Evolution and the Humanities

Evolution and the Humanities
Author	David Holbrook
Subject	Evolution
Publisher	Gower Publishing Company
Publication date	1987
Pages	228

Evolution and the Humanities is a 1987 book by David Holbrook that attacks Darwinian evolution. The book rejects reductionist biology and takes influence from Michael Polanyi and vitalist philosophy.^[1]

Reception

The book has been heavily criticized by academics. Martin Stuart-Fox noted that Holbrook's criticism of natural selection was a "cobble together, in a sort of scissors-and-paste criticism... the book contains no vigorous argument at all. Not only is Holbrook very obviously no scientist, he is no philosopher either."^[2]

Ecologist Arthur M. Shapiro in a review for the National Center for Science Education commented:

David Holbrook, Fellow of Downing College, Cambridge, has written a polemic not so much against evolution as against scientific reductionism (which he sees incarnate in neo-Darwinism). He proceeds from revulsion at the existentialist vision of "life as a 'scientific accident.'" He's no creationist but, rather, a from-the-gut free-form vitalist—just as preoccupied with the perceived moral consequences of the Darwinian revolution as any Bible-thumping moralist could be. As usual, he conflates science with scientism and evolution with evolutionism, materialism, and atheism."^[1]

The book is said to have been poorly edited and riddled with errors.^[3]

References

^ ^a ^b "Evolution and the Humanities". National Center for Science Education.
^ Stuart-Fox, Martin. (1988). Evolution and the Humanities by David Holbrook. The Centennial Review. Vol. 32, No. 3, pp. 318-319.
^ Barton, Ruth. (1989). Reviewed Works: Theories of Human Evolution: A Century of Debate, 1844-1944 by Peter J. Bowler; Evolution and the Humanities by David Holbrook; The Age of Science: The Scientific World-View in the Nineteenth Century by David Knight. Victorian Studies. Vol. 32, No. 2, pp. 276-278.

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[ncse-1] "Evolution and the Humanities". National Center for Science Education.

[2] Stuart-Fox, Martin. (1988). Evolution and the Humanities by David Holbrook. The Centennial Review. Vol. 32, No. 3, pp. 318-319.

[3] Barton, Ruth. (1989). Reviewed Works: Theories of Human Evolution: A Century of Debate, 1844-1944 by Peter J. Bowler; Evolution and the Humanities by David Holbrook; The Age of Science: The Scientific World-View in the Nineteenth Century by David Knight. Victorian Studies. Vol. 32, No. 2, pp. 276-278.

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