I have a book called "The discovery of Evolution" by David Young, 1992. It
covers about 300 years of biology/geology from R. Hooke and John Ray to G.
Simpson and E. Mayr. Young discusses the role Christianity played in
developing the "new philsophy" among other things. I have found it to be a
great book, very informative and entertaining. I don't know if Young is a
Christian or not.
One last thing that attracted me to this book is his last chapter
(Evolution: Truth, theory, or myth). He discusses the shift from
scientific interpretation to "grand philosophy", e.g. G. Simpson: "Man is
the result of a purposless and materialistic process that did not have him
in mind," and some of Gould's writings. He asks what "the limits of
evolutionary biology are and whether it is legitimate to extrapolate its
observations and theories way beyond their original scope" and points out
the danger of making such big jumps. "The philosophies advocated by many
biologists have little enough foundation, but the tend to acquire a
spurious authority by being linked with sound scientific exposition."
Anyways its a good book, if you can find it.
Bryan
PS. some of the drawings in it are exquisite, esp. like Hooke, Cuvier etc.
"The ant ascends the tree that it may milk its cows, the aphids, not kill
them." C. von Linne, 1758
The ant is the sewage engineer of the aphid. Sudd 1987
D. Bryan Bishop
Entomology Dept, Michigan State University
e-mail: bishopdo@pilot.msu.edu
http://www.ent.msu.edu