The Oxford debate where evolution triumphed over creationism
A turning-point in the history of science
IT usually TAKES a rather long time for a worldview to become outmoded and replaced by a new one. But in the eyes of many scientists, a monumental shift took place on one day: June 30th 1860. It was then, at the Oxford University Museum of Natural History, that Thomas Huxley, an English biologist and representative of the new theory of evolution, bested in debate Samuel Wilberforce, the city’s bishop and (unsurprisingly) a biblical creationist.
This article appeared in the Culture section of the print edition under the headline “It’s all biology”
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