The Darwinian Revolution, as seen in 1979 and as seen Twenty-Five Years Later in 2004

Abstract

My book, The Darwinian Revolution gives an overview of the revolution as understood at the time of its writing (1979). It shows that many factors were involved, from straight science through philosophical methodology, and on to religious influences and challenges. Also of importance were social factors, not the least of which was the professionalization of science in Britain in the 19th century. Since the appearance of that book, new, significant factors have become apparent, and here I discuss some of the most important – especially the way in which evolution as an idea came into being as an epiphenomenon of the ideology of cultural progress; the (often tense) interaction between ideas of biological progress and the urge to professionalization, and of how this led to a delay in the full appreciation of what Charles Darwin had done in the Origin; and the ongoing divide between biological functionalists and biological formalists, a Kuhnian-type paradigm difference that persists across the Darwinian revolution.