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Religion, Evolution and Heredity

Religion, Evolution and Heredity

Marius Turda

(2018)

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Book Details

Abstract

This book engages with the relationship between religion, evolution and heredity, by bringing together two of its aspects that are frequently discussed separately: Darwinism and eugenics. It also demonstrates that religion has played a greater role in shaping modern debates on evolution and human improvement than current scholarship has previously acknowledged. Drawing on examples provided by Britain, Italy and Portugal across the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the present study provides a fresh discussion of seminal topics such as reproduction, parenthood, the control of population and ideas of human improvement based on eugenics and genetics, which intersected and, at times, dominated the much broader debate between science and religion reignited by the publication of Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution and natural selection in the second half of the nineteenth century.


Table of Contents

Section Title Page Action Price
Cover i
Title Page ii
Contents iv
Acknowledgements vi
Contributors viii
Scientific Calvinism: Eugenics as a Secular Religion: Marius Turda 1
Squaring the Circle? Two Attempts to Reconcile Darwinism and Christianity in Late Victorian Britain: David Redvaldsen 17
From Biopolitics to Eugenics: The Encyclical Casti Connubii: Emmanuel Betta 39
Eugenics, Sex Reform, Religion and Anarchism in Portugal: Richard Cleminson 61
Responsible Parenthood: Reproduction and Religion in Post-War Britain: Patrick T. Merricks 85
Index 107
Copyright 109
Back Cover 110