evolution Archives

I Read a 100-Year-Old Book on Evolution

April 12, 2020August 13, 2022Rebekah Kohlhepp

I have been excited to write this post since last May. My husband and I were on a weekend trip in State College, PA celebrating our six-year dating anniversary by visiting all the local bookstores as we like to do. In a cute café and bookstore called Webster’s, I came across a uniquely rustic book called The A B C of Evolution by Joseph McCabe. It was $20 which is above the average price for a used book, but something told me I would never find a book like this again, so I bought it. Part of what sold me was the copyright date of 1920; at the time I thought to myself that that would soon be 100 years ago! Since then I’d been waiting for the perfect time in 2020 to look back at where the study of evolution was 100 years ago.

Book Review: Origins by Lewis Dartnell

March 22, 2020November 4, 2021Rebekah Kohlhepp

The gifts I want most are typically books. My husband knows me best, so last Christmas he gave me a copy of science professor Lewis Dartnell’s Origins: How Earth’s History Shaped Human History. I always like to give special priority in my TBR list to books that John gives me, but I was intrigued by this book for several reasons, most of those reasons being the author’s tweets teasing fun facts from the book.

Book Review: The Greatest Show on Earth by Richard Dawkins

February 23, 2020November 4, 2021Rebekah Kohlhepp

If you only know of Richard Dawkins as a militant anti-theist, then you don’t know Richard Dawkins. In his purest form, the man is an enthusiastic and impassioned science communicator, and one of the biggest fans of Charles Darwin that I have ever read. (And a bigot.) This was made crystal clear to me as I read The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution. I decided to read this book when everyone on the Internet collectively made it known to me that it was an amazing, must-read book.

Book Review: Almost Human by Lee Berger

February 2, 2020October 15, 2023Rebekah Kohlhepp

A few months ago, I reviewed my now-favorite nonfiction book, Lucy: The Beginnings of Humankind by Donald Johanson and Maitland Edey. I had always been curious about human origins, but that book really ignited my interest in the topic of paleoanthropology: the study of ancient hominid fossils. At the end of my Lucy review, I wrote,

Reflections on My Personal Evolution as an Atheist

December 29, 2019January 6, 2022Rebekah Kohlhepp

Last month marks the three-year anniversary of my blog, but this week marks the end of not only a year, but a decade. I want to end this year with a little bit of introspection on who I am as an atheist.

I’ve made a few posts before on what type of atheist I am, my own personal evolution, and how my blog is changing. But I want to go into more detail about why I’m not your stereotypical atheist, even though perhaps I used to be.

Book Review: Outgrowing God by Richard Dawkins

November 10, 2019January 6, 2022Rebekah Kohlhepp

One of the first things I did when I wanted to educate myself on atheism was read The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins. Predictable, I know. I was a sophomore at the super-Christian, super-conservative Grove City College and all that I knew was that my professors hated Dawkins, so he must be doing something right. When I bought my own copy of The God Delusion, (the first book in my collection), I kept it hidden inside the cover of another, unsuspicious, book. I was still a closeted atheist at college, but more so to my Lutheran family at home.

Religion vs. Pokémon

October 27, 2019January 6, 2022Johnathan Kohlhepp

Enjoy this post written for me this week by my sweet husband!

I have been a passionate Pokémon fan for what feels like forever. My enthusiasm all started when I was given a trading card in fourth grade. That card was Cubone. Since then, I have been fascinated by the creatures, story, lore, and everything else Pokémon. But what does Pokémon have to do with an atheist blog?

Book Review: Lucy by Donald Johanson

October 13, 2019January 6, 2022Rebekah Kohlhepp

I had bought Don Johanson’s Lucy: The Beginnings of Humankind last fall, and my copy is a first edition that I had found at Cleveland’s coolest cat-inhabited bookstore, Loganberry Books. I then realized that not only was there a Lucy exhibit at the nearby Cleveland Museum of Natural History, but that the author of the book, who was also the original founder of the Lucy fossil, had been based out of that museum at the time. We also found out that it was closed for the day and we would have to come back another time.

Creationism’s Greatest Weakness

October 6, 2019January 17, 2022Rebekah Kohlhepp

For the first twenty years of my life, creationism was a fact. At least, I was taught that it was. God created the earth in six days, and anyone who tells you otherwise was maliciously and purposely lying to you. Evolution was vilified; it was not only factually incorrect, but it was morally reprehensible, as if facts could sin.

C.S. Lewis vs. Evolution

September 15, 2019January 17, 2022Rebekah Kohlhepp

A few weeks ago, I wrote a response to a presentation by young-earth creationist Jerry Bergman in which he utilized appeals to authority as his primary forms of argument that “there are a lot of scientists who are being persecuted because they don’t believe in evolution.” Among the men that he used to make his case were C.S. Lewis. On Lewis’ evolutionary stance, Bergman stated, Read more →