Tag: John Herschel
Darwin and the Problem of Pain
For many Enlightenment Age Europeans, the death-knell for belief in an omnipresent, interventionist God had been sounded by the great Lisbon earthquake.
The Outsider: Alfred Russel Wallace’s Reputation in the Darwinian Era
Was Alfred Wallace a “crazy” crank? Was he an undisciplined “dilettante” bemused by every fringe belief he encountered?
The Art of Concealment: Darwin and Chance
It is appropriate that Fortuna’s emblematic representation with her ubiquitous wheel should have gone on to become the prototype of the modern roulette wheel.
Natural Selection: Discovery or Invention?
Denis Diderot mooted the possibility of a creature evolving through habitual functioning into another form of life altogether.
New Cosmos Episodes: Only Part of the Story
These episodes will slip in smoothly in public school science classrooms, someday when all the schools reopen.