Intelligent Evolution

Description:

Now Updated and Expanded – A Fresh Look at a Timeless Debate In this newly revised and updated edition of Intelligent Evolution, Michael A. Flannery brings even greater depth, clarity, and contemporary resonance to one of the most fascinating chapters in the history of science. Incorporating the latest scholarship, refined analysis, and fresh insights since the original 2020 publication, this edition sharpens the spotlight on Alfred Russel Wallace’s bold challenge to Darwinian orthodoxy—making it more essential reading than ever for understanding the philosophical fault lines that still define evolutionary debates today. Alfred Russel Wallace (1823-1913), co-discoverer of natural selection, was second only to Charles Darwin as the 19th century’s most noted English naturalist. Yet his belief in spiritualism caused him to be ridiculed and dismissed by many, leaving him a comparatively obscure and misunderstood figure. In this volume Wallace is finally allowed to speak in his own defense through his grand evolutionary synthesis The World of Life published over a century ago in 1910. More than just a reprinting of a near-forgotten work, Michael A. Flannery places Wallace in historical context and includes the very latest historiography relating to both Darwin and Wallace in his detailed introduction. Flannery exposes Charles Darwin’s now-famous theory of evolution as little more than a naturalistic cover for an extreme philosophical materialism borrowed as a youth from Edinburgh radicals. This is juxtaposed by his sympathetic account of what he calls Wallace’s intelligent evolution, a thoroughly teleological alternative to Darwin’s stochastic processes. Though based upon very different formulations of natural selection, the Wallace/Darwin dispute as presented by Flannery shows a metaphysical clash of worldviews coextensive with modern evolutionary theory itself—design and purpose versus randomness and chance. This book is for anyone seeking to understand the historical and philosophical roots of a controversy that still rages today.