RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 Geology and Genesis in nineteenth- and twentieth-century Italy: a preliminary assessment
JF Geological Society, London, Special Publications
JO Geological Society, London, Special Publications
FD Geological Society of London
SP 269
OP 275
DO 10.1144/SP310.26
VO 310
IS 1
A1 Vaccari, Ezio
YR 2009
UL http://sp.lyellcollection.org/content/310/1/269.abstract
AB During the second half of the nineteenth century and in the early years of the twentieth century the debate on the Darwinian evolutionary theory also involved the Italian scientific community. One of the lesser known results of the controversy there was the defence of creationism, often supported by the resort to the biblical Flood, in some Italian publications on geological sciences. The authors of such writings were naturalists and geologists, but also clerics and parish priests interested in the Earth sciences. They published a wide range of books, booklets and papers, particularly between 1870 and 1905. The aim of this paper is to analyse some interesting examples of this ‘submerged’ and heterogeneous literature, so as to understand the possible extent of its influence on the general public, as well as the level of integration between scientific knowledge, geological practice and reference to the Bible, during a period that is usually regarded as a time of separation between Genesis and geology.