Darwin Loves You
Princeton University Press (Verlag)
978-0-691-13639-4 (ISBN)
Jesus and Darwin do battle on car bumpers across America. Medallions of fish symbolizing Jesus are answered by ones of amphibians stamped "Darwin," and stickers proclaiming "Jesus Loves You" are countered by "Darwin Loves You." The bumper sticker debate might be trivial and the pronouncement that "Darwin Loves You" may seem merely ironic, but George Levine insists that the message contains an unintended truth. In fact, he argues, we can read it straight. Darwin, Levine shows, saw a world from which his theory had banished transcendence as still lovable and enchanted, and we can see it like that too--if we look at his writings and life in a new way. Although Darwin could find sublimity even in ants or worms, the word "Darwinian" has largely been taken to signify a disenchanted world driven by chance and heartless competition. Countering the pervasive view that the facts of Darwin's world must lead to a disenchanting vision of it, Levine shows that Darwin's ideas and the language of his books offer an alternative form of enchantment, a world rich with meaning and value, and more wonderful and beautiful than ever before.
Without minimizing or sentimentalizing the harsh qualities of life governed by natural selection, and without deifying Darwin, Levine makes a moving case for an enchanted secularism--a commitment to the value of the natural world and the human striving to understand it.
George Levine is Professor Emeritus of English at Rutgers University. His books include "Darwin and the Novelists; Dying to Know: Narrative and Scientific Epistemology in Victorian England; The Realistic Imagination: English Fiction from Frankenstein to Lady Chatterley; The Boundaries of Fiction;" and a memoir about birdwatching, "Lifebirds".
Preface ix Acknowledgments xxv CHAPTER 1: Secular Re-enchantment 1 CHAPTER 2: The Disenchanting Darwin 45 CHAPTER 3: Using Darwin 73 CHAPTER 4: A Modern Use Sociobiology 93 CHAPTER 5: Darwin and Pain 129 Why Science Made Shakespeare Nauseating CHAPTER 6: "And if it be a pretty woman all the better" 169 Darwin and Sexual Selection CHAPTER 7: A Kinder, Gentler, Darwin 202 EPILOGUE: What Does It Mean? 252 Notes 275 Index 297
| Erscheint lt. Verlag | 30.3.2008 |
|---|---|
| Verlagsort | New Jersey |
| Sprache | englisch |
| Maße | 155 x 235 mm |
| Gewicht | 454 g |
| Themenwelt | Naturwissenschaften ► Biologie ► Evolution |
| ISBN-10 | 0-691-13639-4 / 0691136394 |
| ISBN-13 | 978-0-691-13639-4 / 9780691136394 |
| Zustand | Neuware |
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