Author: Neil Thomas | Page 2 | Science and Culture Today

^{Type
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 ›

^{Type
post

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 ›

^{Type
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 ›

^{Type
post

Author
Neil Thomas

Date
January 10, 2025

Categories
Evolution
Faith & Science
Tagged
, Alister McGrath, Annabel Lustig, C.S. Lewis, Christianity, Darwinism, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Douglas Axe, evolution, Flower Power, Great Britain, Honest to God, John Robinson, Lady Chatterley’s Lover, Michael Behe, mount improbable, natural selection, Richard Dawkins, Rudolf Bultmann, The Selfish Gene}

How Darwinism Dodges the Iceberg

_{Neil Thomas
January 10, 2025

Evolution, Faith & Science

17}

When I viewed the stranded vessel in 1992 it looked remarkably well preserved, but of course functionally it was a mere “zombie” craft. Read More ›

^{Type
post

Author
Neil Thomas

Date
December 23, 2024

Categories
Evolution
Faith & Science
Tagged
, American Revolution, Aristotle, Charles Darwin, Cicero, Darwinism, Empedocles, Epicurus, Erasmus Darwin, faith and science, Friedrich Engels, Galen, Lucretius, Matt Ridley, natural selection, Plato, Taking Leave of Darwin, Thomas Aquinas, Thomas Malthus}

Three Thousand Years of Darwinism

_{Neil Thomas
December 23, 2024

Evolution, Faith & Science

13}

I began to suspect that Darwinism was being taught at school in a somewhat philosophically decontextualized way, lacking historical background. Read More ›

^{Type
post

Author
Neil Thomas

Date
November 4, 2024

Categories
Bioethics
Evolution
Tagged
, Aldous Huxley, Alfred Russel Wallace, Alice in Wonderland, atheism, behaviorism, Charles Bradlaugh, Charles Darwin, cosmogony, David Berlinski, Freudianism, Marxism, multiverse, On the Origin of Species, quantum fluctuation, Richard Dawkins, theistic Darwinism, Theory of Everything, Tom Wolfe, Universal Darwinism, Victorians}

Existentialist Science: Darwin as Proto-Absurdist

_{Neil Thomas
November 4, 2024

Bioethics, Evolution

16}

The existentialist story might arguably start with Charles Darwin and his conception of the chance evolution of life. Read More ›

^{Type
post

Author
Neil Thomas

Date
October 30, 2024

Categories
Evolution
Intelligent Design
Tagged
, Annabel Lustig, Charles Darwin, Christianity, Erasmus Darwin, evolution, Evolution: A Theory in Crisis, Friedrich Nietzsche, Industrial Revolution, Jerry Fodor, jesus, Massimo Piattelli-Palmarini, natural selection, neo-Darwinists, New Testament, Old Testament, On the Origin of Species, Phillip E. Johnson, Richard Dawkins, Spanish Inquisition, The Blind Watchmaker, The Selfish Gene, Thomas Malthus, Wales}

The Fate of Evolution Without Natural Selection

_{Neil Thomas
October 30, 2024

Evolution, Intelligent Design

10}

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.” Read More ›

^{Type
post

Author
Neil Thomas

Date
September 11, 2024

Categories
Evolution
Faith & Science
Tagged
, Charles Darwin, Charles Lyell, Christianity, Enlightenment, evil, John Henry Newman, John Herschel, John Milton, John Ray, methodological naturalism, Natural Theology (book), On the Origin of Species, Paradise Lost, problem of pain, suffering, The Autobiography of Charles Darwin, theodicy, William Paley}

Darwin and the Problem of Pain

_{Neil Thomas
September 11, 2024

Evolution, Faith & Science

19}

For many Enlightenment Age Europeans, the death-knell for belief in an omnipresent, interventionist God had been sounded by the great Lisbon earthquake. Read More ›

^{Type
post

Author
Neil Thomas

Date
August 8, 2024

Categories
Evolution
Faith & Science
Tagged
, abiogenesis, Alister McGrath, Charles Darwin, Climbing Mount Improbable, John Ray, materialism, Meister Eckhart, Moses, Old Testament, On the Origin of Species, Richard Dawkins, speciation, Stephen Jay Gould, The God Delusion, theology, William Paley}

Some Unintended Consequences of Atheist (and Theist) Discourse

_{Neil Thomas
August 8, 2024

Evolution, Faith & Science

16}

This “law of unintended consequences” is an intriguing aspect of the whole Darwin/Dawkins affair that deserves further investigation. Read More ›

^{Type
post

Author
Neil Thomas

Date
July 16, 2024

Categories
Cosmology
Faith & Science
Physical Sciences
Tagged
, Alfred Russel Wallace, Alister McGrath, Bertrand Russell, Cambridge University, Carl Sagan, Charles Darwin, Charles Lyell, Cicero, intelligent design, John Ray, multiverse, natural theology, Neil deGrasse Tyson, Plato, Richard Dawkins, St. Augustine, universe, William Paley, Zeitgeist}

On Natural Theology and Natural Revelation

_{Neil Thomas
July 16, 2024

Cosmology, Faith & Science, Physical Sciences

10}

The nihilist sense of our having been involuntarily flung into the midst of some unchoreographed theatre of the absurd is swiftly offset, Read More ›