Darwiniana is a compilation of critical essays on Charles Darwin's theory of evolution published by his friend Asa Gray. Gray was one of Darwin's strongest supporters in the American scientific community. Darwiniana aimed to provide a calculated assessment of Darwin's theory of evolution and acquaint readers with the different elements of Darwinism and its importance. The first few essays of the volume focus on the scientific and philosophical characteristics of the theory, while others examine the responses of Darwin's peers.

Reproduction of the original.

Darwiniana is a collection of critical essays on Charles Darwin's theory of evolution that were originally published in scientific journals by his friend and correspondent Asa Gray, Professor of Botany at Harvard. Gray was one of Darwin's strongest supporters in the American scientific community; he was also a Presbyterian and discussed questions of natural theology, design and teleology, including an earlier version of Chapter 3 of this book, with Darwin by letter over several years. Darwiniana (1876) was intended to provide a balanced assessment of Darwin's theory of evolution and to familiarise readers with the different aspects of Darwinism and its implications. The opening essays of the volume focus on the scientific and philosophical features of the theory, others analyse the reactions of Darwin's contemporaries and, most famously, argue for a reconciliation of religion and science in the light of Darwin's theory.

The 25th volume in a 29-volume set which contain all Charles Darwin's published works. Darwin was one of the most influential figures of the 19th century. His work remains a central subject of study in the history of ideas, the history of science, zoology, botany, geology and evolution.

In the last two decades of the nineteenth century, Americans were faced with the challenges and uncertainties of a new era. The comfortable Victorian values of continuity, progress, and order clashed with the unsettling modern notions of constant change, relative truth, and chaos. Attempting to embrace the intellectual challenges of modernism, American thinkers of the day were yet reluctant to welcome the wholesale rejection of the past and destruction of traditional values. In Reluctant Modernism: American Thought and Culture, 1880-1900, George Cotkin surveys the intellectual life of this crucial transitional period. His story begins with the Darwinian controversies, since the mainstream of American culture was just beginning to come to grips with the implications of the Origins of Species, published in 1859. Cotkin demonstrates the effects of this shift in thinking on philosophy, anthropology, and the newly developing field of psychology. Drawing on his extensive knowledge of these fields, he explains clearly and concisely the essential tenets of such major thinkers and writers as William James, Franz Boas, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Henry Adams, and Kate Chopin. Throughout this fascinating, readable history of the American fin de si cle run the contrasting themes of continuity and change, faith and rationalism, despair over the meaninglessness of life and, ultimately, a guarded optimism about the future.

A non-technical analysis of the controversial culture war over Darwin versus intelligent design states that there is no irrefutable evidence supporting Darwinism, argues that Darwin-based theories that are taught in school are not fact-based, and reveals how scientists at major universities believe in intelligent design. Original.

Who are America's creationists? What do they want? Do they truly believe Jesus rode around on dinosaurs, as sometimes depicted? Creationism USA reveals how common misconceptions about creationism have led Americans into a century of unnecessary culture-war histrionics about evolution education and creationism. Adam Laats argues that Americans do not have deep, fundamental disagreements about evolution - not about the actual science behind it and not in ways that truly matter to public policy. Laats asserts that Americans do, however, have significant disagreements about creationism. By describing the history of creationism and its many variations, Laats demonstrates that the real conflict about evolution is not between creationists and evolution. The true landscape of American creationism is far more complicated than headlines suggest. Creationism USA digs beyond those headlines to prove two fundamental facts about American creationism. First, almost all Americans can be classified as creationists of one type or another. Second, nearly all Americans (including self-identified creationists) want their children to learn mainstream evolutionary science. Taken together, these truths about American creationism point to a large and productive middle ground, a widely shared public vision of the proper relationship between schools, science, and religion. Creationism USA both explains the current state of America's battles over creationism and offers a nuanced yet straight-forward prescription to solve them.

According to the reigning competition-driven model of evolution, selfish behaviors that maximize an organism’s reproductive potential offer a fitness advantage over self-sacrificing behaviors—rendering unselfish behavior for the sake of others a mystery that requires extra explanation. Evolution, Games, and God addresses this conundrum by exploring how cooperation, working alongside mutation and natural selection, plays a critical role in populations from microbes to human societies. Inheriting a tendency to cooperate, argue the contributors to this book, may be as beneficial as the self-preserving instincts usually thought to be decisive in evolutionary dynamics. Assembling experts in mathematical biology, history of science, psychology, philosophy, and theology, Martin Nowak and Sarah Coakley take an interdisciplinary approach to the terms “cooperation” and “altruism.” Using game theory, the authors elucidate mechanisms by which cooperation—a form of working together in which one individual benefits at the cost of another—arises through natural selection. They then examine altruism—cooperation which includes the sometimes conscious choice to act sacrificially for the collective good—as a key concept in scientific attempts to explain the origins of morality. Discoveries in cooperation go beyond the spread of genes in a population to include the spread of cultural transformations such as languages, ethics, and religious systems of meaning. The authors resist the presumption that theology and evolutionary theory are inevitably at odds. Rather, in rationally presenting a number of theological interpretations of the phenomena of cooperation and altruism, they find evolutionary explanation and theology to be strongly compatible.