textbook problems-reference details

Finally dug up my photocopy:

Levine and Miller. 1992. Biology Discovering Life Vol. 1: Core Concepts. Heath and Company. p. 152.

Claims that “Darwin knew that accepting {this??-edge cut off} his theory required believing in philosophical naturalism, the conviction that matter is the stuff of all existence and that all mental and spiritual phenomena are its by-products. Darwinian evolution was not only purposeless but also heartless-a process in which the rigors of nature ruthlessly eliminate the unfit. ...Worst of all, there was no divine plan to guide us.”

Then claims that “we are ...masters of our own fate in a universe where human action can change the future.”

Then claims that Darwin and others exemplify religious scientists who find “no less wonder in a god that directed the laws of nature than in one that circumvented them.”

Thus, there's an explicit claim that evolution requires atheism, then a description of an impersonal process as ruthless, then claims that ruthless elimination of the unfit means we're masters of our own fates, then that all this is compatible with various religions.

Perhaps Miller did not read the final version of this section?

    Dr. David Campbell
    Old Seashells
    University of Alabama
    Biodiversity & Systematics
    Dept. Biological Sciences
    Box 870345
    Tuscaloosa, AL 35487-0345 USA
    bivalve@mail.davidson.alumlink.com

That is Uncle Joe, taken in the masonic regalia of a Grand Exalted Periwinkle of the Mystic Order of Whelks-P.G. Wodehouse, Romance at Droitgate Spa
Received on Mon Feb 7 22:32:44 2005