How did William Buckland reconcile Megalosaurus with the Bible, according to Steve Brusatte?

Steve Brusatte says Buckland never questioned his faith. Commissioned to write the geology volume of the Bridgewater Treatises in the decade after 1824, he argued that fossils showed God's power and creativity rather than threatening scripture, treating them as a series of earlier creations that God ended to make something new. Brusatte adds that Buckland rejected any idea of species changing and would not have accepted Darwin's theory.

• The treatises were funded by a deathbed bequest from the Earl of Bridgewater.
• Buckland died a few years before On the Origin of Species was published.

Source: our own transcription of the episode. The full conversation is on In Our Time (2026-11-05). Read the whole episode summary →

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