Michael was an agnostic / atheist who cheerfully and generously engaged opposing views. Many of his peers on the irreligious side of the fence were hostile and abrasive, but Michael exhibited unwavering respect, always insisting on assuming his opponents operate with positive intent.

He often said that despite his non-belief, he adhered to the Parable of the Talents as a rubric for judging his performance in life.

He was one of my judges for the Evolution 2.0 Prize for the origin of the Genetic Code. I felt he was an ideal prize judge because it’s well known I’m a Christian, so I loved the fact that someone from the “other team” was part of my submission evaluation panel.

Ruse wrote many books on many topics and was a great scholar of the history and philosophy of evolution.

As an example, he wrote an excellent book on Lynn Margulis’ theory of Gaia which represented her very well despite the fact that Ruse held very different views about science. In his kitchen once I asked him “So what did you think of her Gaia hypothesis?” He said “I think she was bat shit crazy” — but that didn’t keep him from presenting it in an entirely fair and positive light in his writings. This kind of fairness has been all too rare in evolutionary biology.

Below, a quintessential example of Michael’s friendly debate style in this conversation with the remarkable John Lennox of Oxford University:

I enjoyed a couple of wonderful visits to his home in Tallahassee Florida and I loved his laugh and incisive wit.

RIP Mike – you were one of the good guys.

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