Author: Neil Thomas

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Author
Neil Thomas

Date
January 29, 2026

Categories
Cultural Anthropology
Faith & Science
History of Science
Tagged
, ancient Greece, atheism, Atheists: The Origin of the Species, Avebury, Bishop of Exeter, Book of Job, Charles Darwin, Christianity, Church Fathers, Corsica, Darwinism, Dennis Harding, False Messiah, Gregory the Great, hochvart, Hugh Trevor-Roper, James Henry Froude, John Aubrey, Judeo-Christian tradition, Kellow Chesney, Lisbon earthquake, London, Middle High German, New Testament, Nick Spencer, Old Testament, Origin of Species, Peace of Augsburg, Pentre Ifan, Poor Henry, practical atheists, Ring of Brodgar, secularization, Sir Leslie Stephen, Stonehenge, symmetry thesis, The Nemesis of Faith, The Victorian Underworld, United Kingdom, University of Edinburgh, Voltaire}

“The Monster in the Sky”: Revisiting Atheism’s Creation Myth

_{Neil Thomas
January 29, 2026

Cultural Anthropology, Faith & Science, History of Science

15}

The fact that Darwin’s evolutionary ideas could not be shown to be scientifically coherent remained for the uncritical a side issue. Read More ›

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Author
Neil Thomas

Date
November 24, 2025

Categories
Evolution
Faith & Science
Historical Sciences
Tagged
, Alfred Russel Wallace, Algernon Charles Swinburne, Charles Darwin, cosmology, Darwinism, Geoffrey Chaucer, George Levine, Lamarckism, Mother Nature, natural preservation, natural selection, natural theology, Ovid, Robert J. Richards, teleology, world spirit}

Destroyer or Nurturer? Darwin’s Divinized Conception of Nature

_{Neil Thomas
November 24, 2025

Evolution, Faith & Science, Historical Sciences

12}

The powers of natural selection transcend human intelligence to such a degree that Darwin came close to imputing to it the capacity for intelligent design. Read More ›

Natural Selection is the differential survival and reproduction of individuals due to differences in phenotype, text concept button on keyboard

^{Type
post

Author
Neil Thomas

Date
November 17, 2025

Categories
Evolution
Scientific Reasoning
Tagged
, agnosticism, Artificial Selection, breeders, Charles Darwin, Christianity, English, fossil record, George Eliot, HMS Beagle, livestock, metaphors, natural selection, naturalists, Naturphilosophie, Origin of Species, physiology, Quarterly Review, Richard Owen, Samuel Wilberforce, terminology, theology, Victorian England, world spirit}

What’s in a Name? Darwin’s Confusing Terminology

_{Neil Thomas
November 17, 2025

Evolution, Scientific Reasoning

10}

In the English language prior to Darwin, “natural selection” was a term used by those who reared animals to denote nature’s serendipity. Read More ›

^{Type
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Author
Neil Thomas

Date
November 10, 2025

Categories
Evolution
Historical Sciences
Tagged
, chance, Charles Darwin, Charles Lyell, domestication, John Herschel, Joseph Hooker, Linnean Society, natural forces, natural law, On the Genesis of Species, Origin of Species, quantum mechanics, randomness, Samuel Haughton, St. George Mivart, Victorian England, Whitwell Elwin, William Whewell}

A Matter of Insinuation: Chance in Darwin’s Theory

_{Neil Thomas
November 10, 2025

Evolution, Historical Sciences

11}

Think of a rock dislodged by happenstance, tumbling down a mountain, and coming to rest in some particular spot. Read More ›

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Author
Neil Thomas

Date
October 28, 2025

Categories
Evolution
Scientific Reasoning
Tagged
, autobiography, Charles Darwin, Cold War, correspondence, creation, creator, Darwinism, Darwinists, Erasmus Darwin, evolution, False Messiah, Friedrich Engels, intellectual history, Karl Marx, Marxism, Messiah, natural theology, Neil Thomas, radicalism, religion}

Darwin’s Doubts: A Scientist Betrayed by His Own Followers

_{Neil Thomas
October 28, 2025

Evolution, Scientific Reasoning

4}

I will argue that employing Darwin in this way is false twice over: First, it is not what Darwin made himself out to be. Read More ›

Silhouette of ape under a starry sky with trees framing the scene in a dark and dreamy setting

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Author
Neil Thomas

Date
October 22, 2025

Categories
Arts
Evolution
Faith & Science
Tagged
, Alfred Russel Wallace, British Rationalist Association, Charles Darwin, Christianity, Darwinian paradigm, Darwinism, evolution, False Messiah, John Keats, Judeo-Christian tradition, Noam Chomsky, Richard Dawkins, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, The Descent of Man, The Kingdom of Speech, The Selfish Gene, theism, There Is a God, Tom Wolfe, William Wordsworth, Woody Allen}

False Messiah: An Addendum on Darwin and Theism

_{Neil Thomas
October 22, 2025

Arts, Evolution, Faith & Science

12}

The standpoint of poet John Keats is certainly gaining resonance in our doubt-ridden 21st century. I for one welcome its openness to questioning and wonder. Read More ›

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post

Author
Neil Thomas

Date
October 5, 2025

Categories
Evolution
Scientific Reasoning
Tagged
, Alfred Russel Wallace, Asa Gray, atomism, barnacles, Charles Darwin, Charles Lyell, Duke of Argyll, Epicureanism, evolution, Fleeming Jenkin, Inkwell Press, James Barham, Lucretianism, On the Genesis of Species, Origin of Species, Richard Owen, Roman Catholics, Samuel Haughton, Sir Charles Lyell, St. George Jackson Mivart, Stephen Jay Gould, The Descent of Man, theists, vera causa}

A Neglected Dissenter from Darwinism: St. George Mivart

_{Neil Thomas
October 5, 2025

Evolution, Scientific Reasoning

5}

Mivart’s objection to Darwinism has not gone away (although it is often studiously ignored). Read More ›

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post

Author
Neil Thomas

Date
September 25, 2025

Categories
Arts
Evolution
Tagged
, alchemy, ancient Greece, Ancient Rome, Aristotle, Charles Bradlaugh, Cicero, Enlightenment, Epicurus, evolution, Galen, George Eliot, history, HMS Beagle, intellectual history, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Journal of Researches, literature, Lucretianism, Lucretius, Matthew Arnold, Misia Landau, Origin of Species, philosophy, Plato, Renaissance, seafaring, Tom Wolfe}

Darwin, Faust, and the Alchemist: Unexpected Roots of a Scientific Idea

_{Neil Thomas
September 25, 2025

Arts, Evolution

19}

Today we would of course brand both Faust and the Alchemist fantasists or “mad scientists” of the first order. Was Darwin prone to such wishful thinking? Read More ›

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Author
Neil Thomas

Date
August 25, 2025

Categories
History of Science
Scientific Reasoning
Tagged
, agnosticism, Alfred Russel Wallace, Anselm, Anselm of Canterbury, atheism, Basil Willey, Brights, C.S. Lewis, causality, Charles Bradlaugh, Charles Darwin, Charles Lyell, Daniel Dennett, deism, Discovery Institute Press, Down House, ectoplasm, Edward Aveling, Enlightenment, Erasmus Darwin, False Messiah, Francis Bacon, Jacques Monod, Karl Marx, Lamarckism, Lawrence Krauss, Lisbon earthquake, Meister Eckhart, natural selection, New Atheists, Noam Chomsky, philosophy, phlogiston, Plato, problem of pain, Pyrrho, quantum physics, Sigmund Freud, skepticism, Steve Taylor, Thomas Aquinas, truth, Unmoved Mover, Virginia, Werner Heisenberg}

Enlightened No More: Darwin as Prefiguration of Postmodern Man

_{Neil Thomas
August 25, 2025

History of Science, Scientific Reasoning

17}

Whether we like it or not, Erasmus Darwin’s simple and predictable world is no more, and we now find ourselves subject to a profoundly mysterious cosmos. Read More ›

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post

Author
Neil Thomas

Date
February 20, 2025

Categories
Evolution
Science Education
Tagged
, Alvin Plantinga, Casey Luskin, Charles Darwin, Daniel Dennett, Darwin on Trial, Darwinism, Denis Diderot, England, Ernst Mayr, Establishment Clause, First Amendment, Harrisburg, Judge John E. Jones, Julien Offray de la Mettrie, Karl Popper, Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District, L’Homme Machine, Lehigh University, Michael Behe, natural selection, Norman Macbeth, Of Pandas and People, Pennsylvania, Phillip E. Johnson, Richard Dawkins, United States}

Teaching Darwin: A Hypothetical Program

_{Neil Thomas
February 20, 2025

Evolution, Science Education

17}

Charles Darwin himself contemplated being mistaken, writing “I have asked myself whether I may not have devoted my life to a fantasy.” Read More ›