Some relevant comics 4 Jan 201221 Jun 2018 As always, click to go to the originals. Evolution Humor Religion
Religion Thomism and Intelligent Design 16 Feb 2009 I have always had a sneaking admiration for neo-Thomistic accounts of creation and evolution, because they tend to think of creation as the actualisation of the real world with no limitations on natural law within the created universe. Now read this nice piece by Michael Tkacz. You need not agree… Read More
Administrative PZombies in Brisbane! 30 May 200818 Sep 2017 So we managed to attract 5 local PZombies (Craig, you are in trouble for not turning up!) on a wet Brisbane night. We had some interesting discussions (which I fear means that others listened to me nonstop) over beer. It’s nice to know that those of us who are in… Read More
Evolution Evolution quotes: Darwin on randomness 25 Jun 2010 Some authors have declared that natural selection explains nothing, unless the precise cause of each slight individual difference be made clear. Now, if it were explained to a savage utterly ignorant of the art of building, how the edifice had been raised stone upon stone, and why wedge-formed fragments were… Read More
Don’t want to kill the joke with pedantry, but it occurred to me that, taking Zach’s summaries at face value for a moment, you could argue that Bentham’s “maximise happiness” was supportive of, and in a sense a general approximation to Darwin’s point: I can’t speak for other species, but in H. sap. the sex drive is centred on the anticipation of considerable, if not always lasting, happiness; maximising the amount of sex in society would be (done right) one contribution to maximising the happiness in it (just sayin’). You could even stretch a point and argue that Socrates is at least in the right ball park, since “justice and right thinking” should tend to create an environment which favours the survival and reproduction of more individuals than would be the case in an unjust and arbitrary one. But I’m afraid poor old Aquinas is waaaay off beam, there. Not asking the right questions, not even wrong.