Darwin Retried

If, ultimately, there is only one reality, then neither religion nor science can be fulfilled until they come together on a higher plane. In this second volume of his authoritative, anthroposophical commentary on the Bible, Edward Reaugh Smith shows that there is no difference between true science and the divine intelligence sought by true religion. The model for such a union of science and religion is the spiritual science developed by Rudolf Steiner. In this union, what the senses show us about the physical world--when keenly observed and allowed to speak for itself instead of being abstracted into theories--become images of the spiritual world: "As above, so below." Drawing on his extensive knowledge of the Bible, the author shows us that anthroposophy provides unique insights into the biblical account. Included are essays on: Evolution Creation and Apocalypse The Four Elements As Above, So Below Fire (where Earth and Heaven meet) Light (the first form of corporeality from which all else follows) Blood (the meeting point of inner and outer worlds) What Is Man (how beings of the higher worlds work in forming the earthly vehicle for the human being) Plus Numerous Charts & Tables, an extensive bibliography, and an index of scriptures cited. This is an important resource for anyone who wants to dig into the deepest meanings of biblical scriptures.

The ideas and terminology of Darwinism are so pervasive these days that it seems impossible to avoid them, let alone imagine a world without them. But in this remarkable rethinking of scientific history, Peter J. Bowler does just that. He asks: What if Charles Darwin had not returned from the voyage of the Beagle and thus did not write On the Origin of Species? Would someone else, such as Alfred Russel Wallace, have published the selection theory and initiated a similar transformation? Or would the absence of Darwin’s book have led to a different sequence of events, in which biology developed along a track that did not precipitate a great debate about the impact of evolutionism? Would there have been anything equivalent to social Darwinism, and if so would the alternatives have been less pernicious and misappropriated? In Darwin Deleted, Bowler argues that no one else, not even Wallace, was in a position to duplicate Darwin’s complete theory of evolution by natural selection. Evolutionary biology would almost certainly have emerged, but through alternative theories, which were frequently promoted by scientists, religious thinkers, and moralists who feared the implications of natural selection. Because non-Darwinian elements of evolutionism flourished for a time in the real world, it is possible to plausibly imagine how they might have developed, particularly if the theory of natural selection had not emerged until decades after the acceptance of the basic idea of evolution. Bowler’s unique approach enables him to clearly explain the non-Darwinian tradition—and in doing so, he reveals how the reception of Darwinism was historically contingent. By taking Darwin out of the equation, Bowler is able to fully elucidate the ideas of other scientists, such as Richard Owen and Thomas Huxley, whose work has often been misunderstood because of their distinctive responses to Darwin. Darwin Deleted boldly offers a new vision of scientific history. It is one where the sequence of discovery and development would have been very different and would have led to an alternative understanding of the relationship between evolution, heredity, and the environment—and, most significantly, a less contentious relationship between science and religion. Far from mere speculation, this fascinating and compelling book forces us to reexamine the preconceptions that underlie many of the current controversies about the impact of evolutionism. It shows how contingent circumstances surrounding the publication of On the Origin of Species polarized attitudes in ways that still shape the conversation today.

Darwin's discovery of evolution is as celebrated as Galileo's laws of motion or Newton's discovery of gravity. But this was only half the story. Not content to prove that evolution had happened, Darwin sought to convey its full humbling implications. Thus he formulated the theory of natural selection. Contrary to popular belief, this theory ran exactly counter to scientific reason and was consequently rejected by the scientific community of the time. This wasn’t the only reason Darwin’s critics recoiled. His theory robbed the ruling orders of any easy recourse to consolatory tales of nature’s harmony and design. The fate of his ideas, for the time being at least, would be left to the heretics he inspired in other domains. Darwin's radical thought anticipated Nietzsche's Godless philosophy, Marx's class-based economics and Freud's psychological theories of the unconscious. It would take a further 80 years for Darwinism to become accepted as mainstream science, but it came at the expense of its counter-scientific core. For the remainder of the twentieth century a popularized Darwinism would become the touchstone for backlash movements in philosophy, economics and psychology—disciplines he once so radicalized. This is the story of how the most revolutionary idea of the nineteenth century became the most reactionary idea of the twentieth.

Evolutionists have long known that Charles Darwin's original argument against his own theory - that a lack of fossil evidence of transitional forms would reduce him to an embarrassing footnote in history - was screamingly true. No legitimate fossil evidence exists that shows one species changing into another. This startling realization led Luther Sunderland to an exhaustive search of the subject, and his findings show clearly that evolution is a theory in disarray. From his own interviews with leading evolutionists, and an examination of the fossil evidence, Sunderland shows that the Enigma of Darwin's anti-God philosophy is that the facts show it is anything but rock-solid. Before is death in 1987, Luther Sunderland had garnered the respect of creationists worldwide for his investigative writing of the evolution controversy. After obtaining an engineering degree from Penn State University, Sunderland spent 30 years developing automatic flight control systems for the General Electric Company. DARWIN'S ENIGMA remains on intensely popular work on the theory of origins.

Darwin's theory of evolution is accepted by most educated Americans as simple fact. This easy acceptance, however, hides from us the many ways in which evolution—as an idea—shapes our thinking about a great many things. What if this idea is wrong? Berkeley law professor Phillip E. Johnson looks at the evidence for Darwinistic evolution the way a lawyer would—with a cold dispassionate eye for logic and proof. His discovery is that scientists have put the cart before the horse. They prematurely accepted Darwin's theory as fact and have been scrambling to find evidence for it. Darwin on Trial is a cogent and stunning tour de force that not only rattles the cages of conventional wisdom, but could provide the basis for a fundamental change in the way educated Americans regard themselves, their origins, and their fate.

Argues that the process of biological evolution is not only fully consistent with the existence of a Grand Designer, but is unintelligible in the absence of one. Considers the implausibility of non-theistic evolution, directed evolution, a theological justification for evolution, and the implications of deistic evolution for theology. Paper edition (unseen), $37. Annotation copyright by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR