Why "Origin of Species" was So Devastating

Yet with the growing public knowledge of geology and astronomy, and the recognition of ‘deep space’ and ‘deep time’, fewer and fewer men or women of education can have believed in a literal, Biblical six days of creation. However, science itself had yet to produce its own theory (or myth) of creation, and there was no alternative Newtonian Book of Genesis — as yet. That is why Darwin’s On the Origin of Species appeared so devastating when it was finally published in 1859. It was not that it r...