| Abstrakt: |
In this paper, we consider the scientific activities of Abbé Boulay at the end of the nineteenth century, especially in paleobotany, and we will analyze some of Boulay's papers about evolution. As a priest of the Catholic Church and a dean of the Faculty of Sciences in a Catholic University, was Boulay completely opposed to biological evolution or did he change his position concerning this problem between 1875 and 1900? In 1898, in a paper about survival, he recognized the possibility of an evolution in plants and animals. He wrote that the derivation of species from common ancestors was possible. Thus, in the papers written at the end of his life, he did not still reject the evolution of plants and animals as a scientific fact. Nevertheless, Boulay argued repeatedly against Darwinism and he explored the relationship between the Christian teaching on creation, "scholastic" philosophy and the possibility of an evolutionary theory. Today, this thought seems too apologetic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] |
