First published in 1951, Genesis and Geology describes the background of social and theological ideas and the progress of scientific researches which, between them, produced the religious difficulties that afflicted the development of science in early industrial England. The book makes clear that the furor over On the Origin of Species was nothing new: earlier discoveries in science (particularly geology) had presented major challenges, not only to the literal interpretation of the Book of Genesis, but even more seriously to the traditional idea that Providence controls the order of nature with an eye to fulfilling divine purpose. A new Foreword by Nicolaas A. Rupke places this book in the context of the last forty-five years of scholarship in the social history of evolutionary thought.
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Editorial Reviews
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Praise for the first edition:
"A book to be read by all who wish to appreciate the scientific and social background of the half-century or so preceding the publication of Darwin's Origin of Species. (Nature )
"A book to be read by all who wish to appreciate the scientific and social background of the half-century or so preceding the publication of Darwin's Origin of Species. (Nature )
About the Author
Charles Coulston Gillispie is Dayton Stockton Professor of History, Emeritus, Princeton University.
Nicolaas A. Rupke is Professor and Director, Institute for the History of Science, Göttingen University.
Nicolaas A. Rupke is Professor and Director, Institute for the History of Science, Göttingen University.
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13 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Searching for God in the details.,
By A Customer
This review is from: Genesis and Geology: A Study of the Relations of Scientific Thought, Natural Theology, and Social Opinion in Great Britain, 1790-1850 (Harvard Historical Studies) (Paperback)
The subtitle on the cover of my 1959, Harper & Row paperback edition of <Genesis and Geology> reads, "The Impact of Scientific Discoveries Upon Religious Beliefs in the Decades Before Darwin." Since the title page bears an altogether different subtitle--the one printed above in the Amazon catalogue--it seems probable that this alternate description was the choice of the publisher, and did not reflect the intentions of the author. Bringing a work of scholarship to a mass-market audience always involves some kind of compromise, so the change no doubt is understandable. After all, the vague suggestion of scandal in "The Impact of Scientific Discoveries Upon Religious Beliefs" promises to attract more readers than Gillispie's stodgy and academic-sounding "A Study in the Relations of . . . etc." The problem, of course, is that the "sexier" (for 1959!) subtitle is wildly inaccurate. Harper & Row's editors got it precisely backwards: Gillispie's book is about the impact of religious beliefs on science, and not the other way round. Unfortunately, in reinstating the book's original subtitle, Harvard University Press promotes truth in advertising in more ways than one, for <Genesis and Geology> indeed is a dry, scholarly and at times tedious work. And that ultimately is the greatest misfortune of all, since the academic deadwood obscures an important and highly instructive thesis. One of the prevailing myths of modern Christian fundamentalism is that of the "atheist scientist" presumptuously attacking the revealed truths of the Biblical world view and thereby undermining the foundations of faith and morality. While this myth occasionally leads to an outright rejection of science (a la "flat-earthers"), it more frequently results in the strained distortions of Christian pseudoscience ("scientific" creationism, "mind-of-God" cosmologies, prayer-as-medicine, etc.), a more sophisticated response whereby science is coopted to the service of religion and the "glorification of God." The teleological argument leads naturally to an interest in the universe, and science provides a rich store of data to reflect upon in this connection. To appreciate the Watchmaker fully, we must first study the Watch. That this reconciliation of scientific discovery with religious "revelation" frequently requires the distortion and suppression of the empirical evidence at hand ultimately is a small point, easily finessed away in the footnotes. Science, we are told, has proven the existence of God. The great value of Gillispie's study lies in the historical light it throws on this age-old yet perennially "new" problem. What Gillispie shows in page after carefully documented page of excerpts from contemporary scientific journals is that, far from a presumption of atheism, the geologists and paleontologists of the early nineteenth century predicated their studies on a very traditional religious faith and a keen desire to use science to verify and justify the Mosaic account of creation. The irony, of course, is that the more these scientists discovered, the harder it became for them to reconcile their newfound knowledge with the revealed traditions of Scripture. At no point, however, was this recognition a welcome or foreseen conclusion. The geologists took to their work with gusto, confident that exploring the history of the physical world around them could only tend to the greater glory of God by revealing the workings of His particular Providence. As it gradually dawned on them that their studies pointed to quite contrary conclusions, they reacted not with atheistic glee but with dismay and sometimes denial. Such observations are not original to Gillispie, nor is the pattern of pious scientists finding their faith shaken by the very facts they had worked to reveal unique to nineteenth-century geologists. In its detailed focus on the development of one branch of science in the period of its first flowering, however, <Genesis and Geology> nonetheless makes for a convincing, thought-provoking study of the uneasy relationship between science and religion. Although Gillispie avoids drawing any theological conclusions, it is not difficult to see the significance of the nineteenth-century experience in geology for the future of the teleological argument and "providential empiricism." As long as religion continues to turn to science for support, it will go on receiving problematic answers. Fundamentalist Christians would do well to consider that the science they so deplore was developed, to a great extent, by researchers whose motivation involved a very pious and orthodox desire to glorify the works of God. Atheists and other skeptics, on the other hand, no doubt can benefit from considering the reverse of the coin--the way in which the religious hypothesis, however limiting at times, has served as a genuine source of inspiration to seekers of the truth. The teleological argument, through science, proves to be self-refuting; but we need not let that blind us to the very human struggle which that process historically has involved. Gillispie offers valuable insights for each perspective. As noted at the beginning of this review, <Genesis and Geology> is a slow-going read. In his natural, historian's desire to be thorough, Gillispie often seems to lose the forest for the trees, tiring the reader with seemingly interminable details about publication dates, scientific allegiances and academic eccentricities. As the popular saying has it, however, God is in the details. The reader willing to slog through the great mass of quotation and documentation in <Genesis and Geology> will be rewarded with a broad yet vivid picture of the science-religion debate of an earlier era, and with much to ponder regarding the ongoing debate in our own.
5.0 out of 5 stars
SCIENCE AND RELIGION - 18th and 19th CENTURY STYLE,
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This review is from: Genesis and Geology: A Study of the Relations of Scientific Thought, Natural Theology, and Social Opinion in Great Britain, 1790-1850 (Harvard Historical Studies) (Paperback)
For those of us who are very much interested in the interaction between science and religion, Gillispie's 1951 book is a very useful, and thorough summary of the subject. Gillispie points out that the supposed "conflict" or "warfare" between science and theology (as espoused in books such as in Draper's History of the Conflict Between Religion and Science and White's A History of the Warfare of Science With Theology in Christendom 2 Volume Set(Great Minds Series)) didn't necessarily exist prior to 1850; at least, it was not the "simple, universal, black-and-white affair" that Draper and White would make it out to be. In fact, many or most of the prominent scientists in the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries (e.g., Boyle, Newton) were deeply committed Christians, who believed in the literal accuracy of the Book of Genesis's account of the origins of the world. For these 'natural philosophers,' the physical world was a second revelation, or "God's book of Nature."
However, this idyllic picture encountered problems when more came to be known about Geology, and the existence of fossils (notably dinosaurs); James Hutton's book Theory Of The Earth (1788)---as interpreted by John Playfair's Illustrations of the Huttonian Theory of the Earth---was a major step forward, and the geological world became divided into "Neptunists" (who believed that the worldwide flood of Noah had deposited all of the fossils, sediments and strata that geologists were studying) and "Vulcanists" (who believed that volcanic and still-operating forces created features such as mountains). A school of geology called "Catastrophism" developed, which similarly accounted for geological data by Noah's Flood. Cuvier's researches into comparative anatomy were a great step forward, but he put them to the use of catastrophism, arguing that the worldwide flood accounted for such massive extinction. Charles Lyell's book Principles of Geology (Penguin Classics) began to turn the tide in favor of "Uniformitarianism" (i.e., that present processes explained the geological strata, etc.), and Robert Chambers' Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation and Other Evolutionary Writings suggested a pre-Darwinian theory of development between species. The 1859 publication of Darwin's The Origin Of Species: 150th Anniversary Edition turned the tide in favor of the new evolutionary theory, and the modern period of conflict between science and religion began in earnest. Gillispie's book is a fascinating (though sometimes perhaps too detailed) tour through the "details" of this history, and turns persons such as Cuvier into real persons, not caricactures as they are often portrayed in textbooks.
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