book review

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Wings of a butterfly Ulysses. Wings of a butterfly texture background. Butterfly wings ornament.
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What Have Butterflies Got to Do with Darwin?

Review of Bernard d’Abrera, The Concise Atlas of Butterflies of the World (London: Hill House, 2001), 353 pages. Bernard d’Abrera’s concise atlas of the world’s butterflies is a beautifully produced book with the most stunning photographs of butterflies that I’ve ever seen. Though not intended as a coffee-table book, it could eminently serve that purpose. D’Abrera himself is a world-renowned butterfly Read More ›

Darwin’s Black Box: A Review by Ray Bohlin

What do mouse traps, molecular biology, blood clotting, Rube Goldberg machines, and irreducible complexity have to do with each other? At first glance they seem to have little if anything to do with each other. However, they are all part of a recent book by Free Press titled, Darwin’s Black Box: The Biochemical Challenge to Evolution by Michael Behe. Michael Behe is Read More ›

Review God After Darwin: A Theology of Evolution by John Haught

I suppose it's the residual effect of original sin, but I enjoy reviewing books I disagree with more than ones I agree with. After all, who wants to spend 1500 words inventing new ways of saying "me, too" and "yes, that's right"? Much better to bring a contrasting view to the author's work, focus on areas of difference, and enjoy the simple pleasures of controversy. So, since I had heard he was skeptical of a theory of intelligent design in biology — of which I am an advocate — I looked forward to reviewing Georgetown theologian John Haught's God After Darwin: A Theology of Evolution. What a disappointment! Looking back over my margin notes for this elegantly written book, I find I have scribbled on various pages: "Great!"; "I agree"; "!"; "interesting"; "Hmm"; and four "Good"s in a row. Read More ›

God … Sort Of

Paul Davies should need little introduction to readers of First Things. A theoretical physicist and prolific author, he won the 1995 Templeton Prize for Progress in Religion. As the title of the address he gave in receiving the award indicates (“Physics and the Mind of God” [First Things, August/September 1995]) he does not hesitate to think about the Deeper Meaning Read More ›

Photo by Lucas Clara

Keeping an Eye on Evolution: Richard Dawkins, a Relentless Darwinian Spear Carrier, Trips Over Mount Improbable.

The theory of evolution is the great white elephant of contemporary thought. It is large, almost entirely useless, and the object of superstitious awe. Richard Dawkins is widely known as the theory’s uncompromising champion. Having made his case in The Blind Watchmaker and River out of Eden, Dawkins proposes to make it yet again in Climbing Mount Improbable. He is Read More ›

Thomas Henry Huxley
Thomas Henry Huxley
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The Bulldog’s Life: Part I

But even leaving Mr. Darwin’s views aside,” wrote Thomas Henry Huxley in 1863, in Man’s Place in Nature, “the whole analogy of natural operations furnishes so complete and crushing an argument against the intervention of any but what are termed secondary causes, in the production of the phenomena of the universe; that, in the view of the intimate relations between Man Read More ›

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Evil eye.

What Would Real Little Green Men Tell Us About Evolution — And God?

They need not be little, of course, nor green, nor, for that matter, come in more than one sex: indeed (with apologies to most episodes of Star Trek), they probably wouldn't recognizably be "men" at all. But extraterrestrial intelligent life would need to be intelligent — meaning, operationally, able to manipulate electromagnetic radiation to carry signals. Read More ›