Author: Neil Thomas

^{Type
post

Author
Neil Thomas

Date
July 6, 2026

Categories
Evolution
Faith & Science
Tagged
, __trending, ancient Greeks, Augustan age, Before Philosophy, Charles Darwin, Christianity, creation stories, D’Alembert’s Dream, Denis Diderot, Erasmus Darwin, France, Genesis, Great Britain, Henri Frankfort, Higher Criticism, Jean-Baptiste Lamarck, Julien Offray de la Mettrie, L’Homme Machine, lion, Marcion of Sinope, Mary Midgley, materialists, metaphors, mythographers, natural philosophers, natural selection, oak tree, Old Testament, On the Origin of Species, parchment, petroglyphs, religion, Sir Charles Lyell, The Origin of Society, The Temple of Nature, transmutation, Victorian England, whale}

Genesis Rescripted: Erasmus and Charles Darwin’s Biblical Indebtedness

_{Neil Thomas
July 6, 2026

Evolution, Faith & Science

13}

One may argue that myth still informs the metaphors underlying the formulation of some present-day scientific theories. Read More ›

^{Type
post

Author
Neil Thomas

Date
May 12, 2026

Categories
Evolution
History of Science
Scientific Reasoning
Tagged
, Asa Gray, bacteria, Charles Darwin, Charles Kingsley, cosmogonism, Crotchet Castle, crotchets, David Stove, Europe, evolution, evolutionary psychology, False Messiah, fish, Francis Darwin, G. B. Müller, Heilsgeschichte, HMS Beagle, humans, James Moore, Jenny (orangutan), Lamarckian theory, Melanie Phillips, monkeys, nescience, Origin of Species, panspermia, Parousia, progress, Question Time, Richard Dawkins, S. A. Newman, sociobiology, The Kingdom of Speech, Thomas Love Peacock, Thomas Malthus, Tom Wolfe, Victorians}

Paradigm Lost: Darwinism and the Idea of Human Progress

_{Neil Thomas
May 12, 2026

Evolution, History of Science, Scientific Reasoning

17}

The notion of progress is now of course increasingly questioned, especially after what has come to be known as “the calamitous 20th century.” Read More ›

^{Type
post

Author
Neil Thomas

Date
March 16, 2026

Categories
Evolution
Philosophy
Scientific Reasoning
Tagged
, Adrian Desmond, Against the Professors, Albert Einstein, ancient Greece, aphasia, arithmeticians, Arthur Eddington, Arthur Koestler, astrologers, ataraxia, Carlo Rovelli, Charles Darwin, Charles Sanders Peirce, Chrysippus, Das Wesen des Christentums, David Hume, epistemology, Erasmus Darwin, False Messiah, Friedrich Nietzsche, geometers, grammarians, J. B. Bury, J. B. S. Haldane, James Moore, Jerry Coyne, John Dewey, Ludwig Feuerbach, Marcus du Sautoy, Max Planck, musicians, natural preservation, natural selection, Neal Gillespie, New Atheists, Newtonian mechanics, Niels Bohr, Origin of Species, philosophy, Pierre Bayle, Pons Malleus, Pyrrho, revisions, rhetors, Sanford G. Etheridge, Sextus Empiricus, Sir Charles Lyell, Steve Taylor, The Descent of Man, Werner Heisenberg, Why Evolution Is True, William James, William Shakespeare}

Darwin’s Doubts, and Their Philosophical Implications

_{Neil Thomas
March 16, 2026

Evolution, Philosophy, Scientific Reasoning

14}

Charles Darwin thus appears to us more modern than his present-day disciples, whose unbending materialism comes closer to that of Erasmus Darwin. Read More ›

^{Type
post

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 ›

^{Type
post

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
post

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 ›

^{Type
post

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

^{Type
post

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 ›

^{Type
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 ›