Lives on Earth

Darwin

  • Humboldt’s Vision of Nature

    Our ecological imagination—our sense of nature as a global, interconnected and sacred whole—has roots in many sources. A relatively unfamiliar one is the work of Alexander von Humboldt (1769-1859), a manic, prolific explorer and naturalist of the German Romantic era. Humboldt’s… Continue reading

  • Darwin and the Buddha: a Comparison

    The teachings of Charles Darwin and Gautama Buddha are worlds apart. Yet their descriptions of life bear similarities to each other and even interlock in ways that expand my view of each.  I’ll focus this comparison on  On the Origin of… Continue reading

  • Darwin’s Dark Vision: “Ten Thousand Sharp Wedges”

    Darwin has gotten to me. The third chapter of On the Origin of Species has changed how I look at nature. The name of the chapter sounds quaint at first: The Struggle for Existence. But it is an apt name… Continue reading

  • Darwin and the Roots of Morality

    Wikipedia’s entry on “Evolution of Morality” points to the issue: “In everyday life, morality is typically associated with human behavior rather than animal behavior.our impression may ve that animals are drien soley by the drive and .. to survive and… Continue reading

  • “The reckless, the degraded, and the vicious”: Was Darwin a Bigot?

    If you’ve felt positive on the whole about whatever you know about evolution and natural selection and Charles Darwin, you’ll want a deep breath before reading this passage: With savages, the weak in body or mind are soon eliminated; and… Continue reading

  • Suffering

    This blog looks at ways in which the history of living things may be relevant to people’s largest questions about life. One of these questions is how to cope with suffering. Modern secularism and traditional religions differ widely in what… Continue reading