Tag: Erasmus Darwin | Page 2 | Science and Culture Today

^{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
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
July 3, 2024

Categories
Evolution
Faith & Science
History of Science
Tagged
, Asa Gray, Bible, California, Charles Darwin, Erasmus Darwin, evolution, Genesis, Hamlet, Hebrew Bible, Higher Criticism, James Moore, Journal of Researches, miracles, Mircea Eliade, On the Origin of Species, poetry, Pyrrho, Robert Fitzroy, secularism, St. Paul, William Paley}

With “Fluctuating” Convictions, Darwin Faced a Threefold Challenge

_{Neil Thomas
July 3, 2024

Evolution, Faith & Science, History of Science

19}

In what follows I pose the question of how Darwin fell subject to such wide “fluctuations” in his beliefs and how he came to resolve those tensions. Read More ›

^{Type
post

Author
Neil Thomas

Date
June 13, 2024

Categories
Evolution
Intelligent Design
Tagged
, Charles Bradlaugh, Charles Darwin, childhood, Enlightenment, Erasmus Darwin, evolutionary psychology, Greek gods, HMS Beagle, Janet Browne, Martin Luther, Misia Landau, Robert Chambers, Samuel Haughton, Stephen Jay Gould, telos, Thomas Huxley, William Wordsworth}

Darwin’s Science and Storytelling

_{Neil Thomas
June 13, 2024

Evolution, Intelligent Design

17}

His five-year voyage was undoubtedly an eye-opening rite of passage but perhaps not as foundational to his intellectual development as is sometimes proposed. Read More ›

^{Type
post

Author
Neil Thomas

Date
April 18, 2024

Categories
Bioethics
Faith & Science
Tagged
, ancient Greece, Charles Darwin, Christianity, Enlightenment, Erasmus Darwin, Euripides, gods, Judeo-Christian tradition, mythology, New Testament, Old Testament, secularism, theodicy}

Poet and Scientist, Goethe Offered an Enlightenment Theodicy

_{Neil Thomas
April 18, 2024

Bioethics, Faith & Science

13}

Like Erasmus Darwin, Goethe was both poet and scientist and had himself at one time speculated on ideas of evolution. Read More ›

^{Type
post

Author
Neil Thomas

Date
March 13, 2024

Categories
Evolution
Faith & Science
Tagged
, Asia, atheism, Charles Lyell, Christianity, Daniel Dennett, Enlightenment, Erasmus Darwin, First Cause, fundamentalism, Garden of Eden, God Hypothesis, Higher Criticism, Lamarckian theory, Louis Agassiz, On the Origin of Species, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Pierre-Simon Laplace, Richard Dawkins, Richard Swinburne, The Varieties of Religious Experience, Uncertainty Principle, Victorian England, William James, William Lane Craig}

Shelley, Darwin, and the 19th-Century God Debate

_{Neil Thomas
March 13, 2024

Evolution, Faith & Science

19}

The poet Percy Bysshe Shelley threw down the gauntlet for what was effectively to become the great Victorian dispute about religious faith. Read More ›

^{Type
post

Author
Neil Thomas

Date
February 12, 2024

Categories
Biology
Chemistry
Evolution
Faith & Science
Tagged
, A. N. Wilson, abiogenesis, apologetics, Arthur Eddington, atheism, Big Bang, Charles Bradlaugh, Daniel Dennett, Darwinism, Erasmus Darwin, evolution, Goldilocks Zone, Karl Popper, Lucretius, natural preservation, natural selection, New Atheists, randomness, Richard Dawkins, spontaneous generation, teleology, The Descent of Man, The Selfish Gene, Thomas Hardy, Thomas Malthus, Werner Heisenberg}

Richard Dawkins and the Law of Unintended Consequences

_{Neil Thomas
February 12, 2024

Biology, Chemistry, Evolution, Faith & Science

20}

The New Atheists’ failure to understand the nuanced way that “ordinary people” think was a profound strategic error. Read More ›

^{Type
post

Author
Neil Thomas

Date
June 19, 2023

Categories
Evolution
Faith & Science
Intelligent Design
Tagged
, bacteria, Charles Darwin, Charles Lyell, creation, Darwinian theory, Darwinism, Denis Diderot, Enlightenment, Erasmus Darwin, Erwin Schrödinger, giraffes, Homo sapiens, Jean-Baptiste Lamarck, Lamarckian theory, micromutations, natural preservation, natural selection, nature, Nick Lane, On the Origin of Species, quantum physics, Stanford University, teleology, theology, Thomas Huxley, University of Chicago Press, William Paley, William Shakespeare}

Darwinian Natural Selection: A Covert Theology of Nature?

_{Neil Thomas
June 19, 2023

Evolution, Faith & Science, Intelligent Design

18}

Those who interpreted the essence of Darwinism as being an explanation of evolution in (covertly) theistic terms appear to have had a point. Read More ›

^{Type
post

Author
Neil Thomas

Date
March 7, 2023

Categories
Evolution
Intelligent Design
Tagged
, Alfred Russel Wallace, Charles Darwin, Denis Diderot, Erasmus Darwin, evolution, history, Howard Glicksman, intelligent design, Jerry Fodor, Julien Offray de la Mettrie, L’Homme Machine, Lamarckism, Massimo Piattelli-Palmarini, metaphors, Mother Nature, natural causes, natural selection, nature, On the Origin of Species, philosophes, Steve Laufmann, Thomas Malthus, transmutation, Victorians, world spirit}

Natural Selection: The Evolution of a Mirage

_{Neil Thomas
March 7, 2023

Evolution, Intelligent Design

19}

Natural selection reveals itself as not just a metaphor but a mixed one: Nature being dumb but nevertheless capable of discrimination. Read More ›

^{Type
post

Author
Neil Thomas

Date
January 19, 2023

Categories
Anatomy
Biology
Intelligent Design
Medicine
Science
Tagged
, abiogenesis, automation, Charles Darwin, Charles Lyell, circulation, David Hume, Erasmus Darwin, evolution, Evolution: A Theory in Crisis, heart, Howard Glicksman, innovation, intelligent design, Lucretius, Michael Denton, natural selection, Neo-Darwinism, Paul Davies, physiology, prosthetics, Steve Laufmann}

On the Miracles of Physiological Design

_{Neil Thomas
January 19, 2023

Anatomy, Biology, Intelligent Design, Medicine, Science

12}

The book under review is a splendid and uniquely well-informed contribution to the debate about what is by all indices a theory in possibly terminal crisis. Read More ›