The Non-Darwinian Revolution: Reinterpreting a Historical Myth

by Peter J. Bowler

Concise and clearly written, The Non-Darwinian Revolution sets forth a convincing argument for a reappraisal of Darwin's importance not only for the history of science but for the history of ideas as well. Bowler finds no fault in Darwin's theory, only with the mistaken notion of its revolutionary effect on nuneteenth-century thought. Examining the work of such figures as Owen, Spencer, Kelvin, Huxley, Haeckel, and Freud, Bowler discovers as near-universal tendency to accept evolutionism while rejecting Darwin's central natural selection. Instead, leanding scientists and thinkers stubbornly clung to the Lamarckian theory of evolution as guided, purposeful development until they were forced by the twentieth century's "rediscovery" of Mendelian law to concede otherwise.
― British Journal of the History of Science

Genres: Science, Evolution, Philosophy, History Of Science, History

Paperback

First published September 1, 1988

About the author

Peter J. Bowler, FBA, is a historian of biology who has written extensively on the history of evolutionary thought, the history of the environmental sciences, and on the history of genetics.

Reviews

[Mike Day · Rating 4 out of 5]

Kind of an expanded version of chapter 7 ("The Eclipse of Darwinism") of his earlier work "Evolution: The History of an Idea", this book merits a read not just by those interested in the history of biology, but by anyone interested or involved in the Creationism/Evolution debate, as both sides often distort the history of Darwinian evolution to fit their arguments.

[J. Pearce · Rating 2 out of 5]

Bowler suggests that Darwin’s theories of evolution were neither revolutionary (due to their not being taken up very quickly - thus no scientific revolution in thought) {see: Kuhn’s discussion of scientific revolutions being a “dramatic shift in the way people view the world” - Bowler is using this theory to reject the Darwinian revolution) nor new (because they were based on other, earlier work).

This work’s primary purpose seems to be to take Kuhn’s theory and apply it to a concrete example - one that is an example of a non-revolution. The work also makes several pointed comments about whiggish histories of science that only focus on the successful theories rather than the unsuccessful ones that were just as relevant. Basically, Bowler is arguing that the acceptance of natural selection by modern biologists has “led to an overemphasis on Darwin’s role in the history of 19th century evolutionism and a failure to appreciate the extent to which the topic has been interpreted in a non-Darwinian way.”

"My suggestion is that Darwin’s theory should be seen not as the central theme in 19th century evolutionism but as a catalyst that helped to bring about the transition to an evolutionary viewpoint within an essentially non-Darwinian conceptual framework. This was the “Non-Darwinian Revolution”; it was a revolution because it required the rejection of certain key aspects of cretinism, but it was non-Darwinian because it succeeded in preserving and modernizing the old teleological view of things." - Bowler.