Peter J. Bowler

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for the English environmental campaigner and country diarist, see Pete Bowler.

Peter J. Bowler at the 2007 History of Science Society meeting

Peter J. Bowler is a historian of biology who has written extensively on the history of evolutionary thought, the history of the environmental sciences, and on the history of genetics. His 1984 book, Evolution: The History of an Idea is a standard textbook on the history of evolution, and was substantially revised in 2003. He is currently a professor in the history of science at Queen's University Belfast, and is an elected Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and a corresponding member of the Académie Internationale d'Histoire des Sciences. He was President of the British Society for the History of Science 2004-6.^[1]

His current interests are in the development and implications of Darwinism the history of the environmental sciences, science and religion (especially twentieth century), and popular science writing. Current research is on the production of popular science literature in early twentieth-century Britain, with particular emphasis on the role played by professional scientists.^[1]

Professor Bowler has been a vocal critic of creationism in Northern Ireland. He has made numerous appearances on local radio, including interviews with William Crawley on BBC Radio Ulster shows 'TalkBack' and 'Sunday Sequence' - here he defended evolution and highlighted the non-scientific nature of creationism. ^{[2] [3]}

[edit] Select publications

• 'Experts and publishers: writing popular science in early twentieth-century Britain' in British Journal for the History of Science, xxxix (2006).

• (With I.R. Morus) Making modern science: a historical survey (Chicago, 2005).

• 'The spectre of Darwinism: popular images of Darwinism in early twentieth-century Britain' in A. Lustig, R.J. Richards and M. Rose (eds), Darwinian Heresies (Cambridge, 2004).

• Evolution: the history of an idea (3rd ed., California, 2003).

• Reconciling science and religion: the debate in early twentieth-century Britain (Chicago, 2001).

• Life’s splendid drama: evolutionary biology and the reconstruction of life’s ancestry, 1860–1940 (Chicago, 1996).

• Charles Darwin: the man and his influence (Cambridge, 1996).

• 'Darwin's Originality', in Science (9 January 2009: Vol. 323. no. 5911, pp. 223 - 226) DOI: 10.1126/science.1160332 ^[4]

[edit] References

1. ^ ^{a b} Peter Bowler's QUB staff page
2. ^ BBC Radio Ulster 'TalkBack', broadcast 15th September 2008
3. ^ BBC Radio Ulster 'Sunday Sequence', broadcast 2nd December 2007
4. ^ Darwin's Originality, in Science, 9 January 2009

[edit] External links

• Peter Bowler's staff page

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