“Morality… is merely an adaptation put in place to further our reproductive ends… In an important sense, ethics as we understand it is an illusion fobbed off on us by our genes to get us to cooperate.”—Michael Ruse and E.O. Wilson, “The Evolution of Ethics.”1 The question of whether Darwinian evolution supports traditional morality is an old one. In a Read More ›
“Naturalistic evolution has clear consequences that Charles Darwin understood perfectly… [including the idea that] human free will is nonexistent… Free will is a disastrous and mean social myth.”—William Provine, Professor of History of Biology, Cornell University.1 In The Descent of Man, Darwin explained human behavior largely as the function of pre-determined—and often anti-social—instincts. For all of Darwin’s praise of man’s Read More ›
In his book The Moral Animal, evolutionary psychology proponent Robert Wright explains how Darwinian biology undermines traditional beliefs in free will and personal responsibility. Wright notes that Darwin himself understood the basic problem his theory posed for free will, but new scientific findings have gone far beyond Darwin: Darwin doesn’t seem to have suspected what the new Darwinism suggests: that… Read More ›
Like many supporters of Darwin’s theory, political theorist Larry Arnhart attempts to disassociate Charles Darwin and his scientific theory from the utopian crusades of “Social Darwinism” such as eugenics. In Darwinian Conservatism, Arnhart claims that Darwin is unfairly blamed for eugenics and that “much of what has been identified as social Darwinism… is a distortion of Darwinian science” (p. 112). Read More ›
Stoicism was a philosophy that was founded in Athens in 300 BC and became popular in the Roman Empire among such leaders as Seneca and Marcus Aurelius. In these selections from Cicero’s On the Nature of the Gods (45 BC), Cicero outlines the basic Stoic argument about design in nature. The selections come from Book II, chapters XXXVII, XLIV, and XLVII. Who Read More ›
Scientists and political activists during the past century have drawn on Darwinian theory to promote one utopian crusade after another, including forced sterilization, scientific racism, euthanasia, and an ever-expanding government justified in the name of the “evolving Constitution.” The typical response of Darwinists to this record of coercive “Social Darwinism” is to deny that it has any genuine connection to Read More ›
The idea that human beings can observe signs of intelligent design in nature reaches back to the foundations of both science and civilization. In the Greco-Roman tradition, Plato and Cicero both espoused early versions of intelligent design. In the history of science, most scientists until the latter part of the nineteenth century accepted some form of intelligent design, including Alfred Read More ›
If you were to ask most Americans whether or not the United States has the lowest infant mortality, I suspect the large majority would give you a resounding “yes.” That’s why it’s startling to realize that the U.S. actually ranks 46th in the world. The top three countries are Singapore at 2.3 infant deaths per thousand, Sweden at 2.75 and Read More ›