CONTACT: Michael Ruse(850) 644-0230; [email protected]
By Andy Lindstromand Frank Stephenson
September 2001
DARWIN AND CHRISTIANITY: THE EVOLUTION OF COMPROMISE?
TALLAHASSEE, Fla.--Consider the colorful legacy of Charles Darwin, a mild-mannered British naturalist whose brush with obscurity 150 years ago was salvaged by the oddities he saw on a sailing trip to the Pacific's Galapagos Islands.
Darwin's legacy has survived a full century of scrutiny and criticism by the best from science and religion. Yet, for many, Darwin's message still divides both camps. Is there anything that can bring both sides together?
Noted Florida State University philosopher of science Michael Ruse thinks there just might be, if reasonable people can only drop their prejudices long enough to talk.
Ruse, a well-known Darwinist, strives to make his case in "Can a Darwinian Be a Christian? The Relationship Between Science and Religion" (Cambridge University Press, 2001), the latest of his 16 books on the subject. The book's key argument for conciliation between Darwinists and Christians lies in the still-young field of sociobiology, in which such traditionally religious notions as human morality, ethics, free will and even original sin are traced to biological imperatives.
For more information, see "The Great Darwin Divide," a feature article published in the latest issue of FSU's research magazine, "Research in Review," at http://www.research.fsu.edu/ResearchR/issue2001/darwindivide.html.
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