The Debate Over Evolutionary Theory in Germany

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

Over the past several years, we have witnessed the conflict of science, religion, philosophy and politics in a number of areas, but in no area more dramatically than in evolutionary theory. Indeed, teaching of both evolution and the counter "theory" of creationism has been endorsed by two state legislatures, seemingly supported by a president of the United States, but rejected by the federal court system including the Supreme Court of the United States. That this debate is not new in the United States is well known -- the "Scopes Monkey Trial" in Tennessee in the 1920's is just one example of this conflict. The debate in England on the theory of evolution between Bishop "Soapy Sam" Wilberforce and Thomas Huxley is another infamous example of the conflicts between science and religion over this theory. Yet these conflicts were not confined to the English speaking world. It is both instructive and important for our understanding of the relationships between these two belief systems, science and religion, to examine these conflicts. Professor Richards is looking at such a debate in Germany. Just after the turn of the century, Europe's leading Darwinist, Ernst Haeckel, and the Jesuit entomologist Erich Wasmann held a series of dramatic debates whose various themes recapitulated previous controversies and whose echoes reverberated through the German intellectual community during the next decade. Professor Richards will use the debates as an organizing device to investigate the cultural and scientific development of Haeckel and Wasmann, particularly focusing on the roles of empirical science, religion, philosophy, and politics in the formation of their respective theories of evolution. The study will allow entry into the several controversies that surrounded Haeckel's development--his systematic studies of theoretical leaps into human evolution; and his monistic philosophical views and founding of the German Monist League (and its connection with the Nazis). Likewise, Professor Richards will pursue Wasmann's remarkable conversion to evolutionary theory and gauge the tidal-waves of consternation it produced both in the Catholic Church and in the scientific community. These individual histories will be constructed against a background of the more general incursion of evolutionary though into Germany and the cultural reaction that it provoked. This history will be used also to come to terms with several broader issues in history and philosophy-- particularly the multifaceted dispute between realists and relativists in their interpretation of science and the historiographic problem of the explanatory power of narrative in historical accounts. The research will use two important repositories of unpublished manuscripts and papers--the Haeckel archives in Jena, German Democratic Republic, and the Wasmann archives in Maastricht, the Netherlands.