Debating Darwin;
Adventures of a Scholar
(Revised Edition)
Bibliographical data, notes, index, CIP
In this book John C. Greene, author of The Death of Adam, Darwin and the Modern World View, and Science, Ideology, and World View, draws
together a series of essays, old and new, on the origins and cultural impact of
Charles Darwin’s ideas. He also enters into an epistolary dialogue with two
leading evolutionary biologists, Theodosius Dobzhansky and Ernst Mayr, on the
historical, philosophical, and religious aspects of this major revolution in
Western thought and feeling. As a historian Greene challenges Mayr’s account of
the rise of evolutionary ideas and advances his own interpretation.
“Debating Darwin is a wonderful evocation
of a lifetime of relentless questioning of the larger pretensions of many
Darwinians to offer a generally satisfying account of man's place in nature on
purely scientific grounds. Greene is no fundamentalist. He is not interested in
denying the scientific credentials of the theory of evolution. Always
respectful of the purely scientific achievements of those he criticizes, he is
nonetheless anxious to demonstrate how far beyond these achievements they have
frequently strayed in their efforts to resolve larger philosophical, religious
and social questions.
“The key to Greene's criticisms is his account of the
relationship between science and worldview. For Greene, empirical study of the
world is always undertaken in the context of a larger set of assumptions about
the nature of reality, or a worldview. A worldview is not in itself scientific;
rather, it is the precondition for particular kinds of scientific inquiry.
Greene's complaint against many Darwinians is that they pretend to derive from
their science a range of conclusions about the nature and significance of human
life that their worldview is incapable of supporting.…
“Debating Darwin recounts a series of arguments of this kind
that Greene has conducted with evolutionary biologists over the years. …In each
case the historian gently rebukes the biologist for 'cheating' by importing
into his account of evolution ideas that have no place in the Darwinian
worldview, in each case the biologist protests he is being misunderstood and in
each case the historian and biologist agree to disagree and remain good
friends….
“His key insight is: ‘Every great scientific synthesis
stimulates efforts to view the whole of reality in its terms, and Darwin's
theory of natural selection was no exception. But the views of reality that
originate in this way are not themselves scientific, nor are they subject to
scientific verification’.”
——New
York Times
“Greene, an Episcopalian, rejects the notion
that scientific explanations are total explanations and that nature as known to
science exhausts reality. In particular, he finds the efforts of leading
Darwinists to derive knowledge of human duty and destiny from evolutionary
biology unconvincing. Moreover, his rhetorical analysis of leading evolutionary
thinkers’ works indicates that they have resisted the notion of a purposeless
world stripped of meaning and value, despite the logic of neo-Darwinistic
positivism. Predictably, Greene’s views were not always received with
enthusiasm, but they did bring him into extended correspondence with two of the
towering figures in twentieth-century Darwinain thought: Theodosius Dobzhansky
and Ernst Mayr. One of the great virtues of Debating Darwin is the reprinting
of a good deal of this correspondence… along with essays which provide the
context for the exchanges.”
——Perspectives
on Science and Christian Faith
“…His [Greene’s] pointed criticisms of
Darwinism as a worldview brought him into dialogue and controversy with two
great evolutionary theorists; first with Theodosius Dobzhansky, starting in
1959, and 20 years later with Ernst Mayr. Much of the exchanged correspondence
is included in Debating Darwin,
combined with ten essays critically probing the writings of Dobzhansky, Mayr,
and other evolutionary giants, conveyed without the guarded language of
writings intended for publication, confronting, impatiently at times, the
historical and philosophical sophistication of a peer, who shows himself as a
much less than adoring, even if admiring, critic of Darwin and later
evolutionary theorists….
Greene
correctly argues,…that evolutionists (other scientists as well) often see
biological evolution as a source of meaning and value in the world, and thus
transgress the scope of science. As he sees it, scientists affirm that
scientific knowledge is “objective”, but then proceed to argue, when the
opportunity arises, that evolution furnishes, or at the least justifies, an
optimistic view of the world, as well as moral and other values that most of us
accept and live by. Greene does not buy this “justification”. What these
scientists are doing, he says, is bringing in Christian and other western
values and seeking their justification in biological evolution. One could say
at best, he argues, that biological evolution (more generally, scientific
knowledge) is “consistent” with such values. (It is, however, of some social
consequence to point out that evolution is compatible with Christian values,
rather than seeing the two in contradiction, as some fundamentalists and others
would have it in order to justify their attacks against the teaching of
evolution in the schools.) Greene’s overarching concern, however, is the de
facto transformation of scientific knowledge, necessarily materialistic, into a
materialistic worldview. One can accept the evolutionary origin of humans and
other organisms with implying that evolution (science) conveys all that we may
want to know about human life and the universe.
Debating Darwin is
illuminating as we consider the distinctively American, and seemingly endless,
controversies on the teaching of evolution in the schools. There are those who
would deny, on Biblical or other grounds, that evolution has occurred. Greene
is far removed from this position.…”
——Biology and Philosophy
“…No matter
what the reader may feel about Greene’s searching for God in Darwin, it is good
to have these essays together under one cover to show the evolution of Greene’s
debate. The book is highly recommended to anyone interested in following a
reasonable man’s quest to understand the relationships between God, science,
and humanity.”
——Journal
of the History of Biology
“One can only wish that the discipline of intellectual history would be
more densely populated with the likes of John C. Greene, who combines extensive
knowledge of the history of ideas with working knowledge of evolution, conveyed
in lucid and effective prose.”
Francisco J. Ayala, The Quarterly
Review of Biology
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: John C. Greene is Professor
Emeritus in the Department of History at the University of Connecticut, Storrs.
A former Guggenheim Fellow, he is best known for his writings on the
interaction of science and world view in the rise and development of
evolutionary thought.
John
C. Greene. 289 pages (HB)
Price $ 34.95
(1999, 2001)