Abstract
Ultimately, fewer and fewer interested parties found reason to affirm either a new natural theology that affirmed a divine hand in the evolutionary course of nature or an idea of Progress that seemed so much at odds with the world situation. Because the proposed reconciliation had been founded upon these notions, the enterprise miscarried. A highly regarded historian of science at the Queen's University of Belfast, Bowler has produced many books on the history of evolution that have rightly become staples of the Darwin industry and contributed mightily to our understanding of the idea of evolution. Were the same terrain to be plowed by a historian with a Christian commitment, there is reason to suspect that a different tale would emerge. [...]some such historian rises to the challenge, however, Bowler's copious, and in places cumbersomely written, rendition will suffice very well as the best starting place for a look at science and religion in early-twentieth-century Britain.