His current interests are in the development and implications of Darwinism, the history of the environmental sciences, science and religion (especially twentieth century), and popular science writing.
Current research is on the production of popular science literature in early twentieth-century Britain, with particular emphasis on the role played by professional scientists.[2] Bowler discusses the attempts by Victorian scientists to promote science for public understanding and the increasing accessibility of popular science works.[3]
Bowler has criticised creationism in Northern Ireland. He has made appearances on local radio, including interviews with William Crawley on BBC Radio Ulster shows TalkBack and Sunday Sequence - here he defended evolution and highlighted the non-scientific nature of creationism.[4][5]
Publications
Fossils and Progress: Palaeontology and the Idea of Progressive Evolution in the Nineteenth Century (1976) ISBN0882020439
Theories of Human Evolution: A Century of Debate, 1844–1944 (Wiley-Blackwell 1987)
The Mendelian Revolution: The Emergence of Hereditarian Concepts in Modern Science and Society (Continuum International, Athlone, 1989)[6]
The Invention of Progress: Victorians and the Past (Wiley-Blackwell, 1989)
The Non-Darwinian Revolution: Reinterpreting a Historical Myth (Johns Hopkins University Press, New Edition, 1988)[7]
The Eclipse of Darwinism: Anti-Darwinian Evolution Theories in the Decades Around 1900 (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1983)
The Fontana History of the Environmental Sciences (Fontana Press, 1992)
Biology and Social Thought: 1850–1914 : Five Lectures Delivered at the International Summer School in History of Science Uppsala, July 1990 (Univ of California, 1993)
Charles Darwin: the man and his influence (Cambridge, 1996).
Life's splendid drama: evolutionary biology and the reconstruction of life’s ancestry, 1860–1940 (Chicago, 1996).
Reconciling science and religion: the debate in early twentieth-century Britain (Chicago, 2001).
^BBC Radio Ulster TalkBack, broadcast 15 September 2008
^BBC Radio Ulster Sunday Sequence, broadcast 2 December 2007
^Churchill, Frederick B. (January 1990). "The Mendelian Revolution. The Emergence of Hereditarian Concepts in Modern Science and Society. Peter J. Bowler. Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, 1989". Science. 247 (4940): 348–349. Bibcode:1990Sci...247..348B. doi:10.1126/science.247.4940.348. PMID17735857.
^Hodge, M. J. S. (1990). "Review of The Non-Darwinian Revolution: Reinterpreting a Historical Myth". The British Journal for the History of Science. 23 (3): 332–334. doi:10.1017/s0007087400044010. JSTOR4026758. S2CID145259506.