The tension between darwinism and, say, christian belief is acute in the way that it wouldn't have been for these earlier thinkers. It would not have occurred to people to think that religion and science were on the opposite sides of a debate. But did come about as a result of darwin. And i've always had the view tat i it's a result of the randomness that if if you thought that the genetic mutations that darwin a places it the centr of his theory.
In episode 162 of The Michael Shermer Show, Michael speaks with one of the nation’s preeminent experts on economic policy, Benjamin Friedman, about his new book Religion and the Rise of Capitalism — a major reassessment of the foundations of modern economic thinking that explores the profound influence of an until-now unrecognized force — religion.
Critics of contemporary economics complain that belief in free markets — among economists as well as many ordinary citizens — is a form of religion. And, it turns out, that in a deeper, more historically grounded sense there is something to that idea. Contrary to the conventional historical view of economics as an entirely secular product of the Enlightenment, Benjamin Friedman demonstrates that religion exerted a powerful influence from the outset.