Darwin's Falling Sparrow - Victorian Evolutionists and the Meaning of Suffering (Hardcover)

The "Darwin Story" has been told in many different ways and from a wide range of perspectives. Some focus on the detailed development of evolution theory. Others examine the ways in which evolution was used to justify different ideologies. But no one has told this tale as a story of mothers, fathers, and families wrestling with alternative explanations of suffering in a time of tremendously high child mortality rates. Darwin's Falling Sparrow explores how both Darwin and his readers confronted evolutionary ideas as more than scientists, ministers, or public intellectuals. They were also parents, sisters, brothers, aunts, uncles, and friends, who, in their attempt to devise a new explanation for the ubiquitous "Fall of Every Sparrow," were inspired to see the world through new, extraordinary lenses that altered the course of history, science, and medicine. The book applies a biographical, narrative lens to explore what people in the past believed and why, and how and why those beliefs - about God, nature, history, and human agency - changed over time. As an historian of science with fifteen years' experience conveying the complexities of the history of science and religion to undergraduates, I take the reader to this past with empathetic attention to the role of suffering in the history of evolutionary thought. As we approach the centennial of the most famous trial over teaching evolution (the Scopes Trial of 1925), we need histories that are accessible and relevant to non-academic readers who are interested in understanding stances and debates, rather than books that simply offer ammunition for one side or the other. This kind of history directs our attention to questions that can help us navigate debates in the present in a more informed, empathetic way: What are the fundamental beliefs driving stances and conflicts? What assumptions and values are at stake amid conflicts over science and science-driven policy? Darwin's Falling Sparrow will appeal to anyone interested in understanding the complex factors that often drive both historical and present-day debates about the role of science in the modern world.