Tag: John Herschel

^{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
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
Michael Flannery

Date
November 24, 2023

Categories
Evolution
Intelligent Design
Tagged
, Alfred Russel Wallace, An Elusive Victorian, Andrew Berry, Auguste Comte, Charles Darwin, Charles Lyell, Darwinian, David Hume, evolution, history, John Duprétly, John Elof Boodin, John Herschel, John Tyndall, Martin Fichman, Max Horkheimer, Nature's Prophet, On the Origin of Species, Overruling Intelligence, Paul Janet, Quarterly Review, scientism, St. George Mivart, teleology, Thomas Henry Huxley, transmutation, William James, William Whewell, X Club}

The Outsider: Alfred Russel Wallace’s Reputation in the Darwinian Era

_{Michael Flannery
November 24, 2023

Evolution, Intelligent Design

12}

Was Alfred Wallace a “crazy” crank? Was he an undisciplined “dilettante” bemused by every fringe belief he encountered? Read More ›

^{Type
post

Author
Neil Thomas

Date
July 19, 2022

Categories
Evolution
Intelligent Design
Tagged
, A. N. Wilson, Benjamin Wiker, chance, Charles Darwin, Charles Lyell, Daniel Dennett, evolution, Geoffrey Chaucer, Hamlet, Janus, John Herschel, Karl Popper, Lady Fortuna, Lady Luck, natural selection, On the Origin of Species, Oxbridge, Richard Dawkins, St. George Mivart, The Blind Watchmaker, The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication, Victorian England, William Whewell}

The Art of Concealment: Darwin and Chance

_{Neil Thomas
July 19, 2022

Evolution, Intelligent Design

13}

It is appropriate that Fortuna’s emblematic representation with her ubiquitous wheel should have gone on to become the prototype of the modern roulette wheel. Read More ›

^{Type
post

Author
Neil Thomas

Date
January 6, 2022

Categories
Evolution
Intelligent Design
Tagged
, Alfred Russel Wallace, ancient Greece, Ancient Rome, Charles Darwin, D’Alembert’s Dream, daemons, Denis Diderot, Epicurus, Erasmus Darwin, evolution, Fates, gods, harpies, Jean-Baptiste Lamarck, John Herschel, Judeo-Christian tradition, Julien Offray de la Mettrie, L’Homme Machine, Lucretius, natural selection, Natural Selection: Discovery or Invention? (series), On the Origin of Species, philosophes, Robert Chambers, satyrs, Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation, Victorians}

Natural Selection: Discovery or Invention?

_{Neil Thomas
January 6, 2022

Evolution, Intelligent Design

6}

Denis Diderot mooted the possibility of a creature evolving through habitual functioning into another form of life altogether. Read More ›

^{Type
post

Date
March 18, 2020

Categories
Chemistry
Origin of Life
Physical Sciences
Tagged
, __k-review, biological information, Christianity, Communists, Cosmos: Possible Worlds, Darwin's Doubt, Darwinian theory, earth, Enceladus, Fox Broadcasting Company, Gregor Mendel, Internet trolls, John D. Sutherland, John Herschel, Joseph Stalin, Karl Marx, Lamarckism, materialism, National Geographic Channel, Nature Reviews Chemistry, Neil deGrasse Tyson, oxygen, The Mystery of Life’s Origin, Trofim Lysenko}

New Cosmos Episodes: Only Part of the Story

_{Science and Culture
March 18, 2020

Chemistry, Origin of Life, Physical Sciences

5}

These episodes will slip in smoothly in public school science classrooms, someday when all the schools reopen. Read More ›

^{Type
post

Author
Michael Flannery

Date
August 1, 2018

Categories
Evolution
History of Science
Tagged
, __nedited, Alfred Russel Wallace, An Elusive Victorian, Andrew Berry, Auguste Comte, Charles Darwin, Charles Lyell, Darwinian, David Hume, evolution, history, John Duprétly, John Elof Boodin, John Herschel, John Tyndall, Martin Fichman, Max Horkheimer, natural theology, Nature's Prophet, On the Origin of Species, Overruling Intelligence, Paul Janet, Quarterly Review, scientism, teleology, Thomas Henry Huxley, transmutation, William James, William Whewell, X Club}

The Outsider: Wallace’s Reputation in the Darwinian Era

_{Michael Flannery
August 1, 2018

Evolution, History of Science

12}

As I asked in a previous post: Why is Alfred Russel Wallace today a comparatively little known figure next to Darwin? Read More ›