30Oct 2024 by Post

The Fate of Evolution Without Natural Selection

Annabel Lustig, autopilot, Charles Darwin, Christianity, Connop Thirlwall, Erasmus Darwin, Evolution, Evolution: A Theory in Crisis, Friedrich Nietzsche, Industrial Revolution, Intelligent Design, Jerry Fodor, Jesus, Massimo Piattelli-Palmarini, natural selection, neo-Darwinists, New Testament, North Wales, Old Testament, Origin of Species, Phillip Johnson, primary school, Richard Dawkins, Richard Milner, Saint Asaph, South Wales, Spanish Inquisition, The Blind Watchmaker, The Selfish Gene, Thomas Malthus, Wales
It does not seem reasonable to accept the veridical status of evolution on the basis of what an increasing number of scientists perceive as a “dodgy dossier.” Source
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16Jan 2023 by Post

Old Wine in New Bottles: How Darwin Recruited Malthus to Fortify a Failed Idea from Antiquity

abiogenesis, Alphonse de Candolle, Aristotle, atheists, atomism, Charles Bradlaugh, Charles Darwin, Charles Lyell, Christianity, complexification, David Hume, Edward Aveling, Epicurus, Erasmus Darwin, Evolution, Friedrich Engels, Georges Cuvier, Gertrude Himmelfarb, Greece, Homo sapiens, Intelligent Design, Karl Marx, Law of Correlation, Lucretius, Matthew Arnold, Middle Ages, natural selection, Origin of Species, Patrick Matthew, Plato, Poor Law, Rome, Thomas Aquinas, Thomas Malthus, transhumanism, Unmoved Mover, Victorian England, William Paley
It was undoubtedly a tremendous philosophical coup for Darwin whose knowledge of formal philosophy was limited. Source
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05Oct 2022 by Post

Erasmus Darwin and Credible Denial

cancel culture, Charles Darwin, Creation, Deucalion, E Conchis Omnia, Enlightenment, Epicurus, Erasmus Darwin, Evolution, French Revolution, Intelligent Design, Jacques Monod, Jennifer Hecht, John Milton, Lichfield, Lucretius, New Atheists, Paradise Lost, Richard Dawkins, sea shells, Sigmund Freud, spontaneous generation, The Age of Reason, theodicy, Thomas Paine
Consideration of Erasmus Darwin’s writings suggests that his unbelief could well have been father to the thought in the matter of his evolutionary speculations. Source
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01Aug 2022 by Post

Darwin and the British Secularist Tradition

Adrian Desmond, Alfred Lord Tennyson, Anglicanism, Baron d’Holbach, Charles Bradlaugh, Charles Darwin, Crisis of Doubt, Culture, Dover Beach, Edward Aveling, Erasmus Darwin, Faith & Science, In Memoriam, James Moore, John Henry Gordon, Lady Chatterley’s Lover, Leslie Stephen, Matthew Arnold, Origin of Species, Oxbridge, Robert Chambers, Secularism, The Oracle of Reason, The Rights of Man, Timothy Larsen, Tom Paine, Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation, Victorian England
The arresting historical vignette of Darwin’s fraught meeting with Bradlaugh and Aveling at his country retreat would doubtless make for a good TV docudrama. Source
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13Jun 2022 by Post

How Darwin and Wallace Split over the Human Mind

Alfred Russel Wallace, Animal Liberation, Anthony Flew, Anthony O’Hear, biology, consciousness, cosmogonism, Darwin, David Bentley Hart, David Hume, deism, Donald Hoffman, Erasmus Darwin, Europeans, Evolution, Francis Crick, How Darwin and Wallace Split over the Human Mind, Intelligent Design, Irreducible Complexity, Lawrence Krauss, Lucretius, materialism, Michael Ruse, mind, natural selection, natural theology, neuroscience, Neuroscience & Mind, Peter Singer, Racism, rationalism, Richard Dawkins, Richard Rorty, Richard Spilsbury, Stephen Hawking, Ternate letter, The Origin of Species, Thomas Huxley, Tom Wolfe
Marvelously free of racist prejudice, Wallace noted in his fieldwork in far-flung locations that primitive tribes were intellectually the equals of Europeans. Source
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20May 2022 by Post

In His New Book, Denton Shows How Science Leads the Charge to Theism

astrophysicists, Atheism, bioengineering, biology, brain, Charles Darwin, Copernican Revolution, cosmology, cytology, demiurge, Democritus, Denis Diderot, earth, Erasmus Darwin, Faith & Science, fine-tuning, human eye, humankind, Judeo-Christian tradition, life, natural selection, nature, Paul Davies, philosophes, Physics, Earth & Space, physiology, Plato, purpose, teleology, The Miracle of Man, theism, William Paley
In his new book, Michael Denton is particularly strong on what he terms “the post-Copernican delusion of mankind’s cosmic irrelevance.” Source
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06Mar 2022 by Post

Evolutionary Theory as Magical Thinking

ancient Greeks, Argument from Pique, Aristotelian tradition, atomists, automatism, Baruch Spinoza, bio-logic, Charles Darwin, Christian de Duve, Christianity, Darwin and the Victorian Crisis of Faith (series), Darwin’s Unfinished Business, Erasmus Darwin, Evolution, Faith & Science, freethinking, Life Sciences, logos, magical thinking, moral sensibility, nous, philosophers, Simon Powell, supernatural, Thomas Malthus
Charles Darwin himself exemplified the Argument from Pique, alluded to in past entries in this series, to a tee. Source
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12Jul 2021 by Post

The Casual Racism of Charles Darwin

Abraham Joshua Heschel, Abraham Lincoln, Adrian Desmond, Africa, Allison Hopper, anti-racism, Charles Darwin, Culture & Ethics, Darwin’s Sacred Cause, Descent of Man, Edinburgh, Emma Darwin, Erasmus Darwin, Evolution, Great Emancipator, Harriet Martineau, Human Origins, James Moore, N-word, Racism, slavery, slaves, Victorian England
It is certainly startling to see the N-word cropping up in Darwin’s letters, but this is not the only place. Source
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