Posts Tagged ‘Charles Darwin’
Poetry Friday: “The Key”
May 26, 2017
I love this poem for its exuberance. The fat bee, “big as a blackberry,” bumping heavily against the pane. The impossibility of an acorn’s power. The very idea of “infant waterfalls.” Each vivid, particular thing of beauty from the natural world that Friman presents to us bears itself simply and humbly—yet appears remarkable when dressed…
Read MoreRay Bradbury Lives Forever
June 23, 2015
On one level this is a story about vocation—a baptism by electricity—but it is also a story about time and eternity, death and resurrection—themes that would preoccupy Bradbury over a writing career that spanned seven decades.
Read MoreScience and Faith: an Evolving Conversation
February 24, 2015
We are at a gathering of scientists, religious leaders, and people who write about science and religion. We are discussing how people in these often counterposed domains can collaborate for the betterment of mankind.
Read MoreLiving With Darwin
February 10, 2015
I’ve never met Dr. Kitcher, but it is easy to tell from his writing that he is possessed of more in the way of patience and curiosity, intellectually speaking, than most intellectuals. As proof of this assertion, I submit a little story he tells in the preface ofLiving with Darwin. Flipping through a copy of TV Guide one day in the 1970s while babysitting his young son, Kitcher came across an advertisement for a book that claimed it would “set its readers straight on the question of ‘origins.’”
Read MoreEiseley, Darwin, and the Weird Portentous
August 1, 2014
Loren Eiseley was born in 1907. He died in 1977. For many years and until his death, he was the Benjamin Franklin Professor of Anthropology and History of Science at the University of Pennsylvania. A scientist, he was particularly interested in the study of the origins of human kind.
Read MoreCreation, Evolution, and the Over-Active Imagination, Part 1
March 26, 2014
Much is said these days about the importance of the imagination for virtually every human activity, from mowing a lawn to composing songs. And when it comes to the creationist-evolutionist disputes, it won’t be long before one side accuses the other of lacking imagination. Usually it’s the evolutionist who blames the Bible-reading creationist for a plodding literalism. And this is just where the arts are needed, so it is said, because they help us take myth, symbolism, and fictional narrative seriously—just what we need if we’re going to read Genesis properly.
Read MoreThe Evolution of Evolutionary Language: The Imago Dei Project
October 25, 2013
I’m a word-watcher. I like noticing which words are winning the popularity contest in our general culture, then tracing back how (and why) they achieved this winning position.
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