Wallace and Darwin grew up on opposite sides of the track. Wallace's youth was spent amongst the abject poverty of the rural Welsh. These were the people furnishing the likes of Darwin (a Cambridge graduate, and the son of a doctor,) with taxes and tithings whilst they could barely put food on their own table. This gave rise to Wallace's socialist political values. It also influenced his attitude towards science. "This land (Wales,) equipped Wallace with the basic skills of insights he would need for a career in science." (A103 TV16"Wallace in Wales.")
Where Darwin perceived native people from other lands as "barbarians," Wallace was less negative, seeing in these people more positive attributes. He saw them as well adapted to their environment. (An Introduction to Humanities, Resource Book 3, B2 and B3.)
Darwin only knew about hardship and the survival of the fittest, Wallace had experienced it first-hand.
Victorian society was moralistic and judgemental, many of its values being determined by the church. Reverend William Whelwell, who coined the term `science,' funded some scientists of the day. This prohibited them from contradicting the Church's beliefs, meaning that the `Big Bang theory,' and the "study of cosmogony were taboo and out of bounds." (An Introduction to Humanities Block 4 P 98.)
For the Church, the "origins of the universe lay within spiritual causes." (An Introduction to Humanities Block 4 P 98.)
The clergy must have to some extent felt threatened by the scientific community. If the public were to believe the scientists, perhaps the job of the cleric may have come under threat? No matter what a Victorian cleric truly believed, he would not have risked his job, credibility and social...
... middle of paper ...
... Perhaps in
some future time, even science may be able to confirm the existence of a human spirit?
References
1) An Introduction to Humanities, Resource Book 3. The Open University 1998 5th ed; The Bath Press, 2001
B2 & B3
2) An Introduction to Humanities Block 4, "Religion and Science in Context," The Open University 1998 2nd ed. 2001
P87,98, 99,108,110,116,
Clifford W.K. (1879) "Lectures and Essays, ed; L.Stephen and F Pollock, 2 vols, London, Macmillan, Vol 2, p70
Fredrik Bendz, (Swedish philospher/humanist, who holds a Master of Science Degree,)
http://www.update.uu.se/~fbendz/nogod/cd-aw.htm
Last updated: Saturday, April 12, 2003
5)"Wallace in Wales" A103 TV16
BBC Open University Production Centre- Arts Faculty
1998
Hobbes, Thomas. “Of Religion.” ed.Smith,Lacey Baldwin and Jean Reeder Smith. The Past Speaks. 2nd ed. 1 vol. Lexington: Heath, 1993.
Pecorino, Philip A. "Section 4: What is Religion?" Philosophy of Religion. 2001. 15 November 2007.
Charles Robert Darwin was an English naturalist who was born in Shrewsbury, England on February 12, 1809. He was the second youngest of six children. Before Charles Darwin, there were many scientists throughout his family. His father, Dr. Robert Darwin, was a medical doctor, and his grandfather, Dr. Erasmus Darwin, was a well-known botanist. Darwin’s mother, Susannah Darwin, died when he was only eight years old. Darwin was a child that came from wealth and privilege and who loved to explore nature. In October 1825 at age sixteen, Darwin enrolled at Edinburgh University with his brother Erasmus. Two years later, Charles became a student at Christ’s College in Cambridge. His father wanted him to become a medical doctor, as he was, but since the sight of blood made Darwin nauseous, he refused. His father also proposed that he become a priest, but since Charles was far more interested in natural history, he had other ideas in mind (Dao, 2009)
Eliade, Mircea. A History of Religious Ideas, 3 vols. Trans. Willard R. Trask. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1981.
Plantinga, Alvin, "Religion and Science", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2014 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), forthcoming URL = .
On February 12, 1809, Charles Darwin was born. His childhood home took place in Shrewsbury, England. While he was a child, he took a liking to and collected shells, bird eggs, rocks and minerals, and insects. Him and his sister had gotten into multiple ‘debates’ about killing the insects, so he always had to find a corpse of an already dead insect, if he wished to collect. Later into his childhood, when he was only eight years old, his mother, Susanna, had passed away. This did not bother him as much until his later years, considering he was too young to understand what was going on. A year after that, his father, Dr. Robert Darwin, had settled young Darwin into Shrewsbury school. “ Darwin was a child of wealth and privilege who loved to explore nature.”
Popularly referred to as the father of evolution, Charles Darwin was the fifth child of Robert Darwin and Susannah Wedgewood born the same year and day as Abraham Lincoln- a historical icon, February 12, 1809. He had four sisters, three older than him and one younger while his brother was older than he was and they belonged to a privileged, wealthy and well-known family. He held his father, Robert Waring Darwin, in high regard and he was a renowned physician with connections among the local gentry and new industrialists. Notably also, his grandfather- Erasmus Darwin, was a physician and poet with a liking to natural philosophy where his patients were from affluent backgrounds one of them being Josiah Wedgewood. Erasmus Darwin put forward a natural explanation for the origin and development of life where in his book Zoonomia, published in 1974, he looked into the domestication of animals, cross-fertilization of plants along with movement of climbing plants. Various works of his discussed the mechanism of inheritance and made observations on sexual selection. It is important to acknowledge the intellectual atmosphere that Charles and his father grew up in (Berra, 2009).
Was his epic journey merely a series of trips to strange and exotic lands, or was Darwin affected by his experiences in more profound ways? Charles Darwin was born on February 12, 1809; the same day that another great man, Abraham Lincoln, was born. He was no child prodigy; he "was considered by all [his] masters and by [his] Father as a very ordinary boy, rather below the common standard in intellect" (Barlow Voyage 28). The one trait in him that stands out in his formative years is a taste for the outdoors; he loved to gather shells, seals, franks, coins, and minerals. The passion for collecting, which leads a man to be a systemic naturalist, a virtuoso, or a miser, was very strong in [him] and was clearly innate, as none of [his] sisters and brother ever had this taste. (Barlow Autobiography 23) He grew up in Shrewsbury, and attended the local grammar-school there. After graduating, he entered Edinburgh University with the intent of studying medicine, but he found anatomy boring and his lack of sketching skills hampered him. It was decided between Darwin and his father that he should pursue ecclesiasticalstudies at Cambridge. Those subjects did not enthuse him either, but he discovered a "spontaneous and exceptional interest in natural history" (Moorehead 25).
Darwin promptly replied that Wallace’s letter was “as clear as daylight, I fully agree with all that you say on the advantages of H. Spencer’s excellent of ‘the survival of the fittest’. This however had not occurred to me till reading your letter. It is, however, a great objection to this term that it cannot be used as a substantive governing a verb”. Had he received the letter two month earlier, he would have worked the phrase into the fourth edition of the Origin which was then being printed, and he would use it in his “next book on domestic animals
Charles Darwin was a naturalist born in Shrewsbury, England on February 12, 1809. He went on a five year journey on the HMS Beagle. He stopped for five weeks at the Galapagos Islands.He studied finches, tortoises and mockingbirds there, although not in enough detail to come to any great conclusions. Darwin showed his specimens to fellow biologists and began writing up his travels. Darwin saw how transmutation happened. Animals more suited to their environment survive longer and have more young. Evolution occurred by a process he called 'Natural Selection'. Darwin struggled with the idea; it contradicted his Christian world view. His grandfather had been ostracised for writing about transmutation and he feared the same fate. He decided to gather
Barbour, Ian G. Religion in an Age of Science. San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1990. Print. (BL 240.2 .B368 1990)
Victorian era had lots of different religions, practice and, a lot of believers. The main religion in Victorian era was Christianity because it explained things they didn’t understand, all though many other religion others did the same. The study and worship practice involved praying, reading a “holy” book and, going to church. Majority of people believed in Christianity but the some of people who didn’t was looked down upon. Even after every Sunday morning ends, the religion practice, worshipers and, God would still be brought up and prayed
... atheism and refinement of scientific thought. He indicates that dogmatic doctrine to the Victorians "was not only natural (given the climate of opinion) - it was attractive. They liked it. One might even say they asked for it. The prophets who put on the mantle of infallibility did so as much from public demand as from a personal sense of fitness" (154). Intellectual dogmatism, in a sense, became the "new religion" for many during the Victorian age. Houghton's examination of Victorian intellectual dogmatism reveals it to be not so much a striking contrast to Romantic revolution in poetry, for example, but rather, the next step, how ever more pronounced, of that same dogmatism that was practiced by the Romantics and their predecessors.
Charles Darwin was a naturalist born on the 12th of February 1809 in England. Darwin grew up loving nature and went to Edinburgh University. On the trip around the world Darwin collected natural samples including birds, plants and fossils. Darwin found a particular interest in the Pacific islands and South America. When he arrived back in England he wrote up his findings as part of the Captain narrative. Darwin started working on his own theory after coming back from the trip. He observed that species had same characteristics all over the world this lead him to believe that species slowly evolved from their ancestors. In 1859 Charles Darwin published his work in his book On the Origin of Species.
Stenmark, Mickael. How to Relate Science and Religion. Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2004.