NDLI: Darwinian Controversies: An Historiographical Recounting

Content Provider	Springer Nature Link
Author	Depew, David J.
Copyright Year	2009
Abstract	This essay reviews key controversies in the history of the Darwinian research tradition: the Wilberforce-Huxley debate in 1860, early twentieth-century debates about the heritability of acquired characteristics and the consistency of Mendelian genetics with natural selection; the 1925 Scopes trial about teaching evolution; tensions about race, culture, and eugenics at the 1959 centenary celebration Darwin’s Origin of Species; adaptationism and its critics in the Sociobiology debate of 1970s and, more recently, Evolutionary Psychology; and current disputes about Intelligent Design. These controversies, I argue, are etched into public memory because they occur at the emotionally charged boundaries between public-political, technical-scientific, and personal-religious spheres of discourse. Over most of them falls the shadow of eugenics. The main lesson is that the history of Darwinism cannot be told except by showing the mutual influence of the different norms of discourse that obtain in the personal, technical, and public spheres. Nor can evolutionary biology successfully be taught to citizens and citizens-to-be until the fractious intersections between spheres of discourse have been made explicit. In the course of showing why, I take rival evolutionary approaches to be dynamical historical research traditions rather than static theories. Accordingly, I distinguish Darwin’s version of Darwinism from its later transformations. I pay special attention to the role Darwin assigned to development in evolution, which was marginalized by twentieth-century population genetical Darwinism, but has recently resurfaced in new forms. I also show how the disputed phrases “survival of the fittest” and “social Darwinism” have shaped personal anxieties about “Darwinism,” have provoked public opposition to teaching evolution in public schools, and have cast a shadow over efforts to effectively communicate to the public largely successful technical efforts to make evolutionary inquiry into a science.
Starting Page	323
Ending Page	366
Page Count	44
File Format	PDF
ISSN	09267220
Journal	Science & Education
Volume Number	19
Issue Number	4-5
e-ISSN	15731901
Language	English
Publisher	Springer Netherlands
Publisher Date	2009-07-29
Publisher Place	Dordrecht
Access Restriction	One Nation One Subscription (ONOS)
Subject Keyword	Interdisciplinary Studies History Philosophy of Science Science Education
Content Type	Text
Resource Type	Article
Subject	Education

Sl.	Authority	Responsibilities	Communication Details
1	Ministry of Education (GoI), Department of Higher Education	Sanctioning Authority	https://www.education.gov.in/ict-initiatives
2	Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur	Host Institute of the Project: The host institute of the project is responsible for providing infrastructure support and hosting the project	https://www.iitkgp.ac.in
3	National Digital Library of India Office, Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur	The administrative and infrastructural headquarters of the project	Dr. B. Sutradhar bsutra@ndl.gov.in
4	Project PI / Joint PI	Principal Investigator and Joint Principal Investigators of the project	Dr. B. Sutradhar bsutra@ndl.gov.in Prof. Saswat Chakrabarti will be added soon
5	Website/Portal (Helpdesk)	Queries regarding NDLI and its services	support@ndl.gov.in
6	Contents and Copyright Issues	Queries related to content curation and copyright issues	content@ndl.gov.in
7	National Digital Library of India Club (NDLI Club)	Queries related to NDLI Club formation, support, user awareness program, seminar/symposium, collaboration, social media, promotion, and outreach	clubsupport@ndl.gov.in
8	Digital Preservation Centre (DPC)	Assistance with digitizing and archiving copyright-free printed books	dpc@ndl.gov.in
9	IDR Setup or Support	Queries related to establishment and support of Institutional Digital Repository (IDR) and IDR workshops	idr@ndl.gov.in

Teaching Darwinian Evolution: Learning from Religious Education

Scientific Controversies in Teaching Science: The Case of Volta

Deviance, Darwinian-Style

Making a Theist out of Darwin: Asa Gray’s Post-Darwinian Natural Theology

Teaching the Philosophical Interpretations of Quantum Mechanics and Quantum Chemistry Through Controversies

Evolutionary Biology: Causes, Consequences and Controversies

Philosophy, Chemistry and Education: An Introduction

Mario Bunge’s Philosophy of Mathematics: An Appraisal

Philosophy of Science: An Overview for Educators

Darwinian Controversies: An Historiographical Recounting

Similar Documents

Teaching Darwinian Evolution: Learning from Religious Education

Scientific Controversies in Teaching Science: The Case of Volta

Deviance, Darwinian-Style

Making a Theist out of Darwin: Asa Gray’s Post-Darwinian Natural Theology

Teaching the Philosophical Interpretations of Quantum Mechanics and Quantum Chemistry Through Controversies

Evolutionary Biology: Causes, Consequences and Controversies

Philosophy, Chemistry and Education: An Introduction

Mario Bunge’s Philosophy of Mathematics: An Appraisal

Philosophy of Science: An Overview for Educators

Darwinian Controversies: An Historiographical Recounting