Tag: Charles Lyell

^{Type
post

Author
Neil Thomas

Date
November 10, 2025

Categories
Evolution
Historical Sciences
Tagged
, chance, Charles Darwin, Charles Lyell, Curtis Johnson, Darwin’s Dice, domestication, French Academy of Sciences, Geological Society of Dublin, John Herschel, Joseph Hooker, Linnean Society, natural forces, natural law, On the Genesis of Species, Origin of Species, post hoc ergo propter hoc, predictability, quantum mechanics, Quarterly Review, Queen Victoria, randomness, regularity, Samuel Haughton, St. George Mivart, The Natural History Review, trompe-l’oeil, University of Dublin, 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 5, 2025

Categories
Evolution
Scientific Reasoning
Tagged
, Alfred Russel Wallace, Asa Gray, atomism, barnacles, Charles Darwin, Charles Lyell, Darwin and His Critics, David L. Hull, Duke of Argyll, Epicureanism, evolution, Fleeming Jenkin, Inkwell Press, ipse dixit, Jacob Gruber, James Barham, Lucretianism, odium antitheologicum, 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 ›

^{Type
post

Author
William A. Dembski

Date
September 29, 2025

Categories
Evolution
Intelligent Design
Tagged
, Alfred William Bennett, anoura, anthologies, bats, biological origins, books, Charles Darwin, Charles Lyell, chelonians, convergence, Darwinists, development, Ernst Haeckel, evolution, excommunication, growth, humans, Ichthyosauria, Inkwell Classics in Evolution and Design, Inkwell Press, John Henry Newman, monographs, natural selection, On the Genesis of Species, pterodactyles, Roman Catholics, St. George Jackson Mivart, The Descent of Man, The Saturday Review, Thomas Henry Huxley, Vertebrata, William George Ward}

An 1871 Critic of Darwinism Whose Criticisms Still Pack a Punch

_{William A. Dembski
September 29, 2025

Evolution, Intelligent Design

12}

A new series aims to restore a historically honest balance to the debate over evolution and design in the study of biological origins. 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, Christian Bandea, Daniel Dennett, Deborah Lavin, deism, Discovery Institute Press, Down House, ectoplasm, Edward Aveling, Enlightenment, Erasmus Darwin, False Messiah, Francis Bacon, ineffable, Jacques Monod, Karl Marx, Lamarckism, Lawrence Krauss, Leslie Stephen, Lisbon earthquake, logomachia, Louise Mabille, Marcus du Sautoy, Meister Eckhart, Moses Maimonides, natural selection, negative theology, New Atheists, Newtonianism, Noam Chomsky, Peter Vorzimmer, philosophy, phlogiston, Plato, problem of pain, Pyrrho, quantum physics, Robin Le Poidevin, Sextus Empiricus, Sigmund Freud, skepticism, Steve Taylor, The above consideration, Thomas Aquinas, truth, tsunami, Unmoved Mover, via negativa, Virginia, Werner Heisenberg, wortelos, wortlos}

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
David Klinghoffer

Date
July 8, 2025

Categories
Biochemistry
Intelligent Design
Origin of Life
Tagged
, abiogenesis, Alfred Russel Wallace, Allan Bloom, Anaxagoras, Biochemical Predestination, Brian Miller, Charles Darwin, Charles Lyell, Charles Thaxton, chemical evolution, Dean Kenyon, DNA, Erasmus Darwin, Frankenstein, galvanism, Guillermo Gonzalez, horror novels, James Tour, Jonathan Wells, Joseph Hooker, Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies, Lord Byron, Louis Pasteur, Luigi Galvani, Mary Shelley, Michael Polanyi, Miller-Urey experiment, origin of life, Percy Shelley, Plato, Reijer Hooykaas, Return of the God Hypothesis, RNA, Roger Olsen, Shannon information, Signature in the Cell, spaghetti, specified complexity, spontaneous generation, Stephen Meyer, The Mystery of Life’s Origin, uniformitarianism, Walter Bradley}

Walter Bradley and Intelligent Design’s First Edition

_{David Klinghoffer
July 8, 2025

Biochemistry, Intelligent Design, Origin of Life

7}

How does life emerge from that which is not alive? This mystery exercises a peculiar fascination, with the power to elicit remarkable feats of imagination. Read More ›

^{Type
post

Author
Rt. Revd. Samuel Wilberforce

Date
April 7, 2025

Categories
Botany
Evolution
History of Science
Intelligent Design
Tagged
, algae, animals, cats, Charles Darwin, Charles Lyell, descendants, Dogs, domestic animals, elephants, England, flies, grasses, infusoria, Jean-Baptiste Lamarck, Joseph Hooker, Lucretius, mites, mosses, mushrooms, natural history, natural selection, oaks, On the Origin of Species, pigeon-fanciers, propositions, Quarterly Review, reasoning, Roderick Murchison, Siluria, Thomas Henry Huxley, truffles, turnips, variations, Vestiges of Creation, whales, worms, zoophyte}

“Into the Jungle of Fanciful Assumption”: Excerpts from Samuel Wilberforce on Darwin

_{Rt. Revd. Samuel Wilberforce
April 7, 2025

Botany, Evolution, History of Science, Intelligent Design

27}

"We have objected to the views with which we have been dealing solely on scientific grounds." Read More ›

^{Type
post

Author
Richard Weikart

Date
December 12, 2024

Categories
Evolution
Intelligent Design
Tagged
, Asa Gray, cats, Charles Lyell, Darwin Mythology, deism, designer, history, mice, Michael Ruse, natural selection, On the Origin of Species, variations}

Is It a Myth That Darwin Rejected Design?

_{Richard Weikart
December 12, 2024

Evolution, Intelligent Design

6}

Deism is the idea that God created the cosmos and its natural laws, but thereafter did not intervene with miraculous events. Read More ›

^{Type
post

Author
Neil Thomas

Date
September 11, 2024

Categories
Evolution
Faith & Science
Tagged
, Charles Darwin, Charles Lyell, Christianity, Connop Thirlwall, David Newsome, Death and the Ploughman, Enlightenment, evil, John Henry Newman, John Herschel, John Milton, John Ray, methodological naturalism, Mrs. Humphry Ward, Natural Theology (book), On the Origin of Species, Paradise Lost, problem of pain, suffering, The Autobiography of Charles Darwin, theodicy, Thomas Carlyle, 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
Casey Luskin

Date
July 25, 2024

Categories
Biology
Evolution
Intelligent Design
Tagged
, Caltech, Charles Darwin, Charles Lyell, Charles Marshall, Darwin's Doubt, developmental gene regulatory networks, dialogue, epigenetic information, Eric Davidson, evo-devo, evolution, Evolution News, genes, intelligent design, phenotype, Stephen Meyer, The Joe Rogan Experience, transmutation}

On Developmental Gene Regulatory Networks, the Scientific Literature Supports Stephen Meyer

_{Casey Luskin
July 25, 2024

Biology, Evolution, Intelligent Design

14}

Mutations in genes that affect body plan characteristics don’t lead to new body plans — they lead to dead embryos. 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 ›