Why you should become a Bible-believing anarchist
who also believes the universe was created around 4004 B.C.
Henry Fairfield Osborn (1857-1935) was a fervent promoter of evolutionism. He was professor of anatomy at Columbia University, president of the American Museum of Natural History for 25 years and a cofounder of the American Eugenics Society. Osborn was one of the most well known scientists in the United States during his own lifetime, “second only to Albert Einstein", and was a prominent public advocate for the truth of evolution. In 1894 he wrote a work on the history of evolutionary thought, From the Greeks to Darwin | An Outline of the Development of the Evolution Idea. Here is Osborn's outline of the history of the idea of evolution:
THE ANTICIPATION OF NATURE : GREEK EVOLUTION.
I. 640 B.C.-16oo A.D.
Greek Evolution in Christian Theology ; in Arabic Philosophy.
The rise, decline, revival, and final decline of the Greek Natural History and Greek conception of Evolution. Of this period were Thales, Anaximander, Anaximenes, Xenophanes, Heraclitus, Empedocles, Democritus, Anaxagoras, Aristotle, Epicurus, Lucretius, Gregory, Augustine, Bruno, Avempace, Abubacer.
THE INTERPRETATION OF NATURE: MODERN EVOLUTION.
II. 1600-1800 A.D.
Philosophical Evolution.
Emancipation of Botany and Zoology from Greek traditions.
The beginnings of Modern Evolution as part of a natural order of the universe. Suggestions of inductive Evolution, as based upon the transformation and filiation of species, by the natural philosophers, Bacon, Descartes, Leibnitz, Hume, Kant, Lessing, Herder, Schelling.
Revival of Greek Evolution ideas in speculative form by such speculative philosophical writers and naturalists as Maupertuis, Diderot, De Maillet, Robinet, Bonnet, Oken.
III. 1730-1850 A.D.
Modern Inductive Evolution, 3d Period: Buffon to St. Hilaire.
Rapid extension of Zoology, Botany and Paleontology. Rise and decline of inductive Evolution. Scattered observation and speculation upon the filiation and transformation of species.
Linnaeus, Buffon, E. Darwin, Lamarck, Goethe, Treviranus, Geof. St. Hilaire, St. Vincent, Is. St. Hilaire. Miscellaneous writers : Grant, Rafinesque, Virey, Dujardin, d'Halloy, Chevreul, Godron, Leidy, Unger, Carus, Lecoq, Schaafhausen, Wolff, Meckel, Von Baer, Serres, Herbert, Buch, Wells, Matthew, Naudin, Haldeman, Spencer, Chambers, Owen.
IV. 1858-1893 A.D.
Modern Inductive Evolution, 4th Period: Darwin, Wallace.
Evolution established inductively and deductively as a law of Nature. The factor of Natural Selection established. Observation and speculation upon other factors of Evolution.
No sharp lines actually separated these periods ; each passed gradually into the next. The decline of Greek, and especially of Aristotelian influence in natural science, was extremely gradual, and was overlapped by the awakening of the spirit of original research upon animals and plants, and of the science of medicine. Similarly, what we may call the Philosophers' period ran insensibly into the Buffon or third period, for the later naturalists. began their work contemporaneously with the later philosophers. Perhaps the sharpest transition was at the close of the third period, in which a distinct anti-Evolution school had sprung up and succeeded in firmly entrenching itself, so that Darwin and Wallace began the present era with some abruptness.
He starts with the Greeks. Why not include previous civilizations? Space perhaps. Osborn was a champion of Autonomy rather than Theonomy, and the Greeks rejected even false (mythological) gods and stressed the autonomy of human reason.
Most people don't read a book's table of contents. I think it's worth reading this one; it helps get into the head of a devout evolutionist. From Osborn's book, here is the
Table of Contents
|
This is our starting point. The names in Osborn's list can be supplemented from other sources:
The Concept of Evolution to 1872 (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy/Spring 2019 Edition)
Evolutionary Thought Before Darwin (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
Carroll Lane Fenton, A History of Evolution (1922)
The century before Darwin published his book was tumultuous and rapidly changed the landscape.
Evolution Before Darwin, Bill Jenkins.
- History of evolutionary thought - Wikipedia
- Buffon's works, Histoire naturelle (1749–1789) and Époques de la nature (1778), containing well-developed theories about a completely materialistic origin for the Earth and his ideas questioning the fixity of species, were extremely influential. Another French philosopher, Denis Diderot, also wrote that living things might have first arisen through spontaneous generation, and that species were always changing through a constant process of experiment where new forms arose and survived or not based on trial and error; an idea that can be considered a partial anticipation of natural selection. Between 1767 and 1792, James Burnett, Lord Monboddo, included in his writings not only the concept that man had descended from primates, but also that, in response to the environment, creatures had found methods of transforming their characteristics over long time intervals. Charles Darwin's grandfather, Erasmus Darwin, published Zoonomia (1794–1796) which suggested that "all warm-blooded animals have arisen from one living filament. In his poem Temple of Nature (1803), he described the rise of life from minute organisms living in mud to all of its modern diversity.
When did science begin? Google's AI says this:
- Ancient Egypt: Developed early empirical methods in medicine, such as examination, diagnosis, treatment, and prognosis, which foreshadowed modern scientific methodology. [6]
- Ancient Greece: The history of the philosophy of science can be traced back to ancient Greek philosophers like Aristotle, who explored the nature of knowledge and the workings of the universe, laying the groundwork for later discussions on topics like epistemology and the "four causes". [1, 2, 3]
- Empiricism: In the 16th century, Francis Bacon advocated for gaining knowledge through observation and real-world experimentation, which laid the foundation for empiricism. [1, 4]
In other words, according to Google, nothing scientific happened from the birth of Christ until Francis Bacon.
On the contrary, ChatGPT says the "dark ages" weren't really all that dark. See also the chapter on Science in Thomas E. Woods, How the Catholic Church Built Western Civilization..