Professor John Glendening frames Darwin as a 'way of knowing' in Missoula lecture

Summary

Professor John Glendening argued that Charles Darwin's theory remains central to how people understand nature, culture and human identity during a lecture in the Honors College "Ways of Knowing" series, using Galápagos examples, Victorian literature and modern evidence to show both the scientific power and cultural controversy of evolution.

Professor John Glendening, a member of the English faculty, delivered a lecture titled "Darwin and Other Apes" as part of the Honors College Ways of Knowing series in Missoula. Glendening traced Darwin's observations in the Galápagos, the development and publication of The Origin of Species, and how Darwinian ideas have shaped Victorian culture, modern science and public controversy.

Glendening told the audience that Darwin's writing "has seeped into and helped fashion the intellectual landscape we occupy today," and argued the topic is particularly useful in a course that examines how people know nature, society, the self and the divine. He said the lecture uses Darwin both as historical context and as a provocation to examine contemporary assumptions.

Glendening emphasized the Galápagos as a natural laboratory for evolutionary observation. He described Darwin's five-week visit aboard HMS Beagle, his later use of those observations in The Origin of Species (1859), and the role of island isolation in producing locally adapted species. Drawing on his own travel with the Honors College to the Galápagos, Glendening highlighted the island examples most often tied to Darwin’s argument: giant tortoises with shell and…

Professor John Glendening frames Darwin as a 'way of knowing' in Missoula lecture

Summary

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