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Channel: William Carroll, Author at Public Discourse
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Free Will and Biology

Perhaps only scientists read essays published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, but at times it contains commentary on topics of broad general interest. In a special "Inaugural...

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Stephen Hawking’s Creation Confusion

"Spontaneous creation is the reason there is something rather than nothing, why the Universe exists, why we exist. It is not necessary to invoke God . . . to set the Universe going." Such is the...

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Arsenic and the Meaning of Life

Earlier this month an astrobiologist from NASA, Felisa Wolfe-Simon, reported that bacteria from the bottom of Lake Mono in California had been nourished in a laboratory for several months on a diet...

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Global Warming, Evolution, and Presidential Politics: The Long Shadow of Galileo

Questions posed to conservative candidates about their commitments to issues of modern science—or to what is perceived to be modern science (such as global warming and evolution)—are frequently asked...

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The Scientific Revolution and Contemporary Ethics

Discussions about ethics and the kind of public policy that should follow from sound ethical principles can appear to be endless when there is fundamental disagreement about the first principles from...

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Landscapes of Nothingness

Is the ancient adage—that from nothing, nothing comes—true? Must there always have been something, existing in some way, in order for there now to exist anything at all? Ancient Greek scientists and...

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The Sperm of Sea Urchins and the Directedness of Natural Processes

The March press release from the Max Planck Institute in Germany was certainly provocative: "Sperm can do calculus!" Not least because the sperm in question is that of the sea urchin—engaging in...

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Neither Darwin Nor God?

Can we have a comprehensive view of nature if we do not include an adequate account of consciousness, cognition, and value? Central to the orthodoxy of reductionist materialism is that these features...

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Is Religion Outdated in the Twenty-First Century?

The annual meeting in January of the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland, brought together an elite group of world leaders to consider the “state of the world” and to offer various...

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Who Am I? The Building of Bionic Man

London's Science Museum has an entire gallery—dubbed “Who Am I?”—dedicated to the latest advances in genetics and neuroscience. In early February the gallery welcomed Rex, the bionic man. Rex is short...

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Illusions of Unity? Mind, Value, and Nature

There have been few books in recent years that have created as much discussion, in the academic world at least, as Thomas Nagel’s Mind and Cosmos: Why the Materialist Neo-Darwinian Conception of Nature...

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Metaphysics and the Experience of God: The Meditations of David Bentley Hart

One can imagine the emperor Marcus Aurelius (121-180 AD) sitting at night in his tent, pitched on one of the far-flung frontiers of the Roman Empire, making yet another entry in what would become his...

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The Limits of Life: Biology and the Philosophy of Nature

What are the limits within which life can exist? What are the limits of the natural sciences in explaining life and its origins? I recently attended a fascinating lecture at Oxford on the existence of...

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Scholastic Metaphysics: Edward Feser’s Introduction

Upon entering a popular bookstore, it is not unusual to find a section devoted to “New Age Spirituality” located next to one labeled “Metaphysics.” Indeed, in the popular imagination, the word...

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Religion in the Age of Evolution: Shaking the Pillars?

In a culture that sees science as the pinnacle of human knowledge, there continues to be lively discussion about the place of religious belief. Some believers think that their faith is threatened by...

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Thomas Aquinas in China

The number, depth, and rapidity of changes in Chinese society over the last decade may obscure an unusual change within the academy: a markedly increased interest in the thought of Thomas Aquinas....

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Souls Matter

For one who thinks that there is nothing more to reality than what can be detected and explained by the empirical sciences, discourse about the soul, especially the human soul, remains at best a quaint...

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Mind the Gap: Neuroscience, Transhumanism, and Human Nature

Contemporary developments in neuroscience and other natural and cognitive sciences can illuminate our understanding of the brain and its operations. They can also inform wide-ranging speculations about...

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Science, Philosophy, and God

Understanding what natural entities are—and how they are the kinds of things that they are—is a central goal of all scientific endeavor. It is an endeavor that cannot be undertaken without at least an...

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Bird Brains and Cross-Species Empathy

Evolutionary biology tells us that dinosaurs are the distant ancestors of birds, who existed well before the arrival of human beings in the grand scale of life on Earth. Increasing evidence about the...

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