Falacy of Seeking Too Much Purpose in Evolutionary Adapta...

Darwin’s concept of evolution is centered on natural selection, or survival of the fittest [1]. Although Darwin did realize that organisms possess structures and even entire organs that might not have an extant function, as is the case of rudiments [2], on the whole, selectionist thinking has heavily dominated the biological literature ever since. In its extreme but not uncommon form, the selectionist, or adaptationist, paradigm perceives every trait as an adaptation. Under this view of bio...

 Religion and Science Do Not Conflict

Many people find the topic of evolution and religion troubling and confusing. Some were raised in very strict churches that preached that evolution is atheistic and that to even think about the evidence of evolution is sinful. Fundamentalists have long tried to drive a wedge between traditional Christians and science, arguing that their interpretation of the Bible is the only one and that anyone who accepts the evidence for evolution is an atheist. But this is not true. The Catholic Church,...

 Science Runs Forward, Religion Runs Backwards

Let me posit a difference between religion and science. Religion: Future>Present>Past Science: Past>Present>Future. Let me explain. Religion, as it has traditionally been understood in its institutional guise, begins with the dream of a comforting future. An escape from the apparently inescapable reality of death. Which impacts our daily lives in the present. Determines, for example, codes of morality, inspires great deeds of goodness or mayhem. Mandates rites and rituals. ...

 Predators Prevent Their Prey from Suffering

The appointment of death by the agency of carnivora, as the ordinary termination of animal existence, appears therefore in its main results to be a dispensation of benevolence; it deducts much from the aggregate amount of the pain of universal death; it abridges, and almost annihilates, throughout the brute creation, the misery of disease, and accidental injuries, and lingering decay; and imposes such salutary restraint upon excessive increase of numbers, that the supply of food maintains per...