Michael Polanyi Distinguished Lecturer Janet Browne: Rethinking the Darwinian Revolution

By the time of his death Charles Darwin was one of the most celebrated –and one of the most notorious—scientists in the world. And yet history tells us that Darwin was neither the first nor the only one to think of evolution. How did Darwin come to such prominence and what were the political, social, and scientific commitments involved in generating the concept of a ‘Darwinian revolution’? Janet Browne, the Aramont Professor in the History of Science at Harvard University, as the 2017 Michael Polanyi Distinguished Lecturer in the History and Philosophy of Natural Science.