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.
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)
Haldeman, I.M. Christian Science in the Light of Holy Scripture. Chicago: Fleming H. Revell Company, 1909.
Boyer, Pascal. Religion Explained: The Evolutionary Origins of Religious Thought. New York, NY: Basic Books, 2001.
Hick, John. Disputed Questions in Theology and the Philosophy of Religion. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1993. Print.
Plantinga, Alvin, "Religion and Science", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2014 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), forthcoming URL = .
As said by Yale professor of psychology and cognitive science, "Religion and science will always clash." Science and religion are both avenues to explain how life came into existence. However, science uses evidence collected by people to explain the phenomenon while religion is usually based off a belief in a greater power which is responsible for the creation of life. The characters Arthur Dimmesdale and Roger Chillingworth in Nathaniel Hawthorne 's novel, The Scarlet Letter, represent religion and science, respectively, compared to the real world debate between science and religion. Roger Chillingworth is a physician who is associated with science. (ch. 9; page 107) "...made [Roger Chillingworth] extensively acquainted with the medical science of the day... Skillful men, of the medical and chirurgical profession, were of rare occurrence in the colony...They seldom... partook of the religious zeal that brought other emigrants across the Atlantic." The people of the Puritan community traveled across the Atlantic for religious reasons, and because men affiliated with medical science did not tend to practice religion, they rarely inhabited this community. Chillingworth, falling under the category of "skillful men of the medical and chirurgical profession," would not be expected to reside in this community. The narrator through emphasizes this with his rhetorical questioning, "Why, with such a rank in the learned world, had he come hither? What could he, whose sphere was in great cities, be seeking in the wilderness?" These questions demonstrate that it was so strange for Chillingworth to appear in this community because of his association with science. Perhaps, the phrase "with such rank in the learned world" could yield the narra...
Charles Darwin, born in 1809, was raised by his two Christian parents. Naturally, young Charles openly embraced the ideas of Christianity, and adopted many religious practices into his own life. By the 1830’s, Darwin had developed a strong desire to study natural history and natural theology, or anything that related to divine design in nature. In 1831, Darwin was invited on a trip of his lifetime: to sail around the world studying Mother Nature’s different types of life. At 22 years of age, thus began Darwin’s 5-year long voyage on the vessel HMS Beagle with his fellow scientific scholars.
In conclusion, it is possible for science and religion to overlap. Although Gould’s non-overlapping magisterial claims that creationism doesn’t conflict with evolution, it doesn’t hold with a religion that takes the biblical stories literally. Moreover, I defended my thesis, there is some overlap between science and religion and these overlaps cause conflict that make it necessary to reject either science or religion, by using Dawkins’ and Plantinga’s arguments. I said earlier that I agree with Dawkins that both science and religion provide explanation, consolation, and uplift to society. However, there is only conflict when science and religion attempt to explain human existence. Lastly, I use Plantinga’s argument for exclusivists to show that such conflict means that science and religion are not compatible. It demands a rejection t either science or religion.
Eastman, Roger. The Ways of Religion: An Introduction to the Major Traditions. Third Edition. Oxford University Press. N.Y. 1999
Barbour, Ian G. Religion in an Age of Science. San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1990. Print. (BL 240.2 .B368 1990)
Eliade, Mircea. A History of Religious Ideas, 3 vols. Trans. Willard R. Trask. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1981.
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
Over the course of the years, society has been reformed by new ideas of science. We learn more and more about global warming, outer space, and technology. However, this pattern of gaining knowledge did not pick up significantly until the Scientific Revolution. In the sixteenth and seventeenth century, the Scientific Revolution started, which concerned the fields of astronomy, mechanics, and medicine. These new scientists used math and observations strongly contradicting religious thought at the time, which was dependent on the Aristotelian-Ptolemy theory. However, astronomers like Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo, and Newton accepted the heliocentric theory. Astronomical findings of the Scientific Revolution disproved the fact that humans were the center of everything, ultimately causing people to question theology’s role in science and sparking the idea that people were capable of reasoning for themselves.
Stenmark, Mickael. How to Relate Science and Religion. Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2004.