Tag Archives: evolution

Adam and Eve’s Non-Existence Confirmed: Science 1, the Bible 0

Posted on September 21, 2016 by

This is in The New York Times today. A new survey of human DNA conducted by three research teams, all working separately to see if they would arrive at the same conclusion, indeed did so: every non-African on the planet … Continue reading →

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Clit Rubbing Bonobos: A Clue to the Evolutionary Origin of Human Homosexuality?

Posted on September 8, 2016 by

Not to be crude, but gays and lesbians may function in humans as akin to the large clitorises in bonobos. In the bonobo female, the clitoris is unusually large, and it’s used to bond socially with other females. They rub … Continue reading →

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Has Darwin Put Adam And Eve In Checkmate?

Posted on July 20, 2015 by

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 →

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Genesis vs. Evolution–with Edward Feser to Religion’s Rescue!

Posted on July 19, 2015 by

The cake God bakes. In Genesis, to get a community with souls, God has a simple recipe. He: spends six days making heaven and earth takes inorganic matter–dust–from the newly created ground forms the dust into a man and places … Continue reading →

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From A Lion Behind A Bush To God Behind The Oz Curtain: The Evolution Of God Belief

Posted on June 22, 2015 by

What is the relation between God belief and ignorance? I have a colleague in the science department at my college who said this to me yesterday (I’m paraphrasing): “I’m less sympathetic to the young Earth creationist of today than the … Continue reading →

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Parallels Between Darwin and Buddha: Evolution and Dependent Origination

Posted on May 28, 2015 by

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 →

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Buzz: Stephen Greenblatt’s Adam And Eve Book Coming Soon?

Posted on May 25, 2015 by

I don’t see the book listed at Amazon yet, but in an interview last year, Harvard’s Stephen Greenblatt, an atheist, said his next book would be on Adam and Eve. He’s also been teaching a course on Adam and Eve at … Continue reading →

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Why Gay Marriage Is Really Winning

Posted on May 5, 2015 by

Ed Feser’s Thesis. On gay marriage’s advance to date, the Thomist philosopher Ed Feser writes the following: “How have we descended into such Orwellian insanity?…Part of it has to do with the fact that what is at issue here concerns … Continue reading →

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How Evolution Can Help Us Think About Gay Marriage

Posted on April 19, 2015 by

Adam Smith, Charles Darwin, and gay marriage. The wisdom we take from evolution is the same that a good economist takes from the Invisible Hand: absent really good reasons, let things be. Don’t be hubristic; don’t interfere too much with … Continue reading →

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Form v. Change: Gay Marriage, Thomism, Capitalism, and Evolution

Posted on April 15, 2015 by

I’ve had a modest insight: the dividing line that I’ve been trying to articulate between Thomists and myself surrounding gay marriage can actually be pretty succinctly stated: Thomists take clues from the nature of form to guide them in how … Continue reading →

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Why Adam and Eve Never Existed (Illustrated By An Analogy To Birds On An Island)

Posted on March 25, 2015 by

Imagine an island off the coast of a continent. Two birds from the continent–a male and female–get swept up by a storm and find themselves stranded on this island. They go on to mate and a new species of bird … Continue reading →

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From His Book, “Unweaving the Rainbow”

Posted on February 8, 2015 by

This is terrific. Richard Dawkins on death. And life.

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Letter Writers Heart Richard Dawkins

Posted on January 22, 2015 by

The beloved Oxford evolutionary biologist, Richard Dawkins, reads out representative samples of the love he attracts from those who follow his work. __________ The tone and content of the letters remind me of numerous pronouncements made by famous theologians and … Continue reading →

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The Evolution of Kindness and Sympathy

Posted on January 5, 2015 by

A really good evolution education video via the University of California at Berkeley. We’ve evolved to be more like bonobos than sharks, and it’s one reason why I’m not worried that the decline of religion will lead to deteriorating moral … Continue reading →

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An Analogy for Comprehending Why Population Geneticists Say Adam and Eve Never Existed

Posted on December 30, 2014 by

Imagine an island off the coast of a continent. Two birds from the continent–a male and a female–get swept up by a storm and find themselves stranded on this island. They go on to mate and a new species of … Continue reading →

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Some Good Reasons to Think Adam and Eve Never Existed

Posted on December 28, 2014 by

First, there was never a bottleneck of two people that accounts for the diversity of humans living today. Second, geneticists tell us that the diversity of contemporary humans derives from no less than 12,500 black African ancestors, 2,500 of whom … Continue reading →

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Who Shapes and Defines the Clay, and Who Cuts the Deck of Definition? Hylomorphism, Aquinas, Sartre, and Evolution

Posted on December 19, 2014 by

What is hylomorphism? Hylomorphism is a term out of classical philosophy (first used by Aristotle, later picked up by Aquinas) where a designer takes raw material and uses her mind and hands to impose purpose and form on it, as … Continue reading →

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Foxy Sex vs. Hedgehog Sex: Free Will, Edward Feser, and Evolution

Posted on November 30, 2014 by

Thomist philosopher Edward Feser has a curious way of defining free will and what it’s for, writing in a recent blog post the following: “[O]n the conception of free will as ‘freedom for excellence,’ which is endorsed by Aquinas, the … Continue reading →

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Charles Darwin vs. Thomas Aquinas: What Follows from Our Nature?

Posted on November 23, 2014 by

At his blog recently, Thomist philosopher Edward Feser wrote the following: “For Aquinas, what is good for us is necessarily good for us because it follows from our nature. As such, even God couldn’t change it, any more than he … Continue reading →

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Whatever Works: Pierce’s Abduction, Darwin’s Evolution, Entropy, Bayes’ Rule, and Rorty’s Pragmatism

Posted on November 21, 2014 by

I’ve recently been struck by the similarity between Charles Sanders Pierce’s notion of abduction (reasoning to the best hypothesis; “may the best hypothesis win”), Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution (survival of the fittest; “may the best organism win”), entropy (what … Continue reading →

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