Yet modern biology has revealed that cells are preternaturally sophisticated assemblages — literally automated, miniaturized factories. How could the evidence have been overwhelming but now orthodoxy ...

“Social Darwinism, a popular topic in the 19th and early 20th centuries,” reported the Associated Press on April 5, “is making its way into modern American politics.” The news peg for the story was ...

The word Darwinism has become a synecdoche for all the mechanisms implied by the Malthusian concept of “survival of the fittest” — the notion that the strongest members of a system survive to ...

Victorian secular thinkers imagined that when God had faded away, morality would fill the space that was left. But when theism has gone the very idea of a categorical morality becomes meaningless. At ...

Jennifer Rubin, blogging at the Washington Post, has this to say about President Obama's use of the term "thinly veiled social Darwinism" to describe Paul Ryan's budget: "Let's be clear about two ...

It’s not surprising that quantum physics has a reputation for being weird and counterintuitive. The world we’re living in sure doesn’t feel quantum mechanical. And until the 20th century, everyone ...

This is an edition of Time-Travel Thursdays, a journey through The Atlantic’s archives to contextualize the present and surface delightful treasures. Sign up here. Gray, a scholar and naturalist, ...

Narratives like Paul Ryan’s “maker vs. taker” narrative is resurrected Social Darwinism, where the poor are lazy and the rich are virtuous. Conservative and libertarian arguments about social spending ...

“Thinly-veiled Social Darwinism” has emerged as the attack line of choice of President Obama on the theme of the budget proposal of Republican Rep. Paul Ryan. Ryan’s budget seeks to slow the growth of ...