Tag: Charles Darwin | Page 3

^{Type
post

Author
Neil Thomas

Date
January 26, 2022

Categorized
Evolution

Tagged
Alfred Russel Wallace, Charles Darwin, Darwinism, DNA, Eugenics, Evolution, Fossil Record, Francesco Redi, Francis Crick, Friedrich Max Müller, genetic information, Hank Hanegraaff, human evolution, human language, Intelligent Design, Louis Pasteur, Mel Brooks, Michael Denton, Miller-Urey experiment, Naturalism, Neil Thomas, Neo-Darwinism, Niles Eldredge, Noam Chomsky, origin of life, panspermia, physicalism, Punctuated Equilibrium, Richard Dawkins, Robert Cornish, Scopes Monkey Trial, sociobiology, spontaneous generation, Stephen J. Gould, substance dualism, Taking Leave of Darwin, The Descent of Man, Theism, Thomas Aquinas, William Harvey, Young Frankenstein}

Neil Thomas Talks Darwin, Aquinas, OOL and … Young Frankenstein

_{Neil Thomas

January 26, 2022

Evolution}

On this ID the Future, Taking Leave of Darwin author Neil Thomas continues a lively conversation with radio host Hank Hanegraaff. In this second in a three-part series, the two touch on the fossil record’s challenge to Darwinism, Gould and Eldredge’s rescue attempt, the question of whether Darwin’s best known contemporary defender is dishonest or merely self-deluded, the wishful thinking surrounding origin-of-life studies, the failed attempts to reduce the mind to mere brain chemistry, and the morally repugnant pro-eugenics ideas rooted in Darwinism and touted in the textbook at the heart of the famous Scopes Monkey Trial. The conversation is posted here by permission of Hank Hanegraaff. Get Neil Thomas’s book here.

^{Type
post

Author
Neil Thomas

Date
January 24, 2022

Categorized
Evolution

Tagged
agnosticism, Alfred Russel Wallace, Atheism, Charles Darwin, Christianity, Darwinism, Erasmus Darwin, Evolution, fundamentalism, George Eliot, God, H.M.S. Beagle, Hank Hanegraaff, Hank Unplugged, John Milton, Karl Marx, Lawrence Krauss, Mary Ann Evans, memes, methodological materialism, Miracles, Naturalism, Neil Thomas, Oxford University, Paradise Lost, Richard Dawkins, Robert Chambers, Samuel Wilberforce, Satan, Taking Leave of Darwin, theistic evolution, Theory of Evolution, Thomas Huxley, vera causa, William Empson, William Thorpe}

Neil Thomas and Hank Hanegraaff: An Autopsy for Darwinism

_{Neil Thomas

January 24, 2022

Evolution}

Today’s ID the Future kicks off a three-part series featuring Taking Leave of Darwin author Neil Thomas interviewed by radio host Hank Hanegraaff. In this first part, Hanegraaff begins by lauding Thomas’s book and underscoring how influential Darwin’s theory of evolution has been on Western culture. Then Thomas sketches the cultural milieu and individual motivations that he’s convinced drew Darwin toward his formulation of the theory of evolution by natural selection. Here the focus is not on the various evidential weaknesses of Darwin’s theory (which Thomas does cover in his book) but on a question that puzzled Thomas once he became convinced of just how evidentially weak the case for Darwinism was: How was it that a theory so poorly Read More ›

^{Type
post

Author
Jonathan Wells

Date
January 5, 2022

Categorized
Evolution

Tagged
abiogenesis, amino acids, borosilicate glass reactor vessel, catalyst, Charles Darwin, chemical evolution, early atmosphere, earth, Eric Anderson, geochemistry, George Gaylord Simpson, glass, Harold Urey, Icons of Evolution, Intelligent Design, James Tour, Jonathan Wells, Miller-Urey experiment, origin of life, Philip Abelson, Proteins, reducing atmosphere, silica, silicate rock, Stanley Miller, Teflon, the mystery of life’s origin, volcanic outgassing, warm little pond}

A New Flaw in the Miller-Urey Experiment, and a Few Old

_{Jonathan Wells

January 5, 2022

Evolution}

On today’s ID the Future, biologist Jonathan Wells and host Eric Anderson discuss a recently discovered problem with the famous Miller-Urey experiment, long ballyhooed in biology textbooks as dramatic experimental evidence for the naturalistic origin of life. The newly uncovered problem involves the glassware used in the experiment. It is an interesting finding, but as Wells explains, it is far from the first problem discovered with the experiment, nor the most serious one. While biology textbooks often present the 1952 experiment by Stanley Miller and Harold Urey as a key icon of evolution, even those origin-of-life researchers who hope to one day to discover a credible naturalistic scenario for the origin of the first living cell concede that the experiment Read More ›

^{Type
post

Author
Denyse O'Leary

Date
December 1, 2021

Categorized
Evolution

Tagged
Alas for Darwin, altruism, Casey Luskin, Charles Darwin, compassion, Comprehensive Guide to Science and Faith, Daniel Dennett, David Stove, Denyse O’Leary, Eugenics, evolutionary psychology, force sterilization, Hank Campbell, heroism, Jerry Fodor, Michael Egnor, Natural Selection, Nazism, Neanderthal, origin of altruism, origin of the mind, panpsychism, racism, Richard Dawkins, Richard Weikart, selfish genes, Social Darwinism, sociobiology, survival of the fittest, The Descent of Man}

Evolutionary Psychology: Checkered Past, Checkered Present

_{Denyse O'Leary

December 1, 2021

Evolution}

On this ID the Future host Casey Luskin interviews science journalist Denyse O’Leary about her recent essay, “Is Evolutionary Psychology a Legitimate Way to Understand Our Humanity,” which appears in the new Harvest House anthology co-edited by Luskin, The Comprehensive Guide to Science and Faith. O’Leary, a science journalist and co-author of The Spiritual Brain, offers a withering critique of evolutionary psychology and traces its roots, beginning with The Descent of Man (1871), where Charles Darwin attributed various human behaviors to natural and sexual selection. That fed into what became known as social Darwinism, which fell out of favor after World War II thanks to Hitler and the Nazis’ application of social Darwinist ideas to defend Nordic superiority and genocide. Read More ›

^{Type
post

Author
Richard Weikart

Date
November 22, 2021

Categorized
Ethics

Tagged
Adolf Hitler, Bioethics, biological determinism, Casey Luskin, Charles Darwin, Charles Davenport, colonialism, Comprehensive Guide to Science and Faith, Darwinism, embryonic gene editing, Ernst Haeckel, Ernst Rüdin, Eugen Fischer, Eugenics, Euthanasia, evolutionary science, Francis Galton, From Darwin to Hitler, history of science, human-animal chimeras, imago dei, immoral experimentation, Kaiser Wilhelm Institute, miscegenation, Natural Selection, Nazi Germany, nihilism, No-True-Scotsman fallacy, Nordic racism, pseudoscience, Richard Weikart, scientific racism, struggle for existence, survival of the fittest, The Death of Humanity, The Origin of Species, Tuskegee syphilis experiment, Universal Human Rights, Yuval Noah Harari}

Richard Weikart on Scientific Racism and the War on Humanity

_{Richard Weikart

November 22, 2021

Ethics}

Today’s ID the Future again spotlights The Comprehensive Guide to Science and Faith. Historian Richard Weikart and host Casey Luskin discuss Weikart’s contribution to the new anthology, his essay “How Evil Has Been Done in the Name of Science.” As Weikart explains, over the past century and a half, science has been misused to fuel racist policies and undermine human rights. Darwinian ideas helped lay the groundwork for Nazi ideology in Germany. And we shouldn’t imagine the problem was restricted to Nazi Germany. Scientific racism also reared its head in the United States, including in the long-running and infamous Tuskegee syphilis experiment. More broadly, a marriage of scientism and evolutionary thinking continues to undermine the idea of inherent human worth Read More ›

^{Type
post

Author
Guillermo Gonzalez

Date
November 1, 2021

Categorized
Life Sciences

Tagged
astronomy, Atheism, atmosphere, atmospheric fine tuning, birth of science, Boyle, Carl Sagan, Casey Luskin, Charles Darwin, circumstellar habitable zoon, Comprehensive Guide to Science and Faith, Copernicus, Descartes, discoverability, earth, Faraday, fine tuning, Galactic Habitable Zone, Galileo, Guillermo Gonzalez, habitability, Intelligent Design, Kepler, light spectrum, Materialism, Maxwell, Milky Way, moon, Newton, pale blue dot, perfect solar eclipses, planetary fine tuning, prisms, Privileged Planet, purposelessness, rainbows, scientific revolution, solar eclipses, spectroscopy, transparent atmosphere}

Carl Sagan Wrong about “Pale Blue Dot,” Says Astrobiologist

_{Guillermo Gonzalez

November 1, 2021

Life Sciences}

On today’s ID the Future, astrobiologist Guillermo Gonzalez unpacks one of his chapters in the new book The Comprehensive Guide to Science and Faith, edited by episode host Casey Luskin. Gonzalez and Luskin look at how our atmosphere as well as the sun, moon, distance from our host star, and position in the Milky Way are all curiously fine tuned not only for life but also for allowing Earth’s human inhabitants to observe and discover things near and far about nature. It’s as if a master designer made the Earth not merely for life but for curious and intelligent beings. What about the fact that Earth is such a tiny part of a vast universe, a “pale blue dot” as Read More ›

^{Type
post

Author
Max McLean

Date
October 18, 2021

Tagged
Albert Lewis, apologetics, argument from undesign, Atheism, C.S. Lewis, Charles Darwin, Christian conversion, CSLewismovie.com, Darwinism, Dymer, Fellowship for Performing Arts, Further Up and Further In, idealism, John G. West, Max McLean, Narnia, origin of reason, Owen Barfield, Pilgrim’s Regress, problem of pain, Shaodowlands, Surprised by Joy, The Great Divorce, The Magician’s Twin, The Most Reluctant Convert, The Most Reluctant Convert: The Untold Story of C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters, Theism, World War I}

Max McLean Talks about His New C.S. Lewis Movie

_{Max McLean

October 18, 2021}

On this ID the Future award-winning actor Max McLean joins host John West to discuss his new film, The Most Reluctant Convert: The Untold Story of C.S. Lewis. West and McLean discuss how McClean came to do stage plays focused on Lewis’s work, and how he and filmmaker Norman Stone came to create a feature-length dramatic film in the midst of the coronavirus shutdown. McLean tells about Lewis’s long and winding conversion from agnosticism to Christianity, and then he and West focus on those aspects of Lewis’s conversion centered on science, evolutionary theory, and rational theism. Key to Lewis’s move from agnosticism to idealism and eventually Judeo-Christian theism—his friend Owen Barfield and the question of the origin of reason. Lewis Read More ›

^{Type
post

Author
Stephen C. Meyer

Date
September 15, 2021

Categorized
Faith and Science

Tagged
abductive reasoning, Alvy Singer, Alvy’s Error, Annie Hall, Atheism, Bayesian reasoning, Charles Darwin, Evolution, Evolutionary Biology, fine tuning, Fred Hoyle, freedom, God, God hypothesis, Harold J. Berman, Intelligent Design, James Davison Hunter, Materialism, methodological naturalism, Michael Shermer, moral absolutes, moral argument for God, moral objectivism, moral relativism, Morality, Naturalism, nature red in tooth and claw, Origin of the Species, Paul Nedelisky, Return of the God Hypothesis, Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Science and the Good, skepticism, sociobiology, Stephen C. Meyer, Theism, Woody Allen}

Pt. 2: Stephen Meyer and Skeptic Michael Shermer

_{Stephen C. Meyer

September 15, 2021

Faith and Science}

Today’s ID the Future continues a lively and cordial conversation between atheist Michael Shermer and Stephen Meyer, author of Return of the God Hypothesis: Three Scientific Discoveries That Reveal the Mind Behind the Universe. In this segment of the four-part series, Shermer and Meyer discuss a fourth argument for theism, the moral law within. Then they discuss the similarities and differences between inferring design for something like the Rosetta Stone versus inferring intelligent design from the information in DNA or the fine tuning of the universe. The interview is reposted here by permission of Michael Shermer.

^{Type
post

Author
Neil Thomas

Date
August 30, 2021

Categorized
Evolution

Tagged
agnosticism, animism, Antony Flew, artificial selection, Battle of Maldon, Bertrand Russell, British Rationalist Association, Cambrian Explosion, Charles Darwin, Church of England, Darwinism, devolution, domestic breeding, Evolution, gradualism, heroic fatalism, heroic poetry, Homeric epics, humanism, Icelandic sagas, John Updike, Michael Behe, Natural Selection, Neil Thomas, Niles Eldredge, paganism, Pigeon Feathers, Punctuated Equilibrium, Richard Dawkins, Richard Spilsbury, Stephen Jay Gould, Taking Leave of Darwin, the Enlightenment, Theism}

Author Neil Thomas Takes Leave of Darwin, Pt. 2

_{Neil Thomas

August 30, 2021

Evolution}

On this ID the Future, Taking Leave of Darwin author Neil Thomas and host Jonathan Witt continue their conversation about Thomas’s journey from Darwinian materialism to theistic humanism and a thorough skepticism of Darwinian theory. Here Thomas links the heroic posturing of modern atheists Richard Dawkins and Bertrand Russell, on the one hand, and on the other, the heroic fatalism of poetry stretching back to the early Middle Ages and, further still, to the ancient Greeks. Thomas also draws a link between the animistic thinking of much ancient pagan thought and the magical powers attributed to the Darwinian mechanism. Thomas explains why he now views the latter as essentially “crypto-animism.” In their wide-ranging conversation, Thomas and Witt also touch on Read More ›

^{Type
post

Author
Neil Thomas

Date
August 11, 2021

Categorized
Evolution

Tagged
abiogenesis, Adam Ure, agnosticism, Alexander Oparin, Andy Dougan, Atheism, Charles Darwin, Darwin’s warm little pond, Darwinism, DNA, double helix, Erasmus Darwin, Evolution, Francis Crick, Frankenstein, Harold Urey, Intelligent Design, James Watson, John Haldane, Karl August Weinhold, Louis Pasteur, Mary Shelley, Materialism, Matthew Clydesdale, Miller-Urey experiment, origin of life, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Prometheus, Prometheus Unbound, Richard Dawkins, spontaneous generation, Stanley Miller, Theism, Watson and Crick}

Taking Leave of Darwin’s Warm Little Pond

_{Neil Thomas

August 11, 2021

Evolution}

Today’s ID the Future offers a sneak peek at the new book Taking Leave of Darwin: A Longtime Agnostic Discovers the Case for Design by Neil Thomas (Discovery Institute Press). Here Scotsman Andrew McDiarmid reads from a Chapter 2 segment titled “The Elusive First Step.” Much of the book is a critical examination of Darwin’s theory of biological evolution, in its original and updated forms; but here Thomas takes up Darwin’s proposal for the unguided origin of the first living cell. Thomas, like others before, points up the persistent and growing problems with a designer-free origin of life, but here he also explores some of the cultural influences that primed society to view the leap from non-life to life as Read More ›