Darwins House of Cards - Tom Bethell [Audiobook]

Category: Education, Science
Language: English
Keywords: 2017 AI Biology Charles Darwin Darwinism DNA Evolution Science

Written by Tom Bethell
Read by Matthew McAuliffe
Format: MP3
Bitrate: Variable
Unabridged

In this provocative history of contemporary debates over evolution, veteran journalist Tom Bethell depicts Darwin’s theory as a 19th-century idea past its prime, propped up by logical fallacies, bogus claims, and empirical evidence that is all but disintegrating under an onslaught of new scientific discoveries. Bethell presents a concise yet wide-ranging tour of the flash points of modern evolutionary theory, investigating controversies over common descent, natural selection, the fossil record, biogeography, information theory, evolutionary psychology, artificial intelligence, and the growing intelligent design movement.

Bethell’s account is enriched by his own personal encounters with of some of our era’s leading scientists and thinkers, including Harvard biologists Stephen Jay Gould and Richard Lewontin; British paleontologist Colin Patterson; and renowned philosopher of science Karl Popper.

1. Darwinism in Our Time
2. Darwin’s Mistake
3. Darwin’s Curia at the Centenary
4. Common Descent: Fact or Theory?
5. Natural Selection: A Closer Look
6. What is the Evidence for Natural Selection?
7. On Extinction
8. Is Variation Indefinite or Limited?
9. Homology and Its Possible Causes
10. The Conundrum of Convergence
11. The Fossil Record
12. Evolution and Systematics at the American Museum
13. Intelligent Design and Information Theory
14. Darwin and the Philosophy of Materialism
15. DNA: God is in the Details
16. Lenski’s Evolving Bacteria
17. The Sociobiology Wars
18. Human Exceptionalism and Its Enemies
19. The Search for Artificial Intelligence
20. Biogeography and Darwin’s Theology
21. The Rise and Fall of Progress

8h 59mins