She’s a curious specimen to be sure.
Laura came out of Britain’s “intellectual aristocracy” (her words) — “that web of kinship uniting British intellectuals over the 18th to 20th centuries”.
She is a direct descendant to Charles Darwin. (His great-great-great granddaughter). That is not the only well-connected academic in her family. She is also related to John Maynard Keynes.
Not surprisingly, she became an academic herself, and has obtained a doctorate in Philosophy from Oxford.
She describes herself as “raised to know evidence”. (Hardly surprising.)
Her father was irreligious, but her mother was Roman Catholic… until she abandoned it for Buddhism. Laura became an agnostic in her teens.
But her family legacy forced her to weigh the competing claims, and embrace the more plausible one.
In her case, that was faith, and she returned to the Church of her youth.
Her very unusual perspective on the tension between faith and Evolution is engaging reading.
Find it here: strangenotions.com
