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Evolution and the Humanities is a 1988 book by David Holbrook that attacks Darwinian evolution for being meaninglessness. The book rejects reductionist biology and takes influence from Michael Polanyi and vitalist philosophy.

Henri Bergson and Teilhard de Chardin

Stuart-Fox, Martin. (1988). Evolution and the Humanities by David Holbrook. The Centennial Review. Vol. 32, No. 3, pp. 318-319.

Regarding Holbrook's criticism of natural selection. Martin Stuart-Fox noted that it was a "cobble together, in a sort of scissors-and-paste criticism... the book contains no vigorous argument at all. Not only is Holbrook very obviously no scientist, he is no philosopher either."

Stuart-Fox concluded the book was "jumbled diatribe".

The book is said to have been poorly edited and riddled with errors.

Barton, Ruth. (1989). Reviewed Works: Theories of Human Evolution: A Century of Debate, 1844-1944 by Peter J. Bowler; Evolution and the Humanities by David Holbrook; The Age of Science: The Scientific World-View in the Nineteenth Century by David Knight. Victorian Studies. Vol. 32, No. 2, pp. 276-278.

Arthur M. Shapiro in a review for the National Center for Science Education commented:

"David Holbrook, Fellow of Downing College, Cambridge, has written a polemic not so much against evolution as against scientific reductionism (which he sees incarnate in neo-Darwinism). He proceeds from revulsion at the existentialist vision of "life as a 'scientific accident.' " He's no creationist but, rather, a from-the-gut free-form vitalist—just as preoccupied with the perceived moral consequences of the Darwinian revolution as any Bible-thumping moralist could be. As usual, he conflates science with scientism and evolution with evolutionism, materialism, and atheism; with perverse functionalist-teleological zeal, he condemns an idea for the sins of those who elaborate upon or make use of it."