Quodlibet
Dinner with Darwin
by S. M. Hutchens
My father-in-law was an ornithologist who taught population biology and ecology at the local university. He was an orthodox Darwinian who believed firmly in survival of the fittest and had no problems with the predator-prey relationship. My wife's sister had a cat that was a particularly good hunter. Dad had a feeding platform set up next to the dining room windows so he could watch the birds at close range. Once at dinner we saw a lightning paw at the end of a six-foot jump that snatched a chickadee off the platform for its own dinner. Dad jumped up immediately and ran with an oath toward the front door before he remembered his principles and returned to the table.
An excellent example of how the mind compartmentalizes: the ecologist versus the bird fancier, the Senior Warden versus the Darwinian.
S. M. Hutchens is a senior editor and longtime writer for Touchstone.
Get six issues (one year) of Touchstone PLUS full online access including pdf downloads for only $39.95. That's only $3.34 per month!
Get a one-year full-access subscription to the Touchstone online archives for only $19.95. That's only $1.66 per month!
bulk subscriptions
Order Touchstone subscriptions in bulk and save $10 per sub! Each subscription includes 6 issues of Touchstone plus full online access to touchstonemag.com—including archives, videos, and pdf downloads of recent issues for only $29.95 each! Great for churches or study groups.
Transactions will be processed on a secure server.
more on evolution from the online archives
22.6—July/August 2009
on a Noble Defense Doomed by Darwinian Materialism by John G. West
22.8—November/December 2009
Looking for Beauty & Justice 150 Years After Darwin’s Classic by Charles Taliaferro
32.2—March/April 2019
Flight from the Absolute: Cynical Observations on the Postmodern West, Volume II by Paul Gosselin by Louis Markos
more from the online archives
33.2—March/April 2020
An Architectural Sign of Mere Christianity by Michael Ward
14.1—January/February 2001
The Christian Heart of Fatherhood
The Place of Marriage, Authority & Service in the Recovery of Fatherhood by John M. Haas
calling all readers
Please Donate
"There are magazines worth reading but few worth saving . . . Touchstone is just such a magazine."
—Alice von Hildebrand
"Here we do not concede one square millimeter of territory to falsehood, folly, contemporary sentimentality, or fashion. We speak the truth, and let God be our judge. . . . Touchstone is the one committedly Christian conservative journal."
—Anthony Esolen, Touchstone senior editor
