Philosophy Colloquium Thursday to discuss: Are human beings 'cosmic accident' or divine plan?

Philosophy Colloquium Thursday to discuss: Are human beings 'cosmic accident' or divine plan?

Dr. Michael Rota of the UST Philosophy Department will give a talk, "Does Evolutionary Biology Show That Human Beings are Just a Cosmic Accident?" in the next Philosophy Colloquium.

The discussion will be held from noon to 1 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 27, in the auditorium, Room 126, John R. Roach Center for the Liberal Arts.

The late Dr. Stephen Jay Gould, a renowned and sometimes controversial author and paleontologist from Harvard – whom Newsweek called the "bulldog of evolutionary biology" – and Dr. Daniel Dennett, author, professor and co-director of the Center for Cognitive Thinking at Tufts University, and others, have argued that what we now know from evolutionary biology that human beings may be just a "cosmic accident."

Rota's position is that Gould and Dennett are mistaken. He'll explain how evolutionary theory and the thesis that human beings are the result of a divine providential plan are compatible.