''Evolution and the Humanities'' is a 1987 book by

David Holbrook David Kenneth Holbrook (9 January 1923 – 11 August 2011) was a British writer, poet and academic. From 1989 he was an Emeritus Fellow of Downing College, Cambridge. Life David Holbrook was born in Norwich in 1923. He was educated at City of N ...

that attacks

Darwinian evolution Darwinism is a theory of biological evolution developed by the English naturalist Charles Darwin (1809–1882) and others, stating that all species of organisms arise and develop through the natural selection of small, inherited variations that ...

. The book rejects reductionist biology and takes influence from

Michael Polanyi Michael Polanyi (; hu, Polányi Mihály; 11 March 1891 – 22 February 1976) was a Hungarian-British polymath, who made important theoretical contributions to physical chemistry, economics, and philosophy. He argued that positivism supplie ...

and vitalist philosophy."Evolution and the Humanities"

National Center for Science Education The National Center for Science Education (NCSE) is a not-for-profit membership organization in the United States whose stated mission is to educate the press and the public on the scientific and educational aspects of controversies surrounding t ...

Reception

The book has been heavily criticized by academics. Martin Stuart-Fox noted that Holbrook's criticism of

natural selection Natural selection is the differential survival and reproduction of individuals due to differences in phenotype. It is a key mechanism of evolution, the change in the heritable traits characteristic of a population over generations. Cha ...

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." Ecologist Arthur M. Shapiro in a review for the

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."

The book is said to have been poorly edited and riddled with errors.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 ''Victorian Studies'' is a quarterly peer-reviewed academic journal published by Indiana University Press. It covers research on nineteenth-century Britain during the reign of Queen Victoria (1837–1901) and publishes essays, forums, and reviews ...

''. Vol. 32, No. 2, pp. 276-278.

References

1988 non-fiction books Books about evolution Non-Darwinian evolution {{evolution-book-stub