He has written and taught extensively on the history of medicine and science. He holds degrees in library science from the University of Kentucky and history from California State University, Dominguez Hills. Flannery is professor emeritus of UAB Libraries, University of Alabama at Birmingham.

Michael Flannery Fellow, Center for Science and Culture Michael A. Can We Talk? Tom WolfeвЂ™s The Kingdom of Speech.

Wood, Peter, Geoffrey Clarfield, Glynn Clustred, Carol Iannone.

Review of The Selfish Gene, by Richard Dawkins. Explaining Human Uniqueness: Genome Interactions with Environment, Behavior and Culture. Purpose & Desire: What Makes Something вЂњAliveвЂќ and Why Modern Darwinism Has Failed to Explain It. Modularity, Comparative Cognition and Human Uniqueness. The Presence of the Past: The Memory of Nature. Chance or Purpose? Creation, Evolution, and a Rational Faith. Behavioral and Brain SciencesВ 31: 109-129. DarwinвЂ™s Mistake: Explaining the Discontinuity Between Human and Nonhuman Minds. Neo-Darwinism, the Modern Synthesis and Selfish Genes: Are They of Use in Physiology? The Journal of PhysiologyВ 589(5): 1007-1015. A Fortunate Universe: Life in a Finely Tuned Cosmos. Privileged Planet: How Our Place in the Cosmos is Designed for Discovery. Corrections to Chance Fluctuations: Quantum Mind in Biological Evolution? Rivista di BiologiaВ 102(3): 421-448. NatureвЂ™s Destiny: How the Laws of Biology Reveal Purpose in the Universe. OwenвЂ™s Ape & DarwinвЂ™s Bulldog: Beyond Darwinism and Creationism. Can Evolution Explain How Minds Work? NatureВ 458: On PurposeВ demonstrates the fine line between polemical drumbeating and wishful thinking that makes an obstreperous hedgehog like Ruse such interesting company. Interesting, instructive, and at times exasperating, it would make a wonderful required reading for any upper level undergraduate or graduate seminar on the history and philosophy of science or even for seminary students ready to sharpen their apologetic knives. Whatever else might be said of Ruse and his work, like all his books this one is worth having on the shelf. Ruse certainly is not there yet, but his admission to being вЂњsympathetic to a panpsychic perspectiveвЂќ (235) might reveal some chinks forming in the atheistвЂ™s armor. He fits what the Jewish author/philosopher Israel Zwangwill once said of atheist George Bernard Shaw: The way he вЂњbelieves in himself is very refreshing in these atheistic days when so many people believe in no God at all.вЂќ In fact, Shaw might be a good match because the Irish playwright eventually exchanged his atheism for a vague mysticism. RuseвЂ™s cocksure certainties on everything from evolution to religion are sometimes amusing and often bewildering.

In todayвЂ™s pop parlance I regard Ruse as a frenemyВ (a writer whose work is always worth reading and indeed a joy to read, but always somehow fundamentally wrong and wrongheaded). Ruse and Barfield could not be more different as writers and thinkers, but parallels are, after all, not affinities.

It is as if he spoke your language but mispronounced itвЂќ ( 1991, 110). Lewis once said of his Anthroposophical friend Owen Barfield: вЂњhe has read all the right books but has got the wrong thing out of every one. Moreover, I have learned a great deal of history and philosophy of science from him over the years. Certainly RuseвЂ™s interests have always been my interests, and his writing style is unfailingly lively and engaging. Overall, On Purpose left this reviewer conflicted. I have been reviewing a book by philosopher Michael Ruse. Photo: A hedgehog, by Gibe, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

Michael ruse