Occasional comments on genetics, genomics and gene expression by Steve Mount. For news and shorter, more timely, posts see "News on Genetics."
Saturday, May 14, 2005
Sean Carroll on Kojo Nnamdi
I happened to catch Sean Carroll on the Kojo Nnamdi show Thursday. He was refreshingly articulate and reasonable on the subject of evolution and religion, pointing to the middle ground and quoting the Pope. This is especially refreshing at a time when so many on the political right have confused a faith they share with much of mainstream American with political views that have no place in a civilized society. The title of this book, "Endless Forms Most Beautiful," cites an explicitly religious quote from Darwin ("There is a grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed by the Creator into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being evolved"). I haven't read the book, but I'm familiar with much of Sean Carroll's work and I suspect that he does an outstanding job of laying out that which is indeed most wonderful.