06Nov 2024 by Post

Remembering Michael Ruse

Arkansas, Cambridge University Press, Christianity, Dallas, Darwinism, David Hull, Debating Design, Evolution, Foundation for Thought and Ethics, Intelligent Design, John Dominic Crossan, Jon Buell, Michael Ruse, N. T. Wright, Phillip Johnson, Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Subboor Ahmad, The End of Faith, The God Delusion, The Root of All Evil?
Paradoxically, he was ardent in his Darwinism, mild in his atheism, and fair-minded to intelligent design. Source
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23Oct 2024 by Post

Richard Dawkins, the Unlikely Evangelist

Alister McGrath, Anikó Albert, Ard Louis, Ashley Lande, Christianity, Coming to Faith Through Dawkins, Denis Alexander, Evolution, Faith & Science, faith and science, Johan Erasmus, Joshua Pauling, Judaism, Michael Ruse, National Academies of Science, New Atheism, Sam Harris, Schadenfreude, Scott Alexander, Sy Garte
As a recent book of essays demonstrates, the once much-vaunted new atheism spurred many thinking people to become Christians. Source
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22Sep 2023 by Post

Moran: Sternberg and Behe “Appear to Know More About Evolution than Their Opponents”

biology, Charles Darwin, constructive neutral evolution, David Klinghoffer, debates, Dragon, ENCODE, Evolution, genetic drift, Intelligent Design, Junk DNA, Laurence Moran, Malgorzata Moczydlowska-Vidal, Michael Behe, Michael Lynch, Michael Ruse, natural selection, Poland, Richard Dawkins, Richard Sternberg
The whole point of selection was to bias or direct the deliverances of chance variation, so that “luck” didn’t have to do all the work. Source
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08Sep 2023 by Post

In Debate on Intelligent Design, Critic Cites Dragon Legend to Justify Evolution’s Failures

bacterial flagellum, debates, dinosaur bones, Dragon, English, Evolution, Fundacja En Arche, Holocaust, Intelligent Design, Kraków, Malgorzata Moczydlowska-Vidal, Michael Behe, Michael Ruse, micropaleontology, philosophers, Poland, Polish, pseudoscience, Richard Sternberg, scientists, Silesia, Smok wawelski, Sweden, Uppsala University, virgins, Vladimir Putin, Wawel Castle, Wawel Dragon
It is, as Professor Behe acknowledges, a charming tale, but not very relevant as far as the details of the scientific debate go. Source
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26Feb 2023 by Post

Cambridge UP Book Airbrushes Darwin’s Contribution to Scientific Racism

Adolf Hitler, Cal State Stanislaus, Cambridge University Press, Charles Darwin, Culture & Ethics, eugenics, Evolution, From Darwin to Hitler, Hitler’s Ethic, Hitler’s Religion, Jeffrey O’Connell, master race, Michael Ruse, Richard Weikart, scientific racism, Social Darwinism, struggle for life, The Death of Humanity
Darwin’s racist and pro-eugenics thinking, combined with some implications of his theory that he expressed, laid the groundwork for Hitler’s diabolical outlook. 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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29Jun 2021 by Post

How Science and Faith Relate — Three Options

Alister McGrath, BioLogos, Bruce Gordon, Casey Luskin, Center for Science & Culture, dialogue, faith, Faith & Science, Francis Collins, Michael Ruse, monologue, religion, scientists, theistic evolution, theology, Three Views on Christianity and Science, Tom Gilson
"Dialogue," in practice, can quickly devolve into a monologue where religion is supposed to sit down and shut up the moment there is a point of difference. Source
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27Apr 2021 by Post

Some Additional Comments on Social Darwinism

Adrian Desmond, Alfred Russel Wallace, Applied Eugenics, Culture & Ethics, Current Anthropology, Darwin Industry, Darwinian evolution, Derek Freeman, Evolution, Herbert Spencer, James Moore, Jeffrey O’Connell, John C. Greene, Marvin Harris, Michael Ruse, natural selection, Origin of Species, Richard Weikart, Robert Richards, Social Darwinism
O’Connell and Ruse’s failure to engage deeply and fully with the historiography of this question makes it hard to take their effort seriously. Source
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05Mar 2021 by Post

Michael Ruse on Purpose: The Flies in the Ointment

abstract thought, art, C.S. Lewis, Daniel Everett, Darwin Industry, Darwinian theory, Darwinism as religion, Evolution, Faith & Science, Frederic Harrison, hedgehog, human exceptionalism, John Henry Bridges, mathematics, Michael Ruse, music, Noam Chomsky, On Purpose, Pirahã people, Richard Dawkins, scientific reductionism, South America, The Selfish Gene, Thomas Henry Huxley, Whiggishness
Ruse’s chronological snobbery might be forgiven if the claims he makes for Darwinism can be unequivocally substantiated. Source
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