Chambers was a brilliant thinker in his own right. Through his deistic approach, he was able to show that philosophical theism was perfectly compatible with modern scientific discoveries in biology. Much needed antidote to today's close-minded creationists and fundamentalists.
Throughout his correspondence prior to the publication of ‘On the Origin of Species’, Darwin made it quite clear he thought ‘Mr Vestiges’’ book was utter nonsense. Far worse, by creating a sensation, Vestiges had made things considerably more difficult for Darwin to publish on the same topic without creating further sensation. Darwin had more time for Matthews because Matthews had effectively described (albeit very briefly, and in an obscure publication) a subset of Darwin’s own theory. Darwin was by no means the only scientist who thought Vestiges was absolute rubbish. Indeed Darwin’s geology teacher Adam Sedgwick (no believer in evolution) thought Vestiges was so bad it could almost have been written by a woman!
Chambers was a brilliant thinker in his own right. Through his deistic approach, he was able to show that philosophical theism was perfectly compatible with modern scientific discoveries in biology. Much needed antidote to today's close-minded creationists and fundamentalists.
Throughout his correspondence prior to the publication of ‘On the Origin of Species’, Darwin made it quite clear he thought ‘Mr Vestiges’’ book was utter nonsense. Far worse, by creating a sensation, Vestiges had made things considerably more difficult for Darwin to publish on the same topic without creating further sensation. Darwin had more time for Matthews because Matthews had effectively described (albeit very briefly, and in an obscure publication) a subset of Darwin’s own theory. Darwin was by no means the only scientist who thought Vestiges was absolute rubbish. Indeed Darwin’s geology teacher Adam Sedgwick (no believer in evolution) thought Vestiges was so bad it could almost have been written by a woman!