Dissertation Research: The Vestiges of Creation and Pre-Darwinian Evolutionary Debates in America: Receptions of Popular Science in Three American Intellectual Communities

在查尔斯·达尔文的《物种起源》（1859年）出版前的15年里，美国公众已经在努力研究进化论。罗伯特·钱伯斯（Robert Chambers）匿名出版的《创世自然史的遗迹》（Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation，1844-1860年，共11版）向英语世界提出了第一个面向美国大众的综合进化论。本论文的研究项目调查了普林斯顿、耶鲁和哈佛三个美国知识分子群体在回应“遗迹”时如何借鉴他们对科学的独特理解。 最近的科学史研究揭示了遗迹对于将进化论思想引入维多利亚时代的英国的重要性，但这种学术研究通常没有探索美国人对遗迹的反应。本论文项目延伸到美国的档案记录，詹姆斯Secord最近带来了痕迹的英国受访者的分析，通过通信网络，日记，和出版商的记录（维多利亚时代的感觉，芝加哥大学出版社，2000年）跟踪痕迹的讨论。约翰·林奇（John Lynch）最近出版的《英国人对遗迹的反应》（“遗迹”和达尔文之前的辩论，7卷，Thoemmes出版社，2000年）的再版进一步表明了学术界对遗迹的高度兴趣。虽然美国科学史上有几部著作提到了遗迹，但没有一部在深度和广度上能与塞科德的研究相比，林奇的著作也没有包含任何一个美国人的反应。因此，本论文项目填补了两个空白的历史认识：在更清晰的精度比以前的奖学金确定的科学环境的美国知识界的达尔文主义前夕，并确定痕迹的作用，在塑造这些环境。基于具体的案例研究，本论文项目还提供了两个更广泛的问题的见解：知识界形成他们的反应流行的科学理论和科学与宗教之间的关系的过程。本研究将通过扩展大卫·利文斯通在比较不同城市的长老会教徒对达尔文主义的特定地点反应时所采用的地方主义案例研究方法来发展第一个主题（Evangelicals and Science in Historical Perspective，Oxford University Press，1999，chap. 8）。本项目将通过检验约翰布鲁克和杰弗里·康托（《重构自然》，T和T克拉克，1998年）提出的一个主张来探讨第二个问题：科学和宗教以过于复杂的方式相互渗透，无法用“和谐”或“冲突”等旧的方法论范畴来概括。特别是，这个项目将扩展布鲁克和康托的社区特定的科学-宗教的概念“整体性”，或“混合物”，作为一种解释性的手段，用于理解个人在各自的长老会，公理会，和一神论/公理会普林斯顿，耶鲁大学和哈佛的环境中对遗迹的独特评价。基金将支持史密森尼学会和普林斯顿大学、耶鲁大学和哈佛大学的必要档案研究，以明确普林斯顿大学、耶鲁大学和哈佛大学的知识界对遗迹的反应。反过来，这些结果可以作为基础，与广大受众分享有关科学本质的新见解，社会成员评估科学主张的过程，以及宗教信仰塑造的方式，并通过个人与科学的接触而重塑。

During the fifteen years immediately preceding the publication of Charles Darwin's Origin of Species (1859), the American public was already grappling with a theory of evolution. Robert Chambers' anonymously published Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation (11 editions, 1844-1860) confronted the English-speaking world with the first comprehensive theory of evolution to reach a mass American audience. This dissertation research project investigates how three American intellectual communities at Princeton, Yale, and Harvard drew from their distinctive understandings of science when responding to Vestiges. Recent studies in the history of science have revealed the importance of Vestiges for the introduction of evolutionary thought into Victorian Britain, but this scholarship has generally left American reactions to Vestiges unexplored. This dissertation project extends to America the analysis of archival records that James Secord recently brought to Vestiges' British respondents, tracing discussions of Vestiges through correspondence networks, diaries, and publishers' records (Victorian Sensation, University of Chicago Press, 2000). The height of scholarly interest in Vestiges is further indicated by John Lynch's recently published reprints of British reactions to Vestiges ("Vestiges" and the Debate before Darwin, 7 volumes, Thoemmes Press, 2000). Though several works in the history of American science have mentioned Vestiges, none compares in depth or scope to Secord's study, nor do Lynch's volumes contain a single American reaction. This dissertation project therefore fills two gaps in historical understanding: identifying in sharper precision than previous scholarship the scientific milieux of American intellectual communities on the eve of Darwinism, and determining Vestiges' role in shaping those milieux. Grounded in specific case studies, this dissertation project also provides insights into two broader issues: the processes by which intellectual communities form their reactions to popular scientific theories and the relations between science and religion. This study will develop the first topic by expanding upon the localist case-study methodology that David Livingstone employed when comparing location-specific reactions to Darwinism among Presbyterians in distinct cities (Evangelicals and Science in Historical Perspective, Oxford University Press, 1999, chap. 8). This project will engage the second issue by testing a claim made by John Brooke and Geoffrey Cantor (Reconstructing Nature, T and T Clarke, 1998): science and religion interpenetrate one another in ways too complex to be summarized by older methodological categories such as "harmony" or "conflict." In particular, this project will extend Brooke and Cantor's concept of community- specific science-religion "totalities," or "amalgams", as an explanatory device for understandingthe distinctive evaluations that individuals made of Vestiges in the respective Presbyterian, Congregationalist, and Unitarian/Congregationalist milieux of Princeton, Yale, and Harvard. Funds will support necessary archival research at the Smithsonian Institution and Princeton, Yale, and Harvard Universities in order to identify with sharp focus how the intellectual communities at Princeton, Yale, and Harvard responded to Vestiges. These results, in turn, may serve as foundation for sharing with a broad audience new insights concerning the nature of science, the process by which members of society evaluate scientific claims, and the ways in which religious convictions shape, and are reshaped by individuals' engagements with science.