Nancy Pearcey Explains the Surprising Early History of Darwinism
On this ID the Future from the vault, Nancy Pearcey, author of numerous books, including The Soul of Science (co-authored with Charles Thaxton) and Love Thy Body: Answering Hard Questions about Life and Sexuality, challenges the common belief that Darwin’s leading early supporters were convinced of the main pillars of his theory. Many in the nineteenth century were already primed to accept a theory of evolution, but not necessarily by natural selection. As Pearcey explains, some of Darwin’s chief supporters had grave doubts about natural selection’s role, and some of them believed that God or a “vital force” guided evolution. But Darwin would have none of it. And what do evolutionary scientists think today? The disagreements persist and, if anything, have intensified.