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Does God exist? If he does, what is the evidence for this? Can one arrive at God through reason (natural theology), or is it faith or nothing (revealed theology)? I write of my lifetime of wrestling with this question. Raised a Quaker, I lost my faith at the age of 20. As an academic, I became an expert on Charles Darwin and his theory of evolution through natural selection. How can I make sense of—and how can I reconcile—these two hugely important things in my life? At the age of 80, I find myself a long-standing agnostic. This is not, as Francis Collins claims, a “cop out.” Showing my debt to my Quaker heritage, I am theologically apophatic. I can say only what I do not know. I find this quite-out-of-character modesty hugely exciting. It gives my life great meaning.

The debate between science and Christianity about the origin of man in the thought of Mariano ArtigasOne of the main intelectual concerns of Professor Artigas was to make clear the relationships between science and faith in bordering fields such as the nature and the origin of mankind. At this point, there are some researchers who have seen in science the intelectual basement of nowadays unbelief, the legitimous basement of modern atheism, which would find support in the objectivity of the scientific knowledge; especially the evolution theory, which would have been useful, from Darwin’s times, to prove that it was legitimate intelectually speaking to be an atheist. I mean, science would have made useless the hypothesis of the existence of God. Artigas dedicated a lot of extensive essays to refute this modern affirmation, explaining how the terms of evolution and creation are not opposite, and how the existence of chance in nature doesn´t deny the theology through the action of a divine plan, in a way that there’s no contradiction in reassure a biological origin for mankind with the existence of espiritual faculties which lead to transcendency. Once reported the ideologic manipulation of the theory of evolution for spurious objectives, Artigas deals with the same honesty and braveness the complicated questions of monogenism and poligenism. Our brief article presents a concise review on the development of all these questions based on his thoughts.

Mariano Artigas: Introduction to his published workThe published work of Mariano Artigas (Zaragoza, 1938 – Pamplona, 2006) is extensive and addresses a very wide range of topics. The purpose of this paper is to offer a possible classification of his published books into five categories: general public, textbooks, studies on Philosophy of Nature, Epistemology and History of Science. From this first approach to his works it is possible to grasp some features of his philosophical formation and his intellectual insights.

It is often assumed that direction and purpose in nature—teleology—is a dead relic of the past, a result of Charles Darwin’s Origin of Species (1859) and Descent of Man (1871). But teleology has had a long and complex relationship with science. This paper will trace its general history with an emphasis upon the life sciences, especially biology. Particularly important is the fact that all teleology is not equal; strong (transcendent) teleology (designated Ts) should be distinguished from weak (purely descriptive and utilitarian) teleology (designated Tw). A working definition of teleology in its most meaningful aspects is then given. The challenges that Darwinism faced in dealing with purpose in nature are discussed, as is their proposed solution in the evolutionary synthesis, and the persistence of Ts following that synthesis is outlined and critiqued. Evidence of Ts persistence in the life sciences is presented with several relevant examples, and strong teleology is further differentiated by specific (Ts+) and nonspecific (Ts−) varieties. This essay concludes that Ts remains an ongoing and integral part of the life sciences and will likely remain so, even though it may be true but not verifiable empirically.

This essay presents a cross-reading of two seminal works in early Science Fiction : Les Navigateurs de l’Infini by J. H. Rosny aîné, a novel published in 1925 and A Martian Odyssey by Stanley G. Weinbaum, a short story published in 1934. In spite of many differences between the two authors, especially regarding their positions in the literary fields they belonged to, both of them had the same concern to write high-level conjectural texts, plausible from a scientific point of view and intellectually stimulating. They also attempted to create totally different worlds in the aforementioned works and refused plain reduplicative imagination, unlike many previous or contemporary Science Fiction writers, such as Edgar Rice Burroughs or Gustave Le Rouge, who had both set adventure stories on Mars, at the beginning of the 20th Century. Rosny and Weinbaum also had in common a positive view of the Aliens they described, which was at odds with the paradigm prevalent in Science Fiction since The War of the Worlds by H. G. Wells. All those commonalities justify a comparative approach. Our reading will aim at providing some elements of reflection about the parallel history of American Science Fiction and so-called French Science Fiction before 1945. In our reading, we will wonder how consistent the worlds created by Weinbaum and Rosny are and what structural principles underlie them. We will also analyze the way the two authors dealt with the question of communication with Aliens, which is pivotal to modern Science Fiction. At last, we will try to define the ideological backgrounds of those texts, which can be both read as utopias, a metaphysical one in Rosny’s novel and a political one in Weinbaum’s short story.

The epistemological debates are far from being serene in the 1900s. The traumatic impact of the sciences of the nature putting a starting point in the human story or the extrapolations inherent to the development of the astronomy, increasing the dimensions of the universe up to the absurd, developed a climate of ideas with pessimistic consonances and crepuscular values. Maurice Renard is suspicious in his tales when he describes and examines the stability of the species and the human race. If Le Docteur Lerne (1908) knocks down the biological and physiological laws of the Creation in "wonderful hypotheses", Le Péril bleu (1910) shows the limits of a human knowledge reduced to a pure anthropocentric vision. The "wonderful hypotheses" of the science for Maurice Renard reveal the "unforeseen and possible consequences" of the scientific debates of his time, and particularly those resulting from the darwinism.

The concept of homology is the most solid theoretical basis elaborated by the morphological thinking during its history. The enucleation of some general criteria for the interpretation of homology is today a fundamental tool for life sciences, and for restoring their own opening to the question of qualitative innovation that arose so powerfully in the original Darwinian project. The aim of this paper is to verify the possible uses of the concept of compositional homology in order to provide of an adequate understanding of the dynamics of creative thinking.

In this paper, we present four philosophical approaches and their prominent advocates toward the problem of relationship between Darwinian evolution and theistic beliefs: (1) Atheistic Inconsistency: there is a deep conflict between Darwinian evolution and theism; among atheists, Richard Dawkins and Daniel Dennett could be regarded as the best representatives in this branch. (2) Theistic Inconsistency: A deep conflict could also be seen among theists, M.H. Tabātabā’ī’s Quranic exegesis is one of the most significant sources in this regard from Islamic side, correspondent to the same in other theistic religions. (3) Theistic Consistency: There is a concord between theism and Darwinian evolution; we have considered Alvin Plantinga and Murtazā Mutaharī in this category. (4) Reductionist Consistency: Theism and Darwinian evolution, or science and religion in general, are two different and noncompeting levels of explanation; John Haught advocates such reductionist consistency between science and religion. Having mentioned the four above classes and a few of many representatives of each category and some important questions toward these approaches, we have attempted to show that the alleged consistency between theistic beliefs and Darwinian evolution by the principle of natural selection fails.

Sheldon Richmond has written an insightful and exhaustive review of my book The Nature of the Machine and the Collapse of Cybernetics: A Transhumanist Lesson for Emerging Technologies (Palgrave Macmillan 2017). Richmond voices concerns regarding some suggestions I made about the future of humanity vis-à-vis a contemporary cybernetic reinstantiation in the form of Emerging Technologies. He suggests that future cybernetically rooted sciences (and the transhumanist technologies that come along with them) can pose peril for the human condition. This reply is intended to clarify certain points that Richmond brings up, by means of (a) responding to his suggestion that cybernetics and transhumanism could be independently understood, and (b) unveiling a metaphysical and ethical stance, shared by Richmond, critical to the observations I made regarding a "cybernetically organized mankind" made possible by Emerging Technologies. I identify Richmond's position as (a) precautionary in nature, (b) for reasons perhaps more ethical than epistemological, somewhat out of sync with the cybernetic ethos. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study maps the attitudes of Italian Catholic theologians publishing in the prestigious journal La Civiltà Cattolica on the issue of the evolutionary origin of the human body from 1850-1980. The strict rejection of the so-called Mivart's thesis lasted up to the beginning of the 1940s when things began to change gradually. It is noteworthy that German and Italian Jesuits used different strategies. The former approached Mivart's thesis in an increasingly liberal way as of the 1890s, while the latter remained in opposition up until the 1940s. Czech Catholic theology followed the German more closely, rather than the official Italian pattern. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Our research includes a discussion of certain culturally embedded aspects which have great relevance on the way language is conceptualized, taught and learned, along with some (un)desirable consequences envisioned from an educational and axiological point of view. The meaning of the notion "evolution" is at the core of this critical analysis, as we highlight some of the relevant consequences set into motion by the accepted scientific approach. Despite the postulation that scientific concepts maintain neutral value, it may be demonstrated that these are interpretations based on given assumptions, which generate a consequential assessment of the nature of reality. Our assumptions and perspective on the world narrow down the meaning of reality or that of certain concepts which experts have agreed to accept as valid. The study points to the materialist approach of traditional scientific discourse which often reduces higher-level realities to explainable hypotheses. However, scientific reductionism is currently challenged, as it has failed to provide an accurate and complete account of our human story. Holistic and transdisciplinary perspectives have now taken centre stage, as well as new post-Darwinist and post-Newtonian paradigms of thought. Secondarily, we analyze scientific discourse from the point of view of the history of science and one of its foremost proponents who approached the theory of evolution According to Karl Popper, the central problem in the philosophy of science is that of demarcation, of distinguishing between science and what he calls non-science. Popper argued that Darwinism is more a methaphysical research program than a scientific theory and natural selection cannot be tested because biological evolution is a unique historical process. He pointed out that there are evolutionary trends, but these do not prove the existence of evolutionary laws. A trend is existential not universal. Popper argued that evolution theory predicts accidental mutations and thus accidental changes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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This paper aims at clarifying a methodological difficulty which any interpreter of the Nietzsche-Darwin relationship must face to avoid committing a Neo-Darwinist anachronism. Nietzsche probably never read Darwin's main works, On the Origin of Species and The Descent of Man: scholars therefore focus on the secondary sources underlying Nietzsche's assessment of Darwinism. In principle, this investigation allows a comparison between what Nietzsche understood by "Darwinism" and Darwin's actual theory, to evidence potential misinterpretations. But because of the emergence of a synthetic theory of evolution during the 20th century, we tend nowadays to assimilate the "true Darwin" to the author of the first edition of On the Origin of Species, published in 1859. This is questionable absolutely speaking and couldn't be the perspective of a normal reader during the 1880 decade. On the contrary, if we consider later editions of Darwin's book, what appeared as a Nietzschean misconstruction can prove a legitimate criticism. This is the thesis I want to defend on the theme of evolutionary progress, a crucial target of Nietzsche's anti-Darwinist discourse. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study presents the life and work of the Belgian geologist and professor of dogmatic theology Henry de Dorlodot (1855-1929). The author of this study presents the life of this thinker and highlights his active participation in the World Darwinist Congress in Cambridge in 1909. Dorlodot published his work about the evolution of fauna and flora from the point of view of Catholic Orthodoxy in 1921. This was the reason for an investigation by the Pontifical Biblical Commission, followed by one from the Holy Office. Dorlodot did not publish this intended book about human evolution during his lifetime. After the discovery of the original manuscript, the book came out in 2009. This work contains a number of inspirational ideas. Dorlodot's thoughts are based on the Tomistic concept of the relationship between the soul and the human body. Based on this theory, he argues that the fetus has been ensouled during the process of evolution at a certain moment in the body of the still inhuman mother, and thus the first human was born. His thesis wherein the first man was an ancestor for both, today's humans and the Neanderthals, is also of interest. Dorlodot´s case probably entailed a breaking point, since at this time no one had been investigated by the Vatican authorities for having an open minded attitude to the evolution of the human body. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores how the television series Breaking Bad argues about the ethics of Social Darwinism as dominant to the interest of the community, and why this is not just philosophical or religious question. It also makes a brief comparison with the ethical situation as portrayed in another television series, The Wire, claiming that these substantially different series, (one approaching morality and ethics through sheer individualism and free will, another through social determinism) both teach similar lessons about ethics. Having its main theme centered around ethics, Breaking Bad sees causes of socio-economical crises primarily in the moral destruction of modern society that destroys its institutions, not the other way around. In contrast, The Wire finds human morality in a dichotomy of an idealist-pragmatist type of man trapped inside the social systems that brutally arrange human lives through 'the Game' - in essence the socio-economical rules of urban life. I argue that Breaking Bad offers more arguments for not engaging in 'Darwinist' ethics, showing us in both literal and metaphorical ways the entire process arising from totalitarianism as today's most feared form of social system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: In recent years many historical myths about the relations between science and religion have been corrected but not always with sensitivity to different types and functions of “myth.” Correcting caricatures of Darwin's religious views and of the religious reaction to his theory have featured prominently in this myth‐busting. With the appearance in 2017 of A. N. Wilson's depiction of Darwin himself as a “mythmaker,” it is appropriate to reconsider where the myths lie in discourse concerning Darwin and Christianity. Problems with Wilson's account are identified and his provocative demeaning of Darwin is contrasted with an image gleaned from Darwin's friend and colleague George Romanes. The article concludes with a brief reference to the problem of suffering and to the work of Christopher Southgate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The questions asked by my critics, and therefore my answers, deal especially with three large topics: the relationship of transhumanism with religion, with science in general, and with evolution. The perspectives of scientific-religious salvation suggested by transhumanism confirm its role as a major theme of contemporary culture and open a multiplicity of hints for future work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Both Christians and Darwinians have discussed the topic of war very extensively. There is a paradox. One might think that Christians, as followers of Jesus' commands in the Sermon on the Mount, would be against war, and Darwinians, as followers of the claims of the Origin of Species about a struggle for existence leading to change, would be in favor of war. To the contrary, Christians have long argued that one can legitimately go to war and that war will be with us always, whereas Darwinians believe that we can and should transcend our past, and give up war. This article explores the roots of this difference and argues that there are some remarkable shared connections and that today we can and must recognize that both sides of the argument are wrong and that we can now hope for a better understanding of the nature and causes of war. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the early phase of the establishment of geography as a discipline, Friedrich Ratzel developed a biogeographical theory of space that was shaped by Darwinism and the theory of migration proposed by Moritz Wagner. In this contribution I will try to illuminate the nineteenth-century intellectual backgrounds which affected Ratzel's work and especially his concept of Lebensraum . With this theory, Ratzel sought not only to install Lebensraum as a concept for political action, he also transferred the idea of the compression parameter as a result of modernization to the context of political territoriality. Ratzel can best be described as a kind of transitional figure linking the nineteenth-century imperial notion of Lebensraum with twentieth-century concepts of expansion and extermination based on spatial ideas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article considers how the matriarch of the Theosophical Society, Helena Petrovna Blavatsky (1831-1891) constructed the category “science,” situating this construal within a world in which the boundaries of “legitimate” science were more contested than they are today. Focusing on her teachings on rebirth, the article demonstrates that Blavatsky’s doctrines owe a considerable debt to the scientific theories under discussion at her time of writing. It explores her debt to the controversial physicists Balfour Stewart (1828-1887) and Peter Guthrie Tait (1831-1909), her hostility towards the popular materialist monism of Ernst Haeckel (1834-1919), her hatred of Darwinism, and her preference for theories of evolution influenced by German Romanticism, such as the progressivist versions of orthogenesis proposed by Carl Wilhelm von Nägeli (1817-1891), Karl Ernst von Baer (1792-1876), and Darwin’s nemesis, Richard Owen (1804-1892). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study represents the life and work of the Spanish Catholic natural scientist and theologian Juan T. González de Arintero o.p. (1860-1928), who is very little known in the Czech environment. The focus of the study is the analysis of the La Evolución y la Filosofía Christiana 1. Introdución General published in 1898. Arintero walks in the footsteps of Zeferino Gonzalez, perceives Mivart's thesis as acceptable, but modifies it as Z. Gonzáles. Arinter's own contribution lies in the distinction of a so-called ontological species (biological class) and a biological species. Spontaneous evolution occurs within biological class. Once a new class arises, a direct Creator intervention is required. Human represents not only a new species or class, but even a independent kingdom. The human body is prepared by the evolution of higher primates (haplorhini). But the completion of humankind requires a direct Divine intervention which is linked to the creation of a rational soul united with this body. On the basis of our analysis, we corrected the erroneous claim which is presented in a very renowned foreign publication, according to this author Arintero rejected the evolutionary origin of the human body. Arintero expressly claims that the first human is a descendant of animal ancestors. However on the level of interpretation Arintero perceives this process as a specific God's intervention, while he respects all verified data of the Paleoanthropology and Developmental Biology. Thus, Juan Gonáles de Arintero is one of the most important pioneers of the Catholic reception of the evolutionary origin - creation of man. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Today, two characteristics define literary naturalism, and both are problematic. One is the emphasis on four male writers: Theodore Dreiser, Frank Norris, Stephen Crane, and Jack London. This focus emerged in the 1930s and stemmed from biases against white women and African Americans. The other defining trait is the temporal reach of naturalism. Extrapolating from traits in the works of Dreiser et al., this school now includes the “proletarian writers” of the 1930s and many recent authors. This article presents a new definition, one that emphasizes the distinct nature of the period from 1893 to 1913, when authors and social scientists believed that immutable “laws” of heredity and environment determined human behaviour. This approach broadens the naturalist canon during the classic era, 1893–1913, dethroning those four white males, and excludes most later works. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The key argument is that in order to rescue our future we need to advance our understanding of human communicative behaviour in contemporary societies. Whatever the shortcomings of our academic efforts may be, in the face of current existential risks, resignation is no option. Communication research has made little or no advance towards a useful understanding of human communicative behaviour. Most important obstacles have been (and continue to be) the disciplinary approach, the lack of a “creative opportunistic” methodology, the marginalisation of the earth and life sciences, and the neo-liberal transformation of universities into bureaucratic protocol-driven organisations. As an international scholarly community, we have to commit ourselves to “desperate optimism” (Stanislav Andreski). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Eliot Howard presented his theory of territory in the nine-part The British warblers published between 1907 and 1914. He is generally considered to have been unaware of significant earlier accounts of this theory, in particular by Altum and by Moffat in 1903 in The Irish naturalist. This periodical was perhaps little read outside Ireland, but Howard's wife came from Donegal and his regular birdwatching there make early familiarity probable. In 1904, he began planning an ambitious work on warblers that would draw attention to supposed defects in the theory of sexual selection. Probably hastened by Selous highlighting sexual selection in The zoologist in 1906, part one of The British warblers in 1907 carried a forthright attack on Darwin's theory. Territory was first mentioned in part two in 1908, but without elaboration, after Selous in 1907 described the Ruff's territory on its assembly ground. In November 1910, in part five of The British warblers, after Selous that year had stressed territory on Eurasian Black Grouse leks, Howard's writing became more focused and a "law of territory" was stated to be widespread in birds: males struggle, not for females, but for territory and if won, a mate is won also. Many common features point to the crucial influence of Moffat's article on the theory proposed by Howard. His awareness of Moffat's work is further evidenced by a newspaper report found among his papers, about a Dublin lecture in January 1910 by R. M. Barrington, who stated that Moffat's theory was supported by Howard. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present study investigates how Ian McEwan's Enduring Love (1997) re-defines human ethical qualities within a Darwinian framework. McEwan's Enduring Love from the very beginning to the end abounds in Darwinian images and passages, thereby, it forms a Darwinian lens through which the events of the novel are scanned and interpreted, from the helium balloon gone out of control to a shared happiness resulted from seeing a familiar face at the airport. Within the Darwinian worldview the novel sets, it tries to subvert the traditionally-considered human ethical actions, like heroism, cooperation, courage, and love and therefore redefine them. To prove its claim, this paper, first, explores the Darwinian framework Enduring Love develops, benefiting from the ideas of literary Darwinists and other biopoetical theorists; then, it tries to show how the novel applies the same Darwinian principles to those human ethical qualities mentioned above which results in their redefinition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study presents the life and works of the Spanish Catholic philosopher and cardinal Zeferino Gonzalez (183-1894), who is very little known in the Czech environment. The focus of this study is an analysis of the La Biblia y la Ciencia published in 1891, in which the author - as a high church official - expressed his support for the acceptability of Mivart's thesis. Which one he modified by claiming that the body of an animal prepared by evolution became fully human in the moment of unification with a rational soul. In this work, the Spanish Cardinal responded to Draper's book on the Discrepancy Between Science and Religion. His approach to contemporary natural science, paleontology and paleoanthropology was quite honest critical. Once these sciences provided conclusive results that contradicted to the traditional exegesis of the biblical text, in particular on the basis of the texts of St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas, cardinal has been able to modify the interpretation of these texts in such a way that there is no contradiction between the faith and the results of human reason. Finally, it must be underlined that González's work has allowed us to identify three other French pioneers of accepting evolutionary origin - creation of man by Christian thinking. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the environmental philosophy of Liberty Hyde Bailey Jr (1858-1954). A prominent agrarian and garden theorist in the United States, he naturalised culture and the human mind. Although Bailey was a plant scientist and taught at Cornell University for decades, he never fully endorsed the epistemology and metaphysics of his peers. He believed truth was provisional and he rejected spectator theories of knowledge. Bailey argued that humans were inseparable from the natural processes they hoped to understand and master. Turning away from the search for fixed truth, he celebrated contingency and the aesthetic experience of gardening. The garden was a dynamic space that blurred distinctions between nature and culture. Whereas botanists sought to classify plants and fix the meaning of the natural world, the gardener encouraged humility and an aesthetic appreciation for nature as a set of open-ended processes in which humans participated. I argue that Bailey was a 'pragmatic naturalist'. In reconciling scientific method with aesthetic experience, he provided the foundation for a new environmental philosophy in the United States. Whereas other historians have framed American environmentalism around the opposing poles of anthropocentrism and ecocentrism, I suggest Bailey provides evidence of an alternative tradition. Neither anthropocentric nor ecocentric, he believed human experience was an emergent feature of the natural world. Humans were unique, he argued, but they did not stand outside or above the environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]