In a globalized and networked world, where media crosses national borders, contributors reveal how transnational processes have shaped popular representations of scientific and religious ideas in the United Kingdom, Argentina, Ecuador, India, Spain, Turkey, Israel, and Japan. Most Adaptable to Change demonstrates the varied and divergent ways evolutionary ideas and nonscientific traditions and ways of understanding life on Earth have transformed across the globe. By examining a range of popular media forms across a multitude of different geopolitical contexts from the 1920s to today, this book traces how different evolutionary traditions and figures have been championed or discredited by different religious traditions, their spiritual leaders, and politicians using the cultural authority of religion as leverage. It analyzes the ways in which evolutionary theory has been mobilized explicitly for the purposes of addressing wider sociopolitical questions, and it is the first collection of its kind to explicitly explore the role of popular media formats themselves as mediators in institutional debates on the relationship between evolution and religion.
"Most Adaptable to Change uniquely provides scholars and students interested in the global and transnational history of science and religion with novel perspectives on evolution and its intersections with religion in society."
Thomas Aechtner, The University of Queensland
"This much-needed book explores the often overlooked but crucial ways that popular media establishes, interprets, and reframes narratives about the relationship between evolutionary science and religion. The case studies in this volume highlight the value of looking beyond social elites and high culture to show the complex and unexpected ways that science and religion interact."
David A. Kirby, California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo
"This engaging volume explores the fate of evolutionary and religious authority as negotiated in mass media of the twentieth century. Replete with novel and exciting insights from a wide range of national and political contexts, these essays offer new directions for understanding the diverse ways religious and scientific perspectives have intermingled in the public sphere."
