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Tag Archives: Darwin
Has Darwin Put Adam And Eve In Checkmate?
The problem. Here’s the reality: Darwin upended special creation, leaving basically just one plausible chess move to anyone who accepts evolution and posits a literal Adam and Eve: the miraculous insertion of a soul into an already evolved species of … Continue reading
Parallels Between Darwin and Buddha: Evolution and Dependent Origination
Buddha’s theory is Darwin’s. I had an aha moment yesterday: Buddha’s theory of suffering and its cessation can function as a trope–a metaphor–for evolution. Buddha’s insight tracks Charles Darwin’s. Buddha was Darwin before Darwin. Put another way, Buddha discovered how … Continue reading
Darwin Had a Dog
An image of Charles Darwin’s dog (as well as numerous members of his family): Image source: http://www.english-heritage.org.uk.
Dissipation-Driven Adaptive Organization: Is Jeremy England The Next Charles Darwin?
The guy to watch. There’s a young (31-year-old) MIT assistant professor of physics who may have discovered, via theorizing about thermodynamics and entropy, a supplement to natural selection, showing the origin and evolution of life to be, not a difficult … Continue reading
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Tagged Darwin, evolution, Jeremy England, molecules, origin of life, physics
11 Comments
Stunning Video Reconstruction: The Evolution of Ape to Human in Less Than Three Minutes
Based on real ancestral (and human cousin) skull findings, the evolution of ape to human here is thoroughly mesmerizing. Created by the renowned paleoartist John Gurche, the recreation is notable for its meticulous anatomical and forensic accuracy. __________ Gurche’s book on … Continue reading
Did Saint Francis Discover Evolution Before Darwin? Did Jesus (in the Parable of the Sower)?
__________ The following saying has been attributed to Saint Francis: Start by doing what’s necessary; then do what’s possible; and suddenly you are doing the impossible. I’m reasonably confident it’s not remotely close to anything that Francis actually said–it’s obviously … Continue reading
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Tagged Darwin, evolution, God, Jesus, life, Saint Francis, science, success
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America’s Largest Cult: 64% of Evangelicals Hold to the Young Earth Creationist Belief That “God created humans pretty much in their present form at one time in the last 10,000 years or so.”
Physicist Karl Giberson, a former evangelical who now identifies as a mainline Protestant, has written an admirably clear-headed essay for The Daily Beast on contemporary evangelicalism’s fraught relationship with the theory of evolution. Here he is summarizing scientific illiteracy in … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged apologetics, atheism, cults, Darwin, evangelicals, evolution, God, Jesus, science
40 Comments
You Are a Giant Tongue! The Five Key Adaptive Traits That Made Us Human
__________ Leonardo da Vinci’s famous Vitruvian Man and its variants (such as that done by William Blake) present human beings as the pinnacle of creation, unusually beautiful beings of perfect proportions obviously arising to their impressive stature in the cosmos … Continue reading
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Tagged atheism, Darwin, evolution, life, natural selection, Neanderthals, tongues
5 Comments
Does This Image Debunk Evolution?
A pastor in Colorado apparently thinks the above image scores big points against evolution, writing the following: This snowflake was photographed in Russia. Is this not a most amazing picture? Let’s see, this is either the result of evolution or … Continue reading
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Tagged apologetics, Darwin, evolution, God, miracles, philosophy, physics, science, time
11 Comments
A Reason to Believe Evolution is True
Goose bumps. Here’s Harvard’s Steven Pinker: Our own bodies are riddled with quirks that no competent engineer would have planned but that disclose a history of trial-and-error tinkering: a retina installed backward, a seminal duct that hooks over the ureter like a … Continue reading
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Tagged atheism, biology, Darwin, evolution, goose bumps, science
10 Comments
Free Will and the Origin of Consciousness
Am I missing something here? If contra-causal free will does not exist–and most non-dualist philosophers and scientists insist that it doesn’t, then how did consciousness ever evolve? It’s logically possible that we could all be zombies–though we’re not–without the least … Continue reading
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Tagged apologetics, atheism, awareness, Buddhism, consciousness, Darwin, evolution, free will, mind, theism
7 Comments
The Hobbits Found on Flores Weren’t Humans
This dramatic news item appeared in The New York Times a week ago: according to a new study, the “hobbits” found in 2003 on the Indonesian island of Flores were almost certainly not human beings: [T]he [new] findings complemented earlier research … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged atheism, biology, Darwin, evolution, hobbits, noah's ark, science
8 Comments
Bill Nye on the Age of the Earth
Speaking at Iowa State University recently, Bill Nye was asked about the theory of evolution vs. the theory of special creation. Here’s how The New York Times this week reported his response (and the response he received from the audience): During … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged apologetics, Bill Nye, creationism, critical thinking, Darwin, evolution, Genesis, science
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What’s Coming (A Prediction)
A century from now, were you and I to see it, I think we would exclaim, like Miranda in Shakespeare’s The Tempest, “O brave new world that has such men in it!” And I worry that those men will not be religious … Continue reading
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Tagged China, Darwin, eugenics, evolution, humanism, Machiavelli, Nietzsche, science fiction
7 Comments
Lee Smolin’s Time Reborn: Physics, Evolution, Atheism, and Buddhism
Theoretical physicist Lee Smolin’s new book, Time Reborn (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt 2013), is mind-blowing–I assume it will still be talked about fifty years from now–and I’ll do my best in this post, having read the book through with great pleasure … Continue reading
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Tagged apologetics, atheism, Buddhism, Darwin, evolution, God, Leibniz, philosophy, physics, science
6 Comments
Evolution Outside of the Science Classroom
If you’re a college instructor, and the subject of evolution comes up in a class, and you are not a scientist yourself, what should you say about it to your students? Here are some things that might help you think … Continue reading
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Tagged atheism, college, critical thinking, Darwin, evolution, God, philosophy, science, teaching
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Cooperation, Collaboration, and Imitation for Intellectual Success
In a New York Times science article from March 10, 2011 titled “New View of How Humans Moved Away from Apes,” an astonishing finding was reported: a study of numerous hunter-gatherer peoples discovered “that the members of a band are not highly related.” Why is this … Continue reading
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Tagged business, college, cooperation, critical thinking, Darwin, evolution, imitation, success
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Bringing Darwin Into Your Fiction: A Few Things Creative Writers Might Consider
A key element in Charles Darwin’s thought is that survival and the opportunity to reproduce attends the fittest and the sexiest. Think about this Darwinian insight in relation to your writing: what would a Darwinian reading of your story notice? … Continue reading
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Tagged biology, creative writing, Darwin, evolution, fiction, literature, philosophy, psychology, science, writing
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