Could Britain's Most Famous Atheist Be on the Way to Belief?

Belief in the theory of evolution is no reason for atheism as Dawkins supposes: Darwin himself insisted that he had never been an atheist

Richard Dawkins: 'I would describe myself as a secular Christian' (AP)

On Easter Monday, the Telegraph published a Letter to the Editor from around 50 leading atheists, predictably including such names as Philip Pullman, Peter Tatchell, Polly Toynbee, Anthony Grayling, Evan Harris, and on and on: from my own point of view, a list of many of my least favourite bien pensant Lefties.

It began as follows: “Sir – We respect the Prime Minister’s right to his religious beliefs and the fact that they necessarily affect his own life as a politician. However, we object to his characterisation of Britain as a ‘Christian country’ and the negative consequences for politics and society that this engenders…. Britain is not a ‘Christian country’. Repeated surveys, polls and studies show that most of us as individuals are not Christian in our beliefs or our religious identities.”

One name, however, among those listed beneath this absurd farrago was conspicuous by its absence: that of the most famous atheist of them all: Richard Dawkins. How come?

Read more at the Catholic Herald  >>

I’m a Direct Descendant of Darwin, But I Have Discovered the Beauty of the Catholic Faith

The author’s great-great-great grandfather is a New Atheist hero, but she is a Catholic apologist 

From the Catholic Herald (UK)
By Laura Keynes

A first edition of Charles Darwin's On the Origins of Species (PA)

‘Are you related to the economist?” People sometimes ask when they see my surname. I explain that, yes, John Maynard Keynes is my great-great-uncle – his brother Geoffrey married Margaret Darwin, my great-grandmother. “So you’re related to Darwin too?” Yes, he’s my great-great-great grandfather. Eyes might fall on the cross around my neck: “And you’re a Christian?” Yes, a Catholic. “How does a Darwin end up Catholic?”

The question genuinely seems to puzzle people. After all, Darwin ushered in a new era of doubt with his theory of evolution, and the Bloomsbury Group, of which Keynes was a part, influenced modern attitudes to feminism and sexuality. How can I be a product of this culture, and yet Catholic? The implication is that simple exposure to my ancestors’ life work should have shaken me out of my backwards error.

Descendant of Charles Darwin Becomes a Catholic Apologist

Laura Keynes

By Ed West

A direct descendant of Charles Darwin has become a Catholic apologist.

Laura Keynes, a great-great-great-granddaughter of the English naturalist, has joined Catholic Voices, the project set up to speak up for the Church in the media

She writes in this week’s Catholic Herald about how she returned to her childhood Catholic faith after a period of agnosticism.

The daughter of an atheist father and a mother who had converted to Catholicism but later became a Buddhist, she was baptised Catholic. But she says she drifted into agnosticism in her teens and “away from any contact with the Church”.

When she began studying for a doctorate in philosophy at Oxford she started to “reassess those values. Relationships, feminism, moral relativism, the sanctity and dignity of human life”.

Read more at The Catholic Herald >>

Darwin Dynasty Cursed By Inbreeding

No, this is not the latest news release from the Christina Jeffrey for Congress campaign, but rather the finding of a study by Ohio State University and Spain's Universidad de Santiago de Compestela.

From LiveScience
By Zoё Macintosh

Charles Darwin's family suffered from the deleterious effects of inbreeding, suggests a new study that serves as ironic punctuation to the evolutionary theorist's life work.

Pioneer of the theory that genetic traits affect survival of both individual organisms and species, Darwin wondered in his own lifetime if his marriage to first cousin Emma Wedgwood was having "the evil effects of close interbreeding" that he had observed in plants and animals.

Three of their children died before age 10, two from infectious diseases. The survivors were often ill, and out of the six long-term marriages that resulted, only half produced any children. According to researchers at Ohio State University and Spain's Universidad de Santiago de Compestela, that alone is a "suspicious" sign that the Darwins suffered from reproductive problems.

Inbreeding can cause serious health problems, because it increases the chances of successful gene expression for diseases otherwise rare or muted in an individual's pedigree.

The new study, detailed in the journal Bioscience, fed genealogical data on the Darwin-Wedgwood link into a specialized computer program, which spit out a "coefficient of inbreeding," or the probability that an individual received two identical copies of a gene resulting from marriages among relatives. (Some genetic disorders are caused by recessive genes, which means they require two copies of a gene in order for the trait to manifest.)

Results revealed that inbreeding was a possible factor in the offspring's poor health. Darwin's children suffered from a "moderate degree" of inbreeding, the researchers concluded. When expanded to other branches of the family tree and four consecutive generations, the analysis found an even stronger association between child mortality and incestuousness.

Darwin's mother and grandfather were also Wedgwoods, and his mother's parents were third cousins.

The study relied solely on birth and death records. In the late 19th century it was still fashionable for wealthy families to intermarry over generations. As would be expected of prominent families, their genealogical records were also in excellent condition.

When genealogical records are not available, scientists interested in genetic heritage must rely on DNA and radiological analysis of bone samples — a type of research recently utilized for mummies.

In fact, this past February, an international team announced that a high degree of inbreeding was the likely explanation for boy pharoah King Tutankamun's early death and frail, club footed frame. And research published last year showed the termination of the Habsburg dynasty that ruled Spain for nearly 200 years may have been a result of frequent inbreeding.