Does human life have got any meaning? Will the question actually make sense today? For years and years, the question of this is or reason for human lifestyle was assumed by scholars and theologians to truly have a religious solution: life has meaning because human beings were made in the image of a good god. In the 19th century, however, Charles Darwin’s theory of advancement transformed everything-and the individual organism was noticed to become more machine than nature. Ever since, with the rise of research and decrease of religious belief, about A Signifying to Life there’s been developing interest-and growing doubt-about whether individual life does indeed possess meaning. If it can, where might we think it is?

The historian and philosopher of science Michael Ruse investigates this question, and wonders whether we can find a new meaning alive within Darwinian views of individual nature. If God no more exists-or if God no longer cares-rather than marketing a bleak nihilism, many Darwinians believe we are able to convert Darwin into a type of secular humanism. Ruse points out that, within a tradition heading back to the time of Darwin himself, and displayed today with the evolutionist E. O. Wilson, progression is seen as progress-‘from monad to man.’