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From Disiciencia
February 2009
Commentary
A Neurosurgeon, Not A Darwinist
Michael Egnor 02.05.09, 6:00 PM ET
I am a professor of neurosurgery and a medical scientist. As an undergraduate biochemistry major, I wasuncomfortable with Darwinian explanations for biological complexity. Living things certainly appeared tobe designed. Yet evolutionary biologists asserted that the scientific evidence was clear: All biology couldbe explained by random variation and natural selection.So I accepted the Darwinian explanation. I considered religious explanations for biology unscientific atbest, dogma at worst. But Darwin's explanation, too, was a matter of faith because I did not know theevidence.Several years ago, I came across Michael Denton's book
Evolution: A Theory in Crisis
. Denton'sargument--that the biological evidence for Darwin's theory was much weaker than evolutionary biologistsclaimed--rekindled my doubts. Just how strong was the evidence that all biological complexity arose bychance and natural selection?I read all that I could find. Johnson. Dawkins. Wells. Berra. Behe. Dennett. Dembski. What I found is this:The claims of evolutionary biologists go wildly beyond the evidence.The fossil record shows sharp discontinuity between species, not the gradual transitions that Darwinisminherently predicts. Darwin's theory offers no coherent, evidence-based explanation for the evolution of even a single molecular pathway from primordial components. The origin of the genetic code beliesrandom causation. All codes with which we have experience arise from intelligent agency. Intricatebiomolecules such as enzymes are so functionally complex that it's difficult to see how they could arise byrandom mutations.I saw that Darwinism was a Potemkin village. But it wasn't clear to me why evolutionary biologists were sopassionately devoted to such pallid science. The evidence that the Darwinian understanding of biologicalorigins was inadequate has been in hand for quite a while.Why, when the genetic code was unraveled, didn't scientists question Darwin's assumption of randomness? Why didn't Darwinists ask the difficult questions that are posed for their theory by theastonishing complexity of intracellular molecular machinery? Why do Darwinists claim that intelligentdesign is untestable, and simultaneously claim that it is wrong?Why do Darwinists claim that intelligent design theory isn't scientific, when both intelligent design andDarwinism are merely the affirmative and negative answers to the same scientific question: Is thereevidence for teleology in biology? Why do Darwinists--
scientists
--seek recourse in federal courts tosilence criticism of their theory in public schools? What is it about the Darwinian understanding of biological origins that is so fragile that it will not withstand scrutiny by schoolchildren?When I read about the ostracism of Dr. Richard Sternberg, a biologist and editor of a biology journal at theSmithsonian Institution who dared to approve the publication of a paper that was sympathetic to intelligentdesign, I contacted Sternberg and expressed my sympathy and support. He introduced me to theDiscovery Institute, which is a think tank devoted to raising the important questions about biologicalorigins, and I began blogging for them.I came to learn why evolutionary biologists are so fiercely devoted to Darwinism. I was vilified on theInternet. Calls came to my office demanding that I be fired.
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February 2009And much of the venom was ideological. The vast majority of evolutionary biologists are atheists. I'mCatholic, and my religious faith was mocked by my fellow scientists. Many Darwinists openly express their hatred for Christianity--atheist biologist P.Z. Myers desecrated a Eucharistic hoston his Web site.
In 1989, Oxford evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins wrote in the
New York Times
book review sectionthat people who don't accept evolution are "ignorant, stupid, insane … or wicked." He has described the
religious upbringing of children as "child abuse."In his book,
Darwin's Dangerous Idea
, atheist philosopher and Darwinist Daniel Dennett has written that"[s]afety demands that religions be put in cages too--when absolutely necessary." The fight against thedesign inference in biology is motivated by fundamentalist atheism. Darwinists detest intelligent designtheory because it is compatible with belief in God.But the evidence is unassailable. The most reasonable
scientific
explanation for functional biologicalcomplexity--the genetic code and the intricate nanotechnology inside living cells--is that they weredesigned by intelligent agency. There is no scientific evidence that unintelligent processes can createsubstantial new biological structures and function. There is no unintelligent process known to science thatcan generate codes and machines.I still consider religious explanations for biology to be unscientific at best, dogma at worst. But Iunderstand now that Darwinism itself is a religious creed that masquerades as science. Darwin's theory of biological origins is atheism's creation myth, and atheists defend their dogma with religious fervor.
Michael Egnor is a professor and vice chairman of the department of neurosurgery at the State University of New York at Stony Brook.
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February 2009
Commentary
The Problem Of Evidence
Jonathan Wells 02.05.09, 6:00 PM ET
The present controversy over evolution is often portrayed as the latest battle in a centuries-old war between science and religion. According to this stereotype, Darwin's theory was a milestone in scientificprogress, based on evidence that is now overwhelming, and its principal opponents were--and still are--religious fundamentalists committed to a literal interpretation of Genesis chronology.That stereotype, however, is false.First, the "warfare" metaphor is historically inaccurate. With rare exceptions, such as the Galileo affair,science and religion got along just fine before Darwin.Second, the problem is not "evolution"--which means many things--but rather Darwin's theory that allliving things are descendants of a common ancestor that have been modified by random variations andnatural selection.Nobody doubts that variation and selection can produce minor changes within existing species, or "microevolution." But Darwin claimed much more: namely, that microevolution leads to the origin of newspecies, organs and body plans--"macroevolution."Yet despite the title of his 1859 book,
The Origin of Species By Means of Natural Selection,
Darwin didn'thave evidence for natural selection. All he could do was "give one or two imaginary illustrations." Hecalled his book "one long argument," which took the following form: The features of living things are"inexplicable on the theory of creation" but are fully explicable as products of unguided natural forces.Since Darwin lacked sufficient evidence for the latter, he ruled out the former by declaring that onlynatural explanations are "scientific."Before 1859 science meant (and still means, for most people) testing hypotheses by comparing them withthe evidence. For Darwin and his followers, however, "science" is the search for natural explanations.Such explanations should be plausible--that is, they cannot blatantly contradict the facts--but instead of being based on evidence they are based on the assumption that everything can be explainedmaterialistically.According to Georgia State University historian Neal C. Gillespie, "it is sometimes said that Darwinconverted the scientific world to evolution by showing them the process by which it had occurred." But "itwas more Darwin's insistence on totally natural explanations than on natural selection that won their adherence."The Darwinian revolution was thus philosophical rather than scientific.Darwin's followers now claim that they have "overwhelming evidence" for their theory, but despite 150years of research no one has ever observed the origin of a new species by natural selection--much lessthe origin of new organs and body plans.Not even modern genetics has solved the problem. No matter what we do to the genes of a fruit flyembryo, there are only three possible outcomes: a normal fruit fly, a defective fruit fly or a dead fruit fly.Darwin's claim that microevolution leads to macroevolution has never been empirically corroborated.Indeed, there is growing evidence that the claim is false.
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ID and Evolution Commentary From February 2009 Forbes.com
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