Rhetorical Darwinism

With his insights into rhetoric, culture, and the English Reformation, Thomas Lessl makes a plausible case that the reformist science rhetoric of Francis Bacon and Thomas Henry Huxley gave us much more than research institutions--it also paved the way for a public ethos of evolutionism, a vision of 'progress' that keeps science well funded and prestigious. We may never see Bacon and Huxley--or the creation-evolution debate--the same again.

~Larry Witham, author of Where Darwin Meets the Bible: Creationists and Evolutionists in America

I love it! Rhetorical Darwinism is a great read and is a truly important contribution, not just to understanding the impact of Charles Darwin and his theory of evolution, but also to situating the public place of science. I recommend this book highly.

~Michael Ruse, Director of the Program in History and Philosophy of Science, Florida State University

Science is no mere private pursuit. Rather, the most influential scientific ideas can transform a culture gradually, by first aligning themselves with older cultural ideas and icons, overthrowing the old order in the process. Those who wish to understand how 'evolutionism' insinuated itself into modern culture do no better than to read Lessl's work.

~Michael J. Behe, Professor of Biological Science, Lehigh University

Lessl challenges readers to link thinkers and texts in a connected series across centuries and to see how current secular values grew incrementally from religious beliefs.

~Jeanne Fahnestock, author of Rhetorical Style: The Uses of Language in Persuasion

This is a superb piece of scholarship that ranges widely across disciplinary boundaries, shedding light on the underlying humanity of scientific inquiry and, ultimately, on its politics and sociology as well. Lessl asks novel questions about axiology and ontology and, in so doing, he becomes Charles Darwin's amaneusis for a new age.

~Roderick P. Hart, Dean, Shivers/Cronkite Chair in Communication, University of Texas

From the beginnings of the scientific revolution, demarcating the boundaries of science has been a problem for the scientific community. Thomas Lessl, comparing 'evolution' with what he calls 'rhetorical Darwinism,' argues persuasively that the scientific establishment has never guarded those borders carefully.

~Christianity Today