Peter J Bowler
Biographic Data
| ID | 109667 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Peter J Bowler |
| GIVEN NAMES | Peter J |
| FAMILY NAME | Bowler |
| SIGNATURE | BOWLER P J |
| AFFILIATIONS | Queen's University Belfast |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-7432-2721 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 60 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 97 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 60 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1974 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 6 |
Jim Endersby, The Arrival of the Fittest: Biology’s Imagined Futures, 1900-1935
Darwin Mythology: Debunking Myths, Correcting Falsehoods
The end of an era
These volumes conclude a series initiated in 1974, marking almost fifty years of effort by a huge cohort of scholars. This review is thus a valedictory for the whole series as well as an account of what we have learned from the most recent volumes about Darwin's final years (1879–82). The project was begun by Frederick Burckhardt, who shared the editorial role for the early volumes with Sydney Smith and a rolling sequence of assistant editors and…
Evolution: The History of an Idea, 25th Anniversary Edition, With a New Preface
Progress Unchained: Ideas of Evolution, Human History and the Future
Progress Unchained reinterprets the history of the idea of progress using parallels between evolutionary biology and changing views of human history. Early concepts of progress in both areas saw it as the ascent of a linear scale of development toward a final goal. The 'chain of being' defined a hierarchy of living things with humans at the head, while social thinkers interpreted history as a development toward a final paradise or utopia. Darwini…
Progress Unchained
Material Nature
Parallel Prophecies: Science Fiction and Futurology in the Twentieth Century
Science fiction and popular science writing sometimes intersect—authors have written in both genres, and magazines have published their writing side by side. Producing “hard” science fiction depends on getting the known science right and ensuring that predictions seem plausible. There have even been claims that science fiction should be used to make science itself accessible to a wider public. This article uses case studies from mid-twentieth-cen…
American Palaeontology and the reception of Darwinism
Tesla: Inventor of the Electrical Age
Nikola Tesla offers a fascinating case-study both for historians of the link between science and technology and for those more interested in the relationship between technical developments and soci
Evolution, History of
Francis Galton's saltationism and the ambiguities of selection
Popular Science Magazines in Interwar Britain: Authors and Readerships
Argument This article is based on a detailed survey of three British popular science magazines published during the interwar years. It focuses on the authors who wrote for the magazines, using the information to analyze the ways in which scientists and popular writers contributed to the dissemination of information about science and technology. It shows how the different readerships toward which the magazines were directed (serious or more popula…
Trees of Life: A Visual History of Evolution
Book Review| August 01 2013 Trees of Life: A Visual History of Evolution Pietsch, Theodore W., Trees of Life: A Visual History of Evolution (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2012), 358 pp. Peter Bowler Peter Bowler Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Common Knowledge (2013) 19 (3): 561–562. https://doi.org/10.1215/0961754X-2281909 Views Icon Views Article contents Figures & tables Video Audio Supplementary Data Pe…
Complexity in practice
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Evolution: The History of an Idea
Evolution: The History of an Idea
Do we need a non-Darwinian industry
The Tragic Sense of Life: Ernst Haeckel and the Struggle over Evolutionary Thought , by Robert J. Richards
In Retrospect: Charles Darwin and his Dublin critics: Samuel Haughton and William Henry Harvey
Peter J. Bowler, In Retrospect: Charles Darwin and his Dublin critics: Samuel Haughton and William Henry Harvey, Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy: Archaeology, Culture, History, Literature, Vol. 109C (2009), pp. 409-420
The Eclipse of Pseudo-Darwinism? Reflections on Some Recent Developments in Darwin Studies
What Darwin Disturbed: The Biology That Might Have Been
The launch of a revolutionary new scientific theory represents a rare occasion on which the apparently cumulative development of science might be influenced by particular events. Yet in the case of the Darwinian revolution it is often claimed that the theory of evolution by natural selection would have emerged more or less inevitably, given the scientific and cultural circumstances prevailing in mid-Victorian Britain. This essay challenges that c…
Presidential address Experts and publishers: Writing popular science in early twentieth-century Britain, writing popular history of science now
The bulk of this address concerns itself with the extent to which professional scientists were involved in popular science writing in early twentieth-century Britain. Contrary to a widespread assumption, it is argued that a significant proportion of the scientific community engaged in writing the more educational type of popular science. Some high-profile figures acquired enough skill in popular writing to exert considerable influence over the pu…
Charles Darwin and the Evolution Revolution. Rebecca Stefoff
Evolution and the Eucharist: Bishop E. W. Barnes on science and religion in the 1920s and 1930s
Accounts of the religious debates sparked by the theory of evolution tend, almost inevitably, to focus on the late nineteenth century. Darwinism is treated as a symbol of the scientific naturalism that so traumatized Victorian thought. Modern accounts have shown, however, that religious thinkers were in the end able to take on board an evolutionism purged of its most materialistic tendencies. We tend to assume that in Britain, at least, the argum…
What Darwin Disturbed: The Biology That Might Have Been
The launch of a revolutionary new scientific theory represents a rare occasion on which the apparently cumulative development of science might be influenced by particular events. Yet in the case of the Darwinian revolution it is often claimed that the theory of evolution by natural selection would have emerged more or less inevitably, given the scientific and cultural circumstances prevailing in mid-Victorian Britain. This essay challenges that c…
Piltdown: An Appraisal of the Case against Sir Arthur Keith [and Comments and Reply]
Edward Drinker Cope and the Changing Structure of Evolutionary Theory
"The Changing Meaning of "Evolution
From 'savage' to 'primitive: Victorian evolutionism and the interpretation of marginalized peoples
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Malthus, Darwin, and the Concept of Struggle
theory of natural selection and the contemporary view of the workings of human society, particularly as expressed in Thomas Malthus' Essay on the Principle of Population. Four recent articles have reexamined this relationship from quite different points of view: Peter Vorzimmer and Sandra Herbert have analyzed Darwin's own writings to show the exact nature of the stimulus provided by Malthus;1 Robert Young has argued that Darwin's view of nature …
Biology and Social Thought
Hamilton Cravens. The Triumph of Evolution: American Scientists and the Heredity-Environment Controversy, 1900-1941. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1978.351 + xvi pp. Stephen Jay Gould. Ontogeny and Phylogeny. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1977. 501 + ix pp. Garland E. Allen. Thomas Hunt Morgan: the Man and his Science. Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1978. 447 + xvii pp. Here are three books relating to the …
Presidential address Experts and publishers: Writing popular science in early twentieth-century Britain, writing popular history of science now
The bulk of this address concerns itself with the extent to which professional scientists were involved in popular science writing in early twentieth-century Britain. Contrary to a widespread assumption, it is argued that a significant proportion of the scientific community engaged in writing the more educational type of popular science. Some high-profile figures acquired enough skill in popular writing to exert considerable influence over the pu…
Francis Galton's saltationism and the ambiguities of selection
Science and the Narrative Structure of TheoriesNarratives of Human Evolution: The Hero Story.Misia Landau
Bones, Bodies, Behavior: Essays on Biological Anthropology
This article reviews "Bones, Bodies, Behavior: Essays on Biological Anthropology," edited by George W. Stocking Jr. The book is a collection of essays exploring the history of biological anthropology, focusing on the interplay between scientific theories, social contexts, and cultural influences. It examines how evolving concepts of race, evolution, and human behavior have shaped the field. The essays cover a range of topics, including the develo…
Theories of Human Evolution: A Century of Debate 1844-1944
Evolutionism in the Enlightenment
Darwin's Concepts of Variation
Journal Article Darwin's Concepts of Variation Get access PETER J. BOWLER PETER J. BOWLER School of Humanities, Universiti Sains MalaysiaPulau Pinang, Malaysia Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic PubMed Google Scholar Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences, Volume XXIX, Issue 2, April 1974, Pages 196–212, https://doi.org/10.1093/jhmas/XXIX.2.196 Published: 01 April 1974
The Eclipse of Pseudo-Darwinism? Reflections on Some Recent Developments in Darwin Studies
Professional RacismThe Retreat of Scientific Racism: Changing Conceptions of Race in Britain and the United States between the World Wars.Elazar Barkan
The Non-Darwinian Revolution: Reinterpreting a Historical Myth
Statistics in Britain, 1865-1930: The Social Construction of Scientific Knowledge . Donald A. MacKenzie
Theodor Eimer and Orthogenesis: Evolution by ‘Definitely Directed Variation’
Theodor Eimer and Orthogenesis: Evolution by ‘Definitely Directed Variation’ Get access PETER J. BOWLER PETER J. BOWLER Department of History, University of Winnipeg Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic PubMed Google Scholar Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences, Volume XXXIV, Issue 1, January 1979, Pages 40–73, https://doi.org/10.1093/jhmas/XXXIV.1.40 Published: 01 January 1979
Darwin's Concepts of Variation
Journal Article Darwin's Concepts of Variation Get access PETER J. BOWLER PETER J. BOWLER School of Humanities, Universiti Sains MalaysiaPulau Pinang, Malaysia Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic PubMed Google Scholar Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences, Volume XXIX, Issue 2, April 1974, Pages 196–212, https://doi.org/10.1093/jhmas/XXIX.2.196 Published: 01 April 1974
Sir Francis Palgrave on Natural Theology
Evolutionism in the Enlightenment
"The Changing Meaning of "Evolution
Herbert Spencer and "Evolution"--An Additional Note
Alfred Russel Wallace's Concepts of Variation
Alfred Russel Wallace's Concepts of Variation Get access PETER J. BOWLER PETER J. BOWLER Department of History, The University of Winnipeg Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic PubMed Google Scholar Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences, Volume XXXI, Issue 1, January 1976, Pages 17–29, https://doi.org/10.1093/jhmas/XXXI.1.17 Published: 01 January 1976
Malthus, Darwin, and the Concept of Struggle
theory of natural selection and the contemporary view of the workings of human society, particularly as expressed in Thomas Malthus' Essay on the Principle of Population. Four recent articles have reexamined this relationship from quite different points of view: Peter Vorzimmer and Sandra Herbert have analyzed Darwin's own writings to show the exact nature of the stimulus provided by Malthus;1 Robert Young has argued that Darwin's view of nature …
Edward Drinker Cope and the Changing Structure of Evolutionary Theory
T. H. Huxley: Man's Place in Nature . James G. Paradis
Theodor Eimer and Orthogenesis: Evolution by ‘Definitely Directed Variation’
Theodor Eimer and Orthogenesis: Evolution by ‘Definitely Directed Variation’ Get access PETER J. BOWLER PETER J. BOWLER Department of History, University of Winnipeg Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic PubMed Google Scholar Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences, Volume XXXIV, Issue 1, January 1979, Pages 40–73, https://doi.org/10.1093/jhmas/XXXIV.1.40 Published: 01 January 1979
The Darwinian Revolution: Science Red in Tooth and Claw , by Michael Ruse
"The Darwinian Revolution: Science Red in Tooth and Claw, by Michael Ruse." Canadian Journal of History, 15(1), pp. 142–143
Biology and Social Thought
Hamilton Cravens. The Triumph of Evolution: American Scientists and the Heredity-Environment Controversy, 1900-1941. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1978.351 + xvi pp. Stephen Jay Gould. Ontogeny and Phylogeny. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1977. 501 + ix pp. Garland E. Allen. Thomas Hunt Morgan: the Man and his Science. Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1978. 447 + xvii pp. Here are three books relating to the …
A History of the Life Sciences . Lois N. Magner
Evolution: Genesis and Revelations . C. Leon Harris
Statistics in Britain, 1865-1930: The Social Construction of Scientific Knowledge . Donald A. MacKenzie
Archetypes and Ancestors: Palaeontology in Victorian London, 1850-1875. Adrian Desmond
Hugh Miller: Outrage and Order--A Biography and Selected Writings . George Rosie
T. H. Huxley's Place in Natural Science . Mario A. di Gregorio
The Piltdown Inquest. Charles Blinderman
Anthropology and Evolution Victorian Anthropology . George W. Stocking, Jr
Racial Theories. Michael Banton
Theories of Human Evolution: A Century of Debate 1844-1944
The invention of progress: The Victorians and the past
Development and Adaptation: Evolutionary Concepts in British Morphology, 1870–1914
Bernard Norton's research concentrated on the Biometrical school of Darwinism and the social implications of the hereditarian ideas that began to gain popularity in the closing years of the nineteenth century. In this article I want to look at the previous generation of evolutionists, the evolutionary morphologists against whom the Biometricians (and their great rivals, the early Mendelians) were reacting. Despite the prominence of evolutionary m…
Darwin and the Emergence of Evolutionary Theories of Mind and Behavior . Robert J. Richards
History (32 works) · Philosophy (31 works) · Epistemology (28 works) · Computer Science (24 works) · Evolution and Science Education (23 works) · Sociology (23 works) · History (17 works) · Darwinism (15 works) · Philosophy (14 works) · Political science (13 works)