Biology and Ideology from Descartes to Dawkins
eBook - PDF

Biology and Ideology from Descartes to Dawkins

  1. English
  2. PDF
  3. Available on iOS & Android
eBook - PDF

Biology and Ideology from Descartes to Dawkins

About this book

Over the course of human history, the sciences, and biology in particular, have often been manipulated to cause immense human suffering. For example, biology has been used to justify eugenic programs, forced sterilization, human experimentation, and death camps—all in an attempt to support notions of racial superiority. By investigating the past, the contributors to Biology and Ideology from Descartes to Dawkins hope to better prepare us to discern ideological abuse of science when it occurs in the future.  

Denis R. Alexander and Ronald L. Numbers bring together fourteen experts to examine the varied ways science has been used and abused for nonscientific purposes from the fifteenth century to the present day. Featuring an essay on eugenics from Edward J. Larson and an examination of the progress of evolution by Michael J. Ruse, Biology and Ideology examines uses both benign and sinister, ultimately reminding us that ideological extrapolation continues today. An accessible survey, this collection will enlighten historians of science, their students, practicing scientists, and anyone interested in the relationship between science and culture.

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Yes, you can access Biology and Ideology from Descartes to Dawkins by Denis R. Alexander, Ronald L. Numbers, Denis R. Alexander,Ronald L. Numbers in PDF and/or ePUB format, as well as other popular books in Biological Sciences & World History. We have over one million books available in our catalogue for you to explore.

Table of contents

  1. Contents
  2. Introduction / Denis R. Alexander and Ronald L. Numbers
  3. 1. The cultural authority of natural history in early modern Europe / Peter Harrison
  4. 2. Biology, atheism, and politics in eighteenth-century France / Shirley A. Roe
  5. 3. Eighteenth-century uses of vitalism in constructing the human sciences / Peter Hanns Reill
  6. 4. Biology in the service of natural theology: Paley, Darwin, and the Bridgewater Treatises / Jonathan R. Topham
  7. 5. Race, empire, and biology before Darwinism / Sujit Sivasundaram
  8. 6. Darwin's choice / Nicolaas Rupke
  9. 7. Biology and the emergence of the Anglo-American eugenics movement / Edward J. Larson
  10. 8. Genetics, eugenics, and the Holocaust / Paul Weindling
  11. 9. Darwinism, Marxism, and genetics in the Soviet Union / Nikolai Krementsov
  12. 10. Evolution and the idea of social Progress / Michael Ruse
  13. 11. Beauty and the beast? Conceptualizing sex in evolutionary narratives / Erika Lorraine Milam
  14. 12. Creationism, intelligent design, and modern biology / Ronald L. Numbers
  15. 13. The ideological uses of evolutionary biology in recent atheist apologetics / Alister E. McGrath
  16. Acknowledgments
  17. Notes
  18. Contributors
  19. Index