The theory of evolution is one of those rare ideas that changes completely the way that the world worked when it came into being. It not only resonated in the field of biology, but changed philosophy, and politics as well. It was the biggest single revolution in thought that has happened in the modern era. And it all came from a one guy named Darwin…or so we thought.
Because one of Prof. Browne’s main points is that the Darwinian Revolution was much more than “The Origin of Species”. That that books was simply the manifestation of many ideas that all pointed to essitianlly the same thing. The way this manifestation was and is treated today points to how a true revolutionary idea works.
Because the Darwinian Revolution did not just change the way that Biology operated. It did do this, but it also resonated beyond science to have real human consequences for the way human society operated. No longer was the church the authority on where we as a species came from, science could all of a sudden do that. Science had appeal power and if it could dare to question something like where we came from it could question just about anything. That was the Darwinian Revolution, a revolution that synthesized version of the same world changing idea into a single form, spread it to the world, and watched it’s repercussions fundamentally change the way that science and society interacted.