![[Valid RSS]](images/valid-rss-rogers.png "Valid RSS")
This is a valid RSS feed.
This feed is valid, but interoperability with the widest range of feed readers could be improved by implementing the following recommendations.
line 19, column 2467: (10 occurrences) [help]
... tilizing agent for their gardens.</p>]]></content:encoded>
^
<content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="/img/special_science_feature_genetic_ ...
</channel>
^
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?><rss version="2.0" xmlns:content="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/content/" xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/" xmlns:sy="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/syndication/" > <channel> <title>RSS Theory of Evolution</title> <link>https://evolutiontheory.net/</link> <description>Theory of Evolution</description> <lastBuildDate>Sat, 18 Oct 2025 10:23:15 -0400</lastBuildDate> <language>en</language> <sy:updatePeriod>daily</sy:updatePeriod> <sy:updateFrequency>1</sy:updateFrequency> <item> <title>Charles Darwin, earthworms</title> <description>By Charles Darwin. When he was on the Galpagos Islands in the Pacific, Darwin was strongly impressed by the different species of finches on the different islands, which, he deduced, must all have descended from just one ancestral ...</description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="/img/redworms_the_worm_dude_part.jpg" alt="No Comments »" align="left" /><p>Charles Darwin died 130 years ago today, leaving an intellectual legacy which has profoundly influenced the general course of Western thought. He is best known for his work On the Origin of Species (1859) and (1871), both of which introduced radical new ideas for the time concerning the origins of humans and all life. Darwin's last work, however, devoted itself entirely to a more down-to-earth species: the lowly earthworm. In his final book, (1881)L. Sambourne's satiric portrait of Darwin published in Punch, 1881., Darwin concluded, "It may be doubted if there are any other animals which have played such an important part in the history of the world as these lowly organized creatures." If the concept of evolution didn’t give Darwin enough grief from his contemporaries, this monograph on worms provoked even more ridicule. But Darwin had the last laugh: The book was a runaway best-seller. Although its title would never fly with today's publishers, the book nevertheless sold more copies than his earlier books, due largely to England's healthy obsession with gardening. The Tower of Babel? No, one of the more elegant illustrations of worm poop (or castings) published by DarwinWith the help of his children, with whom he set out early each morning (and often on rainy nights) while the ground was still cool and moist, Darwin observed and recorded the habits of the earthworm and its effect on soil formation. Darwin learned that worms literally move the earth in the process of their meanderings. Their passage through the earth aerates the soil and the natural chemistry of their guts renders soil and plant matter into fertile pellets. As a by-product of their movements, worms deposit new soil on the surface, causing whatever was on top to slowly submerge. Thus, whole monuments may be buried over a period of decades. It is estimated that for a single acre of cultivated land, earthworms move 8 tons of earth in a year, enough to produce a new layer of earth 2 inches thick, rich in nitrogen, phosphorous and calcium. Before the plough, the earthworm was the earth’s best tiller, as it digested earth and munched on leaves, leaving behind a rich hummus layer. Vermiculture enthusiasts will agree that worm juice (or "compost tea") collected beneath their compost bins is a superior organic fertilizing agent for their gardens.</p>]]></content:encoded> <category><![CDATA[Books And Movies]]></category> <link>https://evolutiontheory.net/BooksAndMovies/charles-darwin-earthworms</link> <guid isPermaLink="true">https://evolutiontheory.net/BooksAndMovies/charles-darwin-earthworms</guid> <pubDate>Sat, 18 Oct 2025 18:23:00 +0000</pubDate> </item> <item> <title>Charles Darwin eureka Moments</title> <description>Darwin Discovers Natural Selection in the Galapagos Much can be read into the full title of Charles Darwin's great work, which is 'On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection or the Preservation of Favoured Races in ...</description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="/img/supermyths_darwins_finches_are_another_supermyth.jpg" alt="Charles Darwin's Eureka!" align="left" /><p>Darwin Discovers Natural Selection in the Galapagos Much can be read into the full title of Charles Darwin's great work, which is 'On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life'. It is effectively one long argument in support of his theory as to how and why species come about, resulting a huge leap in our understanding of the natural world and our role in it. The Galapagos Islands are inextricably linked to Charles Darwin. If you go on a Galapagos liveaboard you will learn a great deal about Darwin's studies here. There is a Charles Darwin research centre in Santa Cruz and his musings on tortoises, finches, marine iguanas and more are quoted everywhere. Had he been trained in scuba, he would undoubtedly have marvelled just as much at the amazing abundance and variety of sea-life that can be witnessed when diving Galapagos! Undoubtedly his travels contributed greatly to his work, but it is easy to overstate the role played by 'The Voyage of the Beagle'. While this may have been instrumental in broadening Darwin's mind and ways of thinking, there was no 'Eureka' moment as he stood on the rocky shores of the Galapagos Islands. We may love the thought of the young Darwin staring at some finch samples on board the Beagle and banging his desk with glee as everything fell into place in his mind. However the truth is that it took Darwin many more years, deeper study and less glamorous scientific endeavour for his great work to become crystallised into the contents of 'On the Origin of Species'. A humble chalk bank in Kent, England near his home played a role as vital, if not considerably more so, than any of the stops on his exciting voyage on HMS Beagle. "It is interesting to contemplate an entangled bank, gloved with many plants of many kinds, with birds singing on the bushes, with various insects flitting about, and with worms crawling through the damp earth, and to reflect that these elaborately constructed forms, so different from each other and dependent on each other in so complex a manner, have all been produced by laws acting around us." In so writing he was unleashing a new view of nature. One is of which man was not made "in the image and likeness of God", but was simply part of the great tree of life. A father of 10 children, 7 of whom survived to adulthood, Darwin saw his human family as part of the mammal family and as an intrinsic part of the living world, and not apart from it. This conclusion was only arrived at following years of painstaking study and inner conflict, and was kept in a private notebook not to be shared with the wider world until the publication of his great work.</p>]]></content:encoded> <category><![CDATA[Natural Selection]]></category> <link>https://evolutiontheory.net/NaturalSelection/charles-darwin-eureka-moments</link> <guid isPermaLink="true">https://evolutiontheory.net/NaturalSelection/charles-darwin-eureka-moments</guid> <pubDate>Sun, 28 Sep 2025 18:21:00 +0000</pubDate> </item> <item> <title>Behavioral genetics Charles Darwin</title> <description>The dog was the first domesticated animal. Domestication is an “evolutionary process [that] has been influenced by humans to meet their needs” (Secretariat, 1992, p. 3). In other words, domestication of a species causes ...</description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="/img/special_science_feature_genetic_inheritance_and.jpg" alt="Cosima reads Darwin's "The" align="left" /><p>The dog was the first domesticated animal. Domestication is an “evolutionary process [that] has been influenced by humans to meet their needs” (Secretariat, 1992, p. 3). In other words, domestication of a species causes biological changes over generations through selection by humans for favorable traits (i.e., traits that are useful, valuable, aesthetically pleasing, etc.). Domestication led to extraordinarily large changes in the behavioral characteristics of domestic dogs, as well as in their physical characteristics (which is obvious when one compares the many breeds of dogs). Scientific research on the evolution of dog behavior began in the mid-1800s, most notably in the work of Charles Darwin (Darwin, 1872). In the middle of the twentieth century, a deeper understanding of the evolution of dog behavior was gained by combining behavioral analyses with classical genetic analyses of dog breeds (for a review, see Scott & Fuller, 1965). Over the past 20 years, archaeological discoveries in combination with the results of highly sophisticated genetic analyses have shed a great deal of light on the evolution of domestic dogs (for a review, see Larson, Karlsson, Perri, et al., 2012). For example, there now is little doubt that domestic dogs evolved from the gray wolf, which is found in many parts of Europe and Asia (Honeycutt, 2010; Wayne & Ostrander, 2007). In fact, domestic dogs ( Canis lupus familiaris ) are considered to be a subspecies of the gray wolf (Canis lupus lupus). This means that, although dogs and wolves have physical features that often are very different, they can mate and produce fertile offspring. Nevertheless, there still is much controversy about when and where domestic dogs originated. These disagreements are focused on the answers to two questions: when did domestic dogs “split” from gray wolves and where did this happen? These questions have proved difficult to answer because the results of genetic and archaeological research are complex and, hence, very difficult to interpret. Genetic research on differences in DNA sequences have led to a wide range of estimates about when dogs and wolves first diverged: sometime between 20, 000 to 100, 000 years ago. One reason for the wide variation in these estimates is that dogs and wolves probably continued to interbreed, not only over long periods of time but also in many locations (Vil, Savolainen, Maldonado, et al., 1997).</p>]]></content:encoded> <category><![CDATA[Theory Of Evolution]]></category> <link>https://evolutiontheory.net/TheoryOfEvolution/behavioral-genetics-charles-darwin</link> <guid isPermaLink="true">https://evolutiontheory.net/TheoryOfEvolution/behavioral-genetics-charles-darwin</guid> <pubDate>Mon, 08 Sep 2025 18:14:00 +0000</pubDate> </item> <item> <title>Charles Darwin s Travel Route</title> <description>The route Darwin took is now named the Charles Darwin Walk and it leads to the top of Wentworth Falls, which even at the time of Darwin's visit, was already a popular tourist attraction. Back then you could only stand and look ...</description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="/img/proposed_by_charles_darwin.jpg" alt="Proposed by Charles Darwin" align="left" /><p>The route Darwin took is now named the Charles Darwin Walk and it leads to the top of Wentworth Falls, which even at the time of Darwin's visit, was already a popular tourist attraction. Back then you could only stand and look out over the Jamison Valley but now, thanks to the staff of the Blue Mountains National Park, and all the work they've done constructing walking paths, you can descend the "line of cliff" and walk along it. One thing hasn't changed from Darwin's time: the view over the Jamison Valley is still pristine. Last week my old friend and fellow author, Richard Tulloch, and I did one of our favourite walks at Wentworth Falls, The National Pass. Starting at the Conservation Hut Cafe at the other end of the escarpment from where Darwin was and, after fortifying ourselves with coffee and scones (with jam & cream) we started off down the track. ="0" cellspacing="0"> The Conservation Hut Cafe Yowies are Australia's answer to the Yeti and Bigfoot. Sadly, we didn't see one. It would have made for an interesting blog entry. Unfortunately Darwin didn't see one either as it would have given his book The Descent of Man that little magic something to keep it in the charts a bit longer. Beware of the yowie In any event these men descended to Lodore Falls, Sylvia Falls and Empress Falls on the Valley of the Waters Creek. A group of canyoners were busy canyoning down the creek. We stopped to watch just long enough to be happy to be warm, dry and on foot. The National Pass Track The National Pass track traverses the middle of the cliff from the western (Conservation Hut) end to the eastern, Wentworth Falls end. Or the other way around depending on where you've parked. I've drawn a red line on the photo above to show were it goes. If this looks scary, it's really not. deaths. I guess it's in their interests, too. A paved path---not to every bushwalker's taste It was a warm day but, considering it's summer here, we were just pleased that we weren't walking in blistering heat. But it is a well-shaded walk and it's been so rainy recently that there was always a bit of cooling spray from above. Low overhead A few stretches are better for kids---short ones---than adults. Richard in welcome shade Okay so now you wish you were bushwalking instead of staring at a computer screen. You can get to the Blue Mountains from Sydney by car, bus or train and there's all the information you need at the various Park information centres---such as the one in Springwood on the Great Western Highway on the way to Wentworth Falls. There are also excellent guide books. My favourite so far is Blue Mountains Best Bushwalks by Veechi Stuart. For those of you from away, Sydney is just a short plane ride. Just hop on the plane, go to sleep for a day or so and you're here.</p>]]></content:encoded> <category><![CDATA[Facts And Quotes]]></category> <link>https://evolutiontheory.net/FactsAndQuotes/charles-darwin-s-travel-route</link> <guid isPermaLink="true">https://evolutiontheory.net/FactsAndQuotes/charles-darwin-s-travel-route</guid> <pubDate>Tue, 19 Aug 2025 18:14:00 +0000</pubDate> </item> <item> <title>Theory of evolution by Darwin</title> <description>Maybe students should be introduced to both sides of every controversy? When a student sees all sides of any issue, then they can objectively decide for themselves what they want to believe.When they teach the Christian ...</description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="/img/august_2013_fair_science.jpg" alt="The last rumors announce the" align="left" /><p>Though it was too pain staking to indulge in the disgusting discussion of subjection as commitment, that was too rough and rude as topic but nevertheless, few beneficial abstract as compass reading on the subject of evolution has ordained to become understanding. The same is floated in accessible portrait for the readers so to give as, means of mild backup on the issue of inventory and controversy of discovery. I Hope subject discussion would highlight basic theme behind the myth of theory of evolution. (Dr Raza ) “Either someone made the world, or the world made itself”. (?) The ideology behind creation and intention of the creator, in the light and opinion of the most exemplified creation, is still the subject of stunning and starring fact as reality which is fencing under theoretical abbreviation of initial presumed letters as assumption. Assumptions, observations, predictions, postulates, theories and fictitious law that are yet to be made the chapter of verses, has given circadian stoop in the contest and context of research, as coincidence and belief retaliated the science of creation in to the most illegitimate controversy. What should not be the chapter of conflict has unduly been dragged in to the theme of disbelief thereby, managing to curtail the vantage of complex domain of research. It is very true that no research and advent curtails and disembark religion since, “spiritual belief can not take the position of material bondages”. However, out of many such discoveries, the most affected in the contest of said reservation of religious apprehend and controversy is the theory of evolution by Darwin. Interestingly, the subject, unknowingly been dragged in to the vertical sin, but if we perceive and virtually indulge the realm of the theme of the theory, nothing in the conceit of sanctity and its officious importance, has or been the words of the observation or hypothesis, as been cited and perceived in terms of issue by critics. “Misinterpretation is the basic cause of conflicts”. In my opinion “religion does not depend on science to prove its sanctity and concept but infact science route its direction towards and through the expressed conceptual slogan, otherwise”. Perhaps it is this factor that hinders most, the eventual outcome of inventory of research, thereby limiting in terms of excelling and accepting.</p>]]></content:encoded> <category><![CDATA[Theory Of Evolution]]></category> <link>https://evolutiontheory.net/TheoryOfEvolution/theory-of-evolution-by-darwin</link> <guid isPermaLink="true">https://evolutiontheory.net/TheoryOfEvolution/theory-of-evolution-by-darwin</guid> <pubDate>Wed, 30 Jul 2025 18:12:00 +0000</pubDate> </item> <item> <title>Darwin Wallace theory of evolution</title> <description>Just as belief in gravity preceded Newton many biologists believed in evolution before Darwin. The evidence supporting it was obvious but theories attempting to explain it were inadequate. Darwin and Wallace provided a theory ...</description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="/img/darwins_theory_too_big_to_publish.jpg" alt="Alfred Russel Wallace, circa" align="left" /><p>Alfred Russel Wallace developed a similar theory to Charles Darwin The life and works of the scientist who discovered evolution through natural selection at the same time as Darwin, are being celebrated in Cambridge. An exhibition will bring together Alfred Russel Wallace's surviving collections from the 19th century. Dr John van Wyhe, a Darwin expert at the University of Cambridge, calls Wallace "a fantastic scientist". A R Wallace: The Forgotten Evolutionist is at Cambridge University Museum of Zoology until 8 February 2010. Nature or nurture A self-educated scientist, the work of Alfred Wallace, and his own discovery of natural selection, have been largely overshadowed by his contemporary, Charles Darwin. Originally trained as a surveyor, Wallace's interest in science led him, in 1848, to leave England for Amazonian South America to begin a natural history collecting expedition, that took him to the Malay Archipelago. I can have no fear of having to suffer for the study of nature and the search for truth Alfred Russel Wallace, 1861 It was the plants and animals encountered in this area that helped to clarify Wallace's thoughts on evolution and natural selection. Dr John van Wyhe, based at the University of Cambridge, and author of Darwin Online, maintains that Wallace is just as deserving as being the discoverer and author of that theory. He explained to BBC Radio Cambridgeshire: "On what is now known as 'Wallace's Line', he discovered that on one side of a strait you'd get some creatures that simply weren't present on the other side. Dr John van Wyhe is planning to create a Wallace Online website "The environments seemed pretty much the same - same trees, same jungle... it was puzzles like these that led him to conclude that evolution had happened." The theory Both Wallace and Darwin had been working independently on their evolutionary theories for a number of years when Wallace wrote to Darwin in 1858 - from Indonesia, where he was working in the field - detailing his own theory. This was a year before On the Origin of Species was published.</p>]]></content:encoded> <category><![CDATA[Theory Of Evolution]]></category> <link>https://evolutiontheory.net/TheoryOfEvolution/darwin-wallace-theory-of-evolution</link> <guid isPermaLink="true">https://evolutiontheory.net/TheoryOfEvolution/darwin-wallace-theory-of-evolution</guid> <pubDate>Thu, 10 Jul 2025 18:11:00 +0000</pubDate> </item> <item> <title>Proof of evolution Charles Darwin</title> <description>But let's be clear: Intelligent-design theory is not science. The proof is in the pudding. Scientists, including scientists who are Christians, do not use IDT when they do science because it offers nothing in the way of testable ...</description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="/img/natural_history_museum_to_showcase_its.jpg" alt="Charles Darwin's pigeons:" align="left" /><p>At first sight, the peppered moth (Biston betularia) is an unremarkable creature: a night flying moth which favours temperate climates hiding on twigs and tree trunks during the day. Charles Darwin's Origin of Species Yet this humble insect found itself at the centre of a worldwide debate about the origins of life: Did we evolve through a process of natural selection, as Charles Darwin proposed? Or is the peppered moth, and therefore all life including Man, the work of a divine Creator? Evolution In the early 19th Century, the peppered moth was known to most naturalists, including Charles Darwin, as a predominantly white-winged moth liberally speckled with black. Then in 1848, as the dark satanic mills covered swathes of northern England in sooty black smoke, a black variant of the moth was discovered in Manchester. 1830: industrial Manchester By 1895, 95% of the Mancunian peppered moths were black. This dark form spread across industrial Britain until the Victorian entomologist JW Tutt suggested that the prevalence of the dark form of the moth was due to it being better camouflaged on dark sooty surfaces than the lighter variant. Sure enough, following the 1956 Clean Air Act, the black form of the moth began to decline with the return of the white form which was bettered camouflaged on lichen-covered tree bark. Creationism To decades of schoolchildren, the adaptation of the peppered moth in response to changes in its environment has been held up as an example of evolution in action. Not so, however, said critics of Darwin who claimed that the science was not as black and white as it seemed. "That is why the anti-evolution lobby attacks the peppered moth story. They are frightened that too many people will be able to understand." Professor Mike Majerus Seizing on a controversy surrounding a scientific study by Bernard Kettlewell on the peppered moth in the 1950s, anti-evolutionists began to question Darwin’s theory on the origin of species itself.</p>]]></content:encoded> <category><![CDATA[Biography]]></category> <link>https://evolutiontheory.net/Biography/proof-of-evolution-charles-darwin</link> <guid isPermaLink="true">https://evolutiontheory.net/Biography/proof-of-evolution-charles-darwin</guid> <pubDate>Fri, 20 Jun 2025 18:10:00 +0000</pubDate> </item> <item> <title>Charles Darwin and anthropology</title> <description>ScienceDaily (Oct. 8, 2009) Among the many surprises associated with the discovery of the oldest known, nearly complete skeleton of a hominid is the finding that this species took its first steps toward bipedalism not on the ...</description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="/img/the_mermaids_tale_a_new_curriculum.jpg" alt="(witness Charles Darwin)" align="left" /><p>Not very surprising given his nationality. I guess there is a small chance of a non-paternity event in 4 transmission events, so the result is probably not as good as e.g., exhuming Charles Darwin himself and testing him directly, but that's probably just nitpicking. DISCOVERING THE ORIGINS OF CHARLES DARWIN Today, 200 years after his birth, DNA technology has helped determine who Darwin’s ancient ancestors were. Darwin’s great-great-grandson, Chris Darwin, 48, who lives in the Blue Mountains near Sydney, took a Genographic Project public participation cheek swab test analyzing his “Y” chromosome. According to Dr. Spencer Wells, project director of the Genographic Project, a research partnership between National Geographic and IBM with field support from the Waitt Family Foundation, Darwin’s deep ancestry shows his ancestors left Africa around 45, 000 years ago. “I couldn’t wait to find out my family’s deep ancestry. I suspect that most people would be fascinated to know their family history over the past 60, 000 years. After all, how can you understand who you really are, if you don’t know where you have come from?, ” Chris Darwin said. The test revealed that Chris Darwin, and therefore his paternal great-great-grandfather, Charles Darwin, are from Haplogroup R1b, one of the most common European male lineages. “Approximately 70 percent of men in southern England belong to Haplogroup R1b, and in parts of Ireland and Spain that number exceeds 90 percent, ” Wells said.</p>]]></content:encoded> <category><![CDATA[Natural Selection]]></category> <link>https://evolutiontheory.net/NaturalSelection/charles-darwin-and-anthropology</link> <guid isPermaLink="true">https://evolutiontheory.net/NaturalSelection/charles-darwin-and-anthropology</guid> <pubDate>Sat, 31 May 2025 18:09:00 +0000</pubDate> </item> <item> <title>Charles Darwin and Herbert Spencer</title> <description>British philosopher and sociologist, Herbert Spencer was a major figure in the intellectual life of the Victorian era. He was one of the principal proponents of evolutionary theory in the mid nineteenth century, and his ...</description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="/img/herbert_spencer_wikipedia_the_free.jpg" alt="Period were expressed in" align="left" /><p>Spencer and the Theory of Evolution The idea of something changing naturally isn't a new idea, but one that explained with his theory of evolution. Herbert Spencer , an English sociologist, took Darwin's theory and applied it to how societies change and evolve over time. As a sociologist, Spencer did not feel the need to correct or improve society, for he felt that societies were bound to change automatically. Societies can be compared to organisms in that both have three main systems Spencer took the theory of evolution one step beyond biology and applied it to say that societies were organisms that progress through changes similar to that of a living species. It was Spencer's philosophy that societies (like organisms) would begin simple and then progress to a more complex form. Spencer also found similarities between animal organisms and societies in that both had three main systems. The first system is the regulative system. In animals, that would be the . In societies, it would be government that regulates everything. The second system is the sustaining system. For animals, that's the giving and receiving of nourishment. For societies, that would be industry - jobs, money, economy and those sorts of things. The third system would be the . In animals, that would be the veins and arteries. are exchanged. Survival of the Fittest It was Herbert Spencer, not Darwin, who coined the phrase 'survival of the fittest' due to the fact that he believed human behavior was designed in a way that strives for self-preservation. Darwin later used the term 'survival of the fittest' in his edition of Origins of the Species . The theory of social Darwinism created the thinking of the 'survival of the fittest' as that the strongest and the fittest should survive and flourish in society, and the weak should be allowed to die out. This allowed Spencer to believe that the rich and powerful became so because they were better-suited to the social and economic climate of the time. He believed it was natural or normal that the strong survived at the cost of the weak. Spencer believed that it was natural for the strong to survive at the cost of the weak The negative side of believing in social Darwinism is the false concept that if something naturally happens then it is alright or good that humans do it as well. On the extreme side, this thinking is part of what led to the rise of the practice of eugenics with the Nazi party in Germany or the American eugenics movement of 1910-1930. On the positive side, social Darwinism led to the creation of programs that allowed deserving participants to receive resources that would help them change their dire circumstances. Structural-Functionalist Theorist Spencer is one of the top three sociologists who influenced the thinking of the structural-functional perspective . This influence is placed right alongside those of Auguste Comte, the founder of sociology, and Emile Durkheim.</p>]]></content:encoded> <category><![CDATA[Natural Selection]]></category> <link>https://evolutiontheory.net/NaturalSelection/charles-darwin-and-herbert-spencer</link> <guid isPermaLink="true">https://evolutiontheory.net/NaturalSelection/charles-darwin-and-herbert-spencer</guid> <pubDate>Sun, 11 May 2025 17:58:00 +0000</pubDate> </item> <item> <title>Charles Darwin One Liners</title> <description>It may be surprising to learn that the father of modern evolutionary theory had doubts about his proposed explanation for life’s diversity. In an article entitled “Darwin’s Doubt, ” I address Charles Darwin’s worries ...</description> <content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="/img/on_this_day_in_1836_charles.jpg" alt="On This Day in 1836: Charles" align="left" /><p>It may be surprising to learn that the father of modern evolutionary theory had doubts about his proposed explanation for life’s diversity. In an article entitled “Darwin’s Doubt, ” I address Charles Darwin’s worries about the philosophical implications of his biological theory. For example, he wrote: With me the horrid doubt always arises whether the convictions of man’s mind, which has been developed from the mind of the lower animals, are of any value or at all trustworthy. Would any one trust in the convictions of a monkey’s mind, if there are any convictions in such a mind?1 Consistent with Darwin’s original uneasiness, a growing contingent of theists think it is irrational to believe in evolutionary naturalism in particular. I outline three reasons for this skepticism. 1. Naturalism Postulates a Nonrational Source for Human Rationality According to the presumptions of science, an effect requires an adequate and sufficient cause, and the effect cannot be greater than the cause. But in the case of evolution, the effect of human intelligence is magnitudes (exponentially) greater than its supposed cause. 2. Evolution Promotes a Species’ Survivability, Not Its True Beliefs Evolution functioned only to enhance a particular organism’s adaptation to its environment—thus promoting that species’ continued existence. What a particular species believes about its environment is nonessential to the process. Evolutionary naturalism appears to lead to inevitable insecurity concerning the truth of one’s beliefs. 3. False Beliefs Illustrate Evolutionary Naturalism’s Epistemological Unreliability Attributing humanity’s false religious convictions (from the naturalist perspective) to the evolutionary process only adds suspicion to Darwin’s original doubt. If evolution is responsible for humankind’s virtually universal religious impulse—which from a naturalistic point of view is patently false (and even pernicious, according to Dawkins)—then history shows that false beliefs about reality have promoted human survivability more than true beliefs.</p>]]></content:encoded> <category><![CDATA[Natural Selection]]></category> <link>https://evolutiontheory.net/NaturalSelection/charles-darwin-one-liners</link> <guid isPermaLink="true">https://evolutiontheory.net/NaturalSelection/charles-darwin-one-liners</guid> <pubDate>Mon, 21 Apr 2025 17:57:00 +0000</pubDate> </item> </channel></rss>If you would like to create a banner that links to this page (i.e. this validation result), do the following:
Download the "valid RSS" banner.
Upload the image to your own server. (This step is important. Please do not link directly to the image on this server.)
Add this HTML to your page (change the image src attribute if necessary):
If you would like to create a text link instead, here is the URL you can use:
http://www.feedvalidator.org/check.cgi?url=https%3A//evolutiontheory.net/feed/rss/
