Theses and Dissertations, 1970-1979
From Creation History Wiki
1979
- Fact or Faith? An Analysis of the Controversy Surrounding Evolution and Creationism by Hugh S. Miller. Other, Princeton University.
1978
- Epperson v. Arkansas : A Question of Control Over Curriculum and Instruction Decision Making in the Public Schools by John W. Keienburg, III. Dissertation (Ph.D.), Texas A&M University. 208 p.
- A Chronology and Analysis of Regulatory Actions Relating to the Teaching of Evolution in the Public Schools by Richard D. Wilhelm. Dissertation (Ph.D.), University of Texas--Austin. 481 p.
1976
- The Anti-Evolution Controversy in Louisiana, 1925-1926 by James M. Mansfield. Thesis (Masters), Louisiana State University. 127 p.
- The California State Board of Education and the Presentation of the Concept of Evolution in the State Science Texts by Janet K. Hoare. Thesis (Masters), San Francisco State University. 83 p.
- Christian Fundamentalism and the Theory of Evolution in Public School Education? A Study of the Creation Science Movement by Vernon L. Bates. Dissertation (Ph.D.), University of California?Davis. 232 p.
- Science and Religion in America, 1800-1860 by Herbert John Hovenhamp. Dissertation (Ph.D.), Department of History, University of Texas--Austin. 423 p.
This is a dissertation about the relationship between science and religion in America in the first half of the nineteenth century. During this period, sometimes called "the Romantic era," American Protestants became increasingly fascinated by the sciences. They developed a sophisticated "natural theology" based on the premise that nature contains clear, compelling evidence of God's existence and perfections. The Protestant believed that in order to do natural theology he had to be an "empiricist." Like Francis Bacon in the seventeenth century, he had to observe carefully the facts of nature, always avoiding useless speculation or "hypotheses." Secondly, a natural theologian had to be a scientist. He had to understand the natural data and the processes which he observed. Natural theology was a system in which Christian theology and empirical science merged.
1975
- The Rhetoric of Dogma : An Analysis of the Rhetorical Strategies of Two Representative Speakers in the Evolution Controversy of the 1920's by David E. Amick. Dissertation (Ph.D.), University of Oregon. 211 p.
1974
- The Anti-Evolution Crusade in Missouri, 1922-1971 by William W. Farmer. Dissertation (Ph.D.), University of Missouri--Columbia. 294 p.
- Theories of Evolution in Wells' The Time Machine, Shaw's Back to Methuselah, and Stapledon's Last and First Men by Susan Allender-Hagedorn. Thesis (M.A.), Department of English, Iowa State University. 38 p.
The nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries were a battleground for the evolution controversy, in particular the controversy concerning human evolution. Charles Darwin's publication of The Origin of Species in 1859 popularized and but into understandable language but one of the then current theories of evolution. Besides Darwin's theory of random evolution, rival speculations included degenerative evolution (proposed by Buffon), creative evolution (proposed by Lamarck), and purposive or divine evolution (proposed by Erasmus Darwin). The massive documentation presented by Charles Darwin made his conclusions seem irrefutable, and consequently, the word "evolution" has popularly come to mean only the theory he presented. However, in the futurist and utopian literature popular at the end of the nineteenth century, the alternative theories were often used to explore possible futures for the human race, and great interest and concern was shown towards human physical and social evolution. Thus, if only one theory of evolution is assumed in a study of this literature, a comprehension of various reactions to the growing atheism and agnosticism of the day cannot be achieved; and without an understanding of the history of the controversies between nineteenth-century evolutionists themselves, an author's hope or despair for the future of mankind can be, at best, only sketchily seen.
