Tag: natural preservation

^{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
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 ›

^{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
July 14, 2022

Categories
Evolution
Faith & Science
Tagged
, Basil Willey, breeders, Charles Darwin, Emma Darwin, faith, Gaia, George Levine, Janet Browne, literature, metaphor, Mother Nature, natural preservation, nature, On the Origin of Species, paganism, Robert J. Richards, Stephen Jay Gould}

Darwin’s Goddess: Natural Selection as “Divine Surrogate”

_{Neil Thomas
July 14, 2022

Evolution, Faith & Science

7}

When parsed carefully, the metaphorical structure of Darwin’s argumentation emerges as little less than a periphrastic description of the goddess Natura. Read More ›

^{Type
post

Author
Neil Thomas

Date
July 7, 2022

Categories
Evolution
Faith & Science
Tagged
, Alfred Russel Wallace, Arthur Koestler, Charles Darwin, Charles Kingsley, Charles Lyell, Darwinism, epigenetics, Jean-Baptiste Lamarck, Joseph Hooker, Lamarckian theory, Mendelian genetics, mount improbable, natural preservation, natural selection, On the Origin of Species, Pyrrho, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Stephen Buranyi, The Autobiography of Charles Darwin, The Descent of Man, The Guardian}

Darwin and the Ghost of Lamarck

_{Neil Thomas
July 7, 2022

Evolution, Faith & Science

15}

The lure of Lamarck was exemplified most strikingly in the case of Viennese biologist Paul Kammerer and the unhappy affair of the “midwife toad.” Read More ›

^{Type
post

Author
Neil Thomas

Date
March 19, 2022

Categories
Biology
Evolution
Genetics
Intelligent Design
Tagged
, bacterium, Charles Darwin, complexification, Erasmus Darwin, evolution, Lamarckian theory, natural preservation, natural selection, On the Origin of Species, Origin of Species: From Discussion Document to Nihilist Dogma (series), Richard Dawkins, whales}

The Hamlet of Down House

_{Neil Thomas
March 19, 2022

Biology, Evolution, Genetics, Intelligent Design

3}

Darwin began casting around in his mind for supplementary theories, sometimes going so far as to reconsider evolutionary thinking he had once firmly rejected. Read More ›