Dear Swillpit, The sure way to Hell is by a series of incremental adjustments so small, and seemingly innocuous, that earthlings never notice they are woefully off course until they find themselves aboard Charon’s skiff heading for the opposite shore. A believer who turns against our Adversary in a moment of anger or doubt is … Read more
Darwin was always unsettled by the implications of his theory, and his growing agnosticism, along with his eventual belief that there was no soul, no eternity, just blind matter and its inexorable laws, troubled his pious, Unitarian wife, Emma, who wanted to be with him in heaven. Unsettled Darwin should have been; for all the … Read more
HBO’s animal rights documentary Unlocking the Cage, now playing in art theaters across the country, is a signature piece for the respected cable outlet. Although it is not the first documentary of this kind, it comes with a pedigree of esteemed filmmakers and a unique protagonist in the form of a Harvard trained lawyer who … Read more
As the sixtieth anniversary of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin’s death approaches this April, a renewed interest in his thought has found its way into the popular consciousness. A play praising the life of Teilhard, titled The De Chardin Project, ran from November 20 until December 14 in Toronto, Canada. Additionally, a two-hour biography on Teilhard’s … Read more
Earlier this month, the BBC interviewed E.O. Wilson (a highly reputable emeritus Professor of Entomology at Harvard University) asking him about his differing views on natural selection with Richard Dawkins. He responded that: There is no dispute between me and Richard Dawkins and there never has been, because he’s a journalist, and journalists are people … Read more
Pure myth! That is today’s typical view of a literal Adam and Eve. Yet, contrary to current skepticism, a real Adam and Eve remain credible—both in terms of Catholic doctrine and sound natural science. By calling the Genesis story a “myth,” people avoid saying it is mere “fantasy,” that is, with no foundation in reality … Read more
On Easter Monday, the Telegraph published a Letter to the Editor from around 50 leading atheists, predictably including such names as Philip Pullman, Peter Tatchell, Polly Toynbee, Anthony Grayling, Evan Harris, and on and on: from my own point of view, a list of many of my least favorite bien pensant Lefties. It began as … Read more
Secularists are known for dismissing religion as merely espousing a set of blind faith beliefs without any evidence to support them. The crudest among them will often do it in a snide and sneering way, holding that religious belief is imagination and fantasy—like a childhood fairy tale—in contrast to the “scientific” view that they espouse. … Read more
Trouble brews for the occasional scientist who decides to publicly question the orthodoxy of neo-Darwinism in peer-reviewed journals. Occasionally there are slip-ups which help to corroborate the general rule. For example, in 2004 Richard Sternberg, evolutionary biologist, and editor of the journal, Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington, published Stephen C. Meyer’s “The Origin … Read more
It’s official, ladies and gentlemen! The Theory of Evolution via Natural Selection is no longer a “theory”; it’s confirmed science! At least, that’s what USA Today would have us think anyway. In a column entitled “Evolution is Not a Matter of Belief,” Tom Krattenmaker proclaims, “As settled science, evolution is not a matter of opinion … Read more
Lost in the hubbub surrounding the unsurprising “personal evolution” by President Obama toward support of a radical redefinition of marriage was how the president characterized the position of the majority of Americans who uphold the natural and traditional definition of marriage as the union between one man and one woman. His May 9 ABC news … Read more
“A man who has no assured and ever present belief in the existence of a personal God or of a future existence with retribution and reward, can have for his rule of life, as far as I can see, only to follow those impulses and instincts which are the strongest or which seem to him … Read more
This article originally appeared in the March 1996 edition of Crisis Magazine. Science is mankind’s great success story since the Renaissance. Only the most obdurate Luddite can regret the computer chip, the Hubble telescope, and the heart bypass. But these material triumphs have come at a philosophical cost. The scientific method has been so successful … Read more
The following essay, which first appeared at FrontPage Magazine, continues yesterday’s symposium on the “bourgeois spirit.” See also Dawson’s Catholicism and the Bourgeois Mind, Jeffrey Tucker’s reply, In Defense of Bourgeois Civilization, John Peter Pham’s classic review of A Humane Economy, and Gerard Russello’s account of Dawson’s contribution. The 20th century, for all the scientific … Read more
In 1939, Albert Einstein penned a letter to President Franklin Roosevelt. The letter was instigated, and largely written, by Hungarian immigrant and physicist Leo Szilard, who was concerned with the technological aims of the Nazi regime. After hearing the eminent British physicist Sir Ernest Rutherford dismiss the idea of obtaining useful energy from nuclear reactions, … Read more
I witnessed — indeed, participated in — a miracle this morning. It began with me opening my eyes. This neuromuscular feat, which required millions of years of evolution just so that I could have eyelids to open, was made possible for me by a pure gift of genetic donation from my parents, who were themselves … Read more
Science is mankind’s great success story since the Renaissance. Only the most obdurate Luddite can regret the computer chip, the Hubble telescope, and the heart bypass. But these material triumphs have come at a philosophical cost. The scientific method has been so successful in its own sphere that many intelligent people think it the only … Read more
A recent headline from Zenit announces, “Scholars Aim to Disprove Darwin.” My thought: “Good luck with that.” I’m highly skeptical that guys like Hugh Owen, who believe in a young earth and the coexistence of dinosaurs and humans, are going to land any punches that overthrow the basic arguments for stuff like an old … Read more
We never know what curiosities former students will come up with. Eric Wind, an ex-student long interested in the history of Georgetown College, found for sale on eBay an old examination given at Georgetown in January 1929. (Let me note that this test was not Schall’s, as in January of 1929, he was but … Read more
“As an explanation of the world, materialism has a sort of insane simplicity. It has just the quality of the madman’s arguments; we have at once the sense of it covering everything and the sense of it leaving everything out.” G.K. Chesterton In the struggle to survive, the fit win, and so it is also … Read more