The Watch on the Heath

In his book Natural Theology, William Paley used the analogy of a watch to argue that living things must have had a designer. In The Watch on the Heath Keith Thomson looks at the context in which Paley's arguments were put forward. Thomson describes the work of earlier writers such as John Ray, Thomas Burnet and many more. There's a chapter on how Robert Plot struggled to make sense of fossils and a look at the different ideas of how to explain geological strata. Thomson also looks at those who came after Paley - Lyell, Buckland, and Charles Darwin himself, who was strongly influenced by Paley's book.

The books gives an interesting description of how people tried to reconcile the biblical account description of Creation with scientific findings, and the insuperable problems which eventually faced such reconcilations. Thomson has clearly a wide knowledge of this area, and I liked how he traced ideas back to their roots - apparently an argument like that of the watch can be found in the works of Cicero. Sometimes I feel that the 'Science v Religion' conflict has never been as strong as works such as this seem to imply, but the book is certainly very useful for those readers wanting to get an idea of the source of such conflict.

Note: This title is for the UK version of this book. The US title Before Darwin: Reconciling God and Nature doesn't seem so appropriate for the content of the book.