The Great Debate: Nicholas Spencer (1860)
Nicholas Spencer - author of Magisteria
This week we tackle the fascinating and complex relationship between science and religion, in the company of the academic and writer Nicholas Spencer.
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Spencer takes us back to 1859 and the dramatic events that followed the publication of Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of the Species. This book, containing Darwin’s new theory of evolution by natural selection, ignited a fierce debate about humanity’s place in the world.
In the course of this conversation Spencer introduces us to the great man himself. He gives us an insight into Darwin’s personal life, his relationships with his wife and family and the effect losing his beloved daughter Annie had on his faith in God.
All these factors, combined with his earlier scientific work while travelling on HMS Beagle, led Darwin towards that paradigm-breaking moment in 1859 when On the Origin of Species was published. The feud the book created deepened over the year that followed. These disagreements would ultimately lead to an event that has been mythologised in the history of science - the famous Oxford debate between T.H. Huxley (who later became known as ‘Darwin’s bulldog’) and Bishop ‘Soapy’ Sam Wilberforce in June 1860.
While the Oxford Debate of 1860 is traditionally viewed as a classic moment of confrontation between science and religion, Spencer points out that in reality the historical relationship between these two social forces is far more complex. In his new book, Magisteria, The Entangled Histories of Science and Religion, Nicholas explains that the idea religion and science have traditionally been at odds with one another was propagated by historians in the last decades of the nineteenth century.
In fact, he explains, religion and science are modern constructs, irrelevant to most of the people who investigated the natural world throughout history. The truth is both more interesting and more nuanced. Until the nineteenth century all ‘science’ happened within the structures of Christianity, Judaism or Islam; until the seventeenth century, most scholars were also clergymen, and many remained so right up until the dawn of the twentieth.
That is not deny that there were moments when scientific ideas were problematic for religious authorities. Spencer revisits some of the most famous of these and reassesses them, examining new evidence and revealing richer, more complex and, ultimately, more accurate visions of the past.
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Nicholas Spencer’s new book is, Magisteria: The Entangled Histories of Science & Religion.
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Show Notes
Scene One: Charles Darwin receiving a letter from clergyman and novelist Charles Kingsley, in November 1859, congratulating him on the Origin of Species, an advance copy of which he has just read.
Scene Two: The publication of the most controversial book of the age – not On The Origin of Species but Essays and Reviews, in March 1860, igniting a passionate debate about Biblical texts.
Scene Three: The famous Oxford debate between T.H. Huxley (‘Darwin’s bulldog’) and Bishop ‘Soapy’ Sam Wilberforce in late June 1860.
Memento: One of Charles Darwin’s notebooks, written when he returned from his voyage on the Beagle, as his theory of evolution began to take shape in his mind.
People/Social
Presenter: Violet Moller
Guest: Nicholas Spencer
Production: Maria Nolan
Podcast partner: Ace Cultural Tours
Theme music: ‘Love Token’ from the album ‘This Is Us’ By Slava and Leonard Grigoryan
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See where 1860 fits on our Timeline
About Nicholas Spencer
Nicholas Spencer is Senior Fellow at Theos, a Fellow of International Society for Science and Religion and a Visiting Research Fellow at Goldsmiths, University of London. He is the author of a number of books including Darwin and God, The Evolution of the West and Atheists. He has presented a BBC Radio 4 series on The Secret History of Science and Religion, and has written for the Guardian, Telegraph, Independent, New Statesman, Prospect and more.
Featured images
At the Oxford Debate in 1860
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