Evolution and Its Discontents

Evolution and Its Discontents

Charles Darwin's theory of evolution completely undermined the idea that we are designed for a purpose. His claim that we are all products of evolution questioned the traditional Western conceptions of our nature by suggesting that we are not made in God's image, but rather are the result of a natural evolutionary process that makes us a more developed version of the cognitive powers of nonhuman primates. Although there is no scientific evidence to completely prove Darwin's ideas, there is no scientific evidence that disproves it. Darwin's observations still challenge the church to this day, and have become the foundation of most modern biology and scientific thought.

Evolution and Its Discontents maps the growth of evolutionism during the late nineteenth century. Beginning with the introduction of the theory of evolution, an idea incomprehensible to many at the time, the author describes its cultivation by the freethought movement and its contention from traditional religious thought. Many characters have colored the evolutionary debate throughout history. In the 1870's, with the publication of The Origin of Species, the endless conflict between evolutionists and creationists began.

One element in the evolutionary debate is the religious opposition to scientific rationalism. Religious thinkers at the time, such as Louis Agassiz and Thomas A Eliot, to present day fundamentalist like Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell, have led a battle that is unlikely to end in our country. Since the civil war, there has been little compromise from religious authority. A large part of the war between these two sides has been fought in the education sector. Evolution and Its Discontents examines the Roman Catholic Church's stance on evolution in the classroom. "Nineteenth century scientists and freethinkers greatly underestimates the staying power of the conservative religion in American life… Indeed, the Roman Catholic Church's fear that the teaching of secular science in public schools might erode the faith of Catholic children was a major factor in the establishment of the nations first religiously based school system… That the teaching of secularist science in American public schools would surface repeatedly as an issue in the closing decades of the twentieth century, setting the United States apart from all other developed nations, would have been unimaginable to the nineteenth century heirs of the enlightenment."