Science and Religion
The Debate in Early-Twentieth-Century Britain
- English
- PDF
- Available on iOS & Android
eBook - PDF
About this book
Although much has been written about the vigorous debates over science and religion in the Victorian era, little attention has been paid to their continuing importance in early twentieth-century Britain. Reconciling Science and Religion provides a comprehensive survey of the interplay between British science and religion from the late nineteenth century to World War II.
Peter J. Bowler argues that unlike the United States, where a strong fundamentalist opposition to evolutionism developed in the 1920s (most famously expressed in the Scopes "monkey trial" of 1925), in Britain there was a concerted effort to reconcile science and religion. Intellectually conservative scientists championed the reconciliation and were supported by liberal theologians in the Free Churches and the Church of England, especially the Anglican "Modernists." Popular writers such as Julian Huxley and George Bernard Shaw sought to create a non-Christian religion similar in some respects to the Modernist position. Younger scientists and secularistsâincluding Rationalists such as H. G. Wells and the Marxistsâtended to oppose these efforts, as did conservative Christians, who saw the liberal position as a betrayal of the true spirit of their religion. With the increased social tensions of the 1930s, as the churches moved toward a neo-orthodoxy unfriendly to natural theology and biologists adopted the "Modern Synthesis" of genetics and evolutionary theory, the proposed reconciliation fell apart.
Because the tensions between science and religionâand efforts at reconciling the twoâare still very much with us today, Bowler's book will be important for everyone interested in these issues.
Peter J. Bowler argues that unlike the United States, where a strong fundamentalist opposition to evolutionism developed in the 1920s (most famously expressed in the Scopes "monkey trial" of 1925), in Britain there was a concerted effort to reconcile science and religion. Intellectually conservative scientists championed the reconciliation and were supported by liberal theologians in the Free Churches and the Church of England, especially the Anglican "Modernists." Popular writers such as Julian Huxley and George Bernard Shaw sought to create a non-Christian religion similar in some respects to the Modernist position. Younger scientists and secularistsâincluding Rationalists such as H. G. Wells and the Marxistsâtended to oppose these efforts, as did conservative Christians, who saw the liberal position as a betrayal of the true spirit of their religion. With the increased social tensions of the 1930s, as the churches moved toward a neo-orthodoxy unfriendly to natural theology and biologists adopted the "Modern Synthesis" of genetics and evolutionary theory, the proposed reconciliation fell apart.
Because the tensions between science and religionâand efforts at reconciling the twoâare still very much with us today, Bowler's book will be important for everyone interested in these issues.
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Yes, you can access Reconciling Science and Religion by Peter J. Bowler in PDF and/or ePUB format, as well as other popular books in Biological Sciences & Philosophy & Ethics in Science. We have over one million books available in our catalogue for you to explore.
Information
Publisher
University of Chicago PressYear
2010Print ISBN
9780226068596, 9780226068589eBook ISBN
9780226068572Table of contents
- Contents
- Illustrations
- Preface
- Introduction: A Legacy of Conflict?
- Part One: The Sciences and Religion
- Part Two: The Churches and Science
- Part Three: The Wider Debate
- Epilogue
- Biographical Appendix
- Bibliography
- Index