Abstract:With personal anecdotes, the author contrasts his natural pessimism with the outlook of his mother, a lifelong Pollyanna, and investigates the source of this core difference. He argues that, despite its scientific veracity and likely implications that nothing is cosmically ‘meant to be,’ Darwin’s theory of natural selection neither conclusively resolves metaphysical debates concerning the existence of god nor the existential question of which life perspective is most appropriate. Furthermore, based on interdis… Show more
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