Michael Ruse with his pet, McGruff, in 2020. By Lizzie Ruse, CC BY-SA 4.0.
The influential historian and philosopher of biology Michael Ruse died on November 1, 2024, at the age of 84, according to the obituary in The Globe and Mail (November 4, 2024). Ruse was one of the founders of the field of philosophy of biology: the first of his more than 70 books was the seminal The Philosophy of Biology (1970) and he founded the field's first journal, Biology and Philosophy. He was especially interested in evolutionary biology, which he discussed in books such as The Darwinian Revolution (1979, second edition 1999), Darwinism Defended (1982), Taking Darwin Seriously (1986), Monad to Man: The Concept of Progress in Evolutionary Biology (1996), and Darwin and Design (2003), among others.
Owing to his scholarly interest in evolutionary biology, Ruse was recruited by the plaintiffs in McLean v. Arkansas, a legal case challenging the constitutionality of Arkansas's 1981 equal time for creation science law. His testimony that creation science failed to qualify as scientific was central to the favorable ruling, although it excited considerable controversy among his fellow philosophers. Ruse continued to discuss and criticize creationism, editing a collection of essays related to McLean, But Is It Science? (1988, second edition coedited with Robert T. Pennock 2008) as well as writing The Evolution Wars (2000), and The Evolution/Creation Struggle (2005). Raised as a Quaker, Ruse was not a believer, but he sought to promote peaceful coexistence of science and religion, articulating his views in books such as Can a Darwinian Be a Christian? (2001) and Science and Spirituality (2010). Despite his differences with his intellectual foes, Ruse was famed for his friendliness and conviviality. Kenneth R. Miller of Brown University, president of NCSE's board of directors, commented, "I respected him as a philosopher who genuinely understood science and more importantly loved him as a friend."
Ruse was born in Birmingham, England, on June 21, 1940. He earned his B.A. in philosophy and mathematics from the University of Bristol in 1962, his M.A. in philosophy from McMaster University in 1964, and his Ph.D. in philosophy from the University of Bristol in 1970. He spent his career at the University of Guelph from 1965 to 2000 and then at Florida State University, where he was the Lucyle T. Werkmeister Professor of Philosophy from 2000 onward. He was a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, one of the Gifford Lecturers in Natural Theology for 2001, and the recipient of at least four honorary doctoral degrees.
