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)出版之前的15年里，美国公众已经在努力研究进化论。罗伯特·钱伯斯匿名出版的《创造的自然历史遗迹》(11版，1844-1860)向英语世界提出了第一个全面的进化论，接触到了广大美国观众。这篇论文的研究项目调查了普林斯顿大学、耶鲁大学和哈佛大学的三个美国知识界在回应遗迹时如何从他们对科学的独特理解中吸取教训。科学史上最近的研究揭示了遗迹对于将进化论思想引入维多利亚时代英国的重要性，但这一学术研究通常没有探索美国人对遗迹的反应。本论文项目将詹姆斯·塞科德最近带给遗迹的英国受访者的档案记录分析扩展到美国，通过通信网络、日记和出版商的记录追踪关于遗迹的讨论(维多利亚轰动，芝加哥大学出版社，2000)。约翰·林奇最近出版的英国人对遗迹的反应的再版(《遗迹和达尔文之前的辩论》，7卷，索姆斯出版社，2000年)进一步表明了学术界对遗迹的高度兴趣。尽管美国科学史上的几本著作都提到了遗迹，但没有一本书在深度和广度上能与塞科德的研究相提并论，林奇的著作也没有一本包含美国人的单一反应。因此，本论文项目填补了历史理解中的两个空白：比以前的学术更准确地确定达尔文主义前夕美国知识界的科学环境，并确定遗迹在塑造这些环境中的作用。基于具体的案例研究，本论文项目还提供了对两个更广泛问题的见解：知识界对流行科学理论的反应过程，以及科学与宗教之间的关系。这项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使用的地方主义案例研究方法来发展第一个主题(牛津大学出版社，1999年，第8章)。这个项目将通过测试John Brooke和Geoffrey Cantor(重构自然，T和T Clarke，1998)提出的一个主张来研究第二个问题：科学和宗教以太复杂的方式相互渗透，无法用较老的方法论范畴来概括，如“和谐”或“冲突”。特别是，这个项目将扩展布鲁克和坎托的特定于社区的科学-宗教“总体”或“融合”的概念，作为一种解释工具，用于理解个人对普林斯顿、耶鲁和哈佛的长老会、公理会和一神论/公理会派环境中的遗迹所做的独特评估。基金将支持史密森学会、普林斯顿大学、耶鲁大学和哈佛大学进行必要的档案研究，以便明确确定普林斯顿、耶鲁和哈佛的知识界是如何应对遗迹的。反过来，这些结果可以作为与广大受众分享关于科学的本质、社会成员评估科学主张的过程以及个人与科学的接触塑造和重塑宗教信仰的方式的新见解的基础。

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.