A Doubting Thomas

by Phillip E. Johnson

When I first heard of the title and subtitle of Thomas Nagel's Mind and Cosmos: Why the Materialist Neo-Darwinian Conception of Nature Is Almost Certainly False, I knew I had to read the book, and probably comment upon it in Touchstone. The subtitle succinctly states the thesis I have been advancing ever since 1987, when I first took up writing about Darwinism while on a sabbatical leave in London from my day job as a professor of law at the University of California in Berkeley.

Thomas Nagel is an eminent American philosopher, currently university professor of philosophy and law at New York University. He is well-known for his critiques of reductionist accounts of the mind, particularly in his 1974 essay, "What Is It Like to Be a Bat?"

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Phillip E. Johnson is Professor of Law (emeritus) at the University of California at Berkeley. He is the author of Darwin on Trial, The Wedge of Truth, The Right Questions (InterVarsity Press), and other books challenging the naturalistic assumptions that dominate modern culture. He is a contributing editor of Touchstone.

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