Science and the World View

Science and the World View Robert C.Bannister.Social Darwinism: Science andMyth in Anglo-American Social Thought. Philadelphia:Temple University Press, 1979. 292+ ix pp. Herbert Hovenkamp.Science and Religion mAmerica 1800-1860. Philadelphia: University ofPennsylvania Press, 1978.273 + xii pp. WA. Waiser As evidencedby the recent Sacramento court case pitting creationists against evolutionists,the debate over the history of the earth and the origins of humanityis far from settled. In what has become known as the "second monkey trial" (the first being the famous Scopes trial of 1925),the director ofthe Creation Science Research Center sued the California Education Board,charging that his children were denied the right to learn the biblical version of creation in addition to the theory of evolution. Quite wisely, the presidingjudge ruled that neither evolution nor creation was on trial but thatthe case revolved around the U.S. Constitution's First Amendment-the right to hold and exercise religious beliefs. That American Christian Fundamentalists in the 1980sshould essentially bedemanding equal time for the teaching of biblical creation serves to demonstratethe extent to which the revolutionary developments in nineteenthcenturyscience are still being felt. Two recent books that deal with particular aspectsof nineteenth-century science are Herbert Hovenkamp's Science and Religionin America 1800-1860and Robert Bannister's Social Darwinism: Scienceand Myth in Anglo-American Social Thought. Science and Religion in America examines the experiment by American conservativeProtestants in the first half of the nineteenth century to unify theirreligious beliefs with scientific knowledge. Believing that Enlightenment sciencehad been far too speculative, they seized upon Scottish Realism as a Canadian Review of American Studies, Volume 13, Number 3, Winter 1982 342 W.A. Waiser philosophy conducive to their orthodox beliefs. By pursuing a straightforward factual approach to natural phenomena, in other words Baconianism orthodox Protestants optimistically believed that they could confirm th~ reliability of the Bible and the unshakeable truths of Christianity. Suchan outcome was possible because it was generally believed at this time thatthe natural world was the handiwork of God. Every member of the plant and animal kingdom had its place in the divine scheme of things. The studyof nature would thus reveal the wisdom and beneficence of the divine creator. In effect then, orthodox philosophers tried to make theology more orless a science that would point directly to the existence of God. They wanted to create a religion that was free from all doubt. Full-time scientists were consequently hired by Protestant colleges, the study of natural science was incorporated into school curricula, and students were encouraged to observe the natural world to find evidences of God's handiwork. Evangelicals were confident that their most basic beliefs could be proven since science and religion were inextricably related: they were one and the same thing. This attempt to unify belief and knowledge was a tragic failure-a failure, Hovenkamp convincingly argues, that the orthodox Protestants largely brought upon themselves. As the nineteenth-century progressed, scientific data gathered in such areas as geology and biology increasingly came into conflict with orthodox views. Natural theologians consequently found themselves on the defensive, trying to prove that this new data did not refute God's providence. In one particular case, Hovenkamp describes how biblical scholars such as Edward Hitchcock, John Pye Smith and Benjamin Silliman, labored to reconcile a literal Genesis with the geological record. They argued, for example, that the six days of creation were much longer than normal daysor that there were actually several creative periods. Eventually, however, these attempts at harmonization resulted in complex, far-fetched interpre· tations that had little to do with the religious beliefs that they were supposed to verify. They bordered on the absurd. Similar problems resulted when orthodox scholars tried to authenticate the Bible by studying the Holy Lands. In fact, the only scientific area where Evangelicals enjoyed a degree of success was the issue of the origin of mankind. That all men had originated from a single source, namely Adam, is one of the most fundamental Christian beliefs. It was a question on which orthodox Protestants in the early nineteenth century absolutely refused to yield. Nor did they have to. Scientists increasingly came to accept the idea that man was...