Paul, I was out of town and without internet access when you spoke on this topic at AFS. Thanks to Ed providing you this opportunity, I'm now catching up on what I missed—I see it was a lot!
Natural theology has always been of special interest to me. In the mid-1970's, shortly after becoming an atheist, I read Hume's Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion and found it fascinating.
On the other hand, Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation is a book I had not heard of until learning about your AFS talk. In terms of intellectual history (the great conversation humans continue to have about the nature of life) it seems Vestiges is both an important intellectual milestone and significantly influential—pretty impressive for a work most of us have never heard of.
I hope you continue your research and continue to write about this. In fact, I foresee a book in your future. You write well—and the topic is inadequately explored.
Hey Ed! Thanks very much for posting all 3 parts of my AFS presentation! It was all inspired by my learning about the Vestiges book last year, and all of the controversy surrounding it. There was no other time in history when so many leading scientists tried to fight against a spectrum of scientific findings that conflicted with religious ideas. I've been a freethinker for 30 years and had never heard of Vestiges or its controversy until last year, despite having read science histories for decades from authors like Carl Sagan, Timothy Ferris, James Burke, and Bill Bryson. I found it to be the most interesting piece of history I had read in years, and want to share it with as many freethinkers as possible, so thanks again Ed for spreading this interesting knowledge!
Paul, I was out of town and without internet access when you spoke on this topic at AFS. Thanks to Ed providing you this opportunity, I'm now catching up on what I missed—I see it was a lot!
Natural theology has always been of special interest to me. In the mid-1970's, shortly after becoming an atheist, I read Hume's Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion and found it fascinating.
On the other hand, Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation is a book I had not heard of until learning about your AFS talk. In terms of intellectual history (the great conversation humans continue to have about the nature of life) it seems Vestiges is both an important intellectual milestone and significantly influential—pretty impressive for a work most of us have never heard of.
I hope you continue your research and continue to write about this. In fact, I foresee a book in your future. You write well—and the topic is inadequately explored.
Hey Ed! Thanks very much for posting all 3 parts of my AFS presentation! It was all inspired by my learning about the Vestiges book last year, and all of the controversy surrounding it. There was no other time in history when so many leading scientists tried to fight against a spectrum of scientific findings that conflicted with religious ideas. I've been a freethinker for 30 years and had never heard of Vestiges or its controversy until last year, despite having read science histories for decades from authors like Carl Sagan, Timothy Ferris, James Burke, and Bill Bryson. I found it to be the most interesting piece of history I had read in years, and want to share it with as many freethinkers as possible, so thanks again Ed for spreading this interesting knowledge!
You not only put a huge amount of effort into this--it was brilliantly effective as well. Thanks for letting me publish it on Letters... .