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Over 1,000 Scientists Openly Dissent From Evolution Theory
The New American ^ | 11 March 2019 | Alex Newman

Posted on 03/11/2019 2:51:56 PM PDT by Sopater

Over 1,000 doctoral scientists from around the world have signed a “Dissent” statement expressing skepticism about Darwin’s evolution theory, sparking fresh controversy over an idea that is at the core of many people’s worldview. The significant announcement, made last month, has been all but ignored by the establishment media. But it is making waves nevertheless.

The dissenting scientists all united around one simple statement. “We are skeptical of claims for the ability of random mutation and natural selection to account for the complexity of life,” the Ph.D.s said. “Careful examination of the evidence for Darwinian theory should be encouraged. There is scientific dissent from Darwinism. It deserves to be heard.”

The growing rebellion among scientists from a broad range of scientific disciplines suggests the science may not be as settled as evolution theorists claim, according to analysts. Despite enormous risks to their careers and reputations, the number of experts willing to speak out about their skepticism of Darwin’s theory is growing quickly.

And many of the scientists speaking out about this are prominent and highly respected. More than a dozen of the signatories, for instance, are members of various national academies of science, including those in the United States, Russia, Hungary, the Czech Republic, and other nations, as well as the Royal Society.

More than a few come from America's most prestigious universities such as Harvard, MIT, Princeton, and Yale. Others come from prestigious foreign universities and research institutions such as the University of Cambridge, London’s Natural History Museum, Moscow State University, Hong Kong University, University of Stellenbosch in South Africa, Institut de Paléontologie Humaine in France, Ben-Gurion University in Israel, and more.

The experts speaking out also represent a broad array of scientific disciplines and fields. These include molecular biology, biochemistry, biology, entomology, computational quantum chemistry, microbiology, psychiatry, behavioral sciences, astrophysics, marine biology, cellular biology, physics, astronomy, math, geology, anthropology, and many more. Many medical doctors are raising questions, too.    

“As a biochemist I became skeptical about Darwinism when I was confronted with the extreme intricacy of the genetic code and its many most intelligent strategies to code, decode, and protect its information,” explained Dr. Marcos Eberlin, founder of the Thomson Mass Spectrometry Laboratory and a member of the Brazilian National Academy of Sciences.

Among the prestigious scientists who have signed the statement are evolutionary biologist and textbook author Dr. Stanley Salthe; quantum chemist Henry Schaefer at the University of Georgia; U.S. National Academy of Sciences member Philip Skell; American Association for the Advancement of Science Fellow Lyle Jensen; Russian Academy of Natural Sciences embryologist Lev Beloussov; and geneticist Giuseppe Sermonti, editor emeritus of Rivista di Biologia / Biology Forum and discoverer of genetic recombination in antibiotic-producing Penicillium and Streptomyces.

The project, known as “A Scientific Dissent From Darwinism,” was first launched by the Discovery Institute in 2001. It was started in response to the demonstrably false claim by the tax-funded Public Broadcasting System (PBS) that “virtually every scientist in the world believes the theory to be true.” Obviously, that is not true. So Discovery Institute bought advertisements proving it in the New York Review of Books and other venues.  

Since then, the number of public dissenters has grown tenfold. Indeed, many prominent scientists now dispute the evolution theory. A recent documentary that appeared on Netflix, Is Genesis History?, features myriad Ph.D. scientisists outlining their arguments against evolution and in favor of biblical creation.

This writer attended a conference in Turkey recently that brought together respected scientists from all over the world and from all different religions who argued that the evolution theory was a “hoax.” These included prestigious American scientists who have worked for NASA and leading U.S. universities. It also included Catholics, Protestants, Muslims, Mormons, and more.     

The Seattle-based Discovery Institute, which advocates for Intelligent Design, is still growing its list of well over 1,000 Ph.D. scientists who dissent from Neo-Darwinism and its central tenet — the notion that random mutations and natural selection can generate the massive amount of genetic information present in living organisms. Indeed, critics of the evolution theory say there has never been a documented example of a mutation adding genetic information rather than destroying it.

Neurosurgery Professor Dr. Michael Egnor at State University of New York, Stony Brook, argued that scientists “know intuitively that Darwinism can accomplish some things, but not others.” “The question is what is that boundary? Does the information content in living things exceed that boundary? Darwinists have never faced those questions,” he explained. “They’ve never asked scientifically, can random mutation and natural selection generate the information content in living things.”

And the institute believes that the 1,000 plus scientists who have signed the statement represent the tip of a massive iceberg. “While that number surely represents a scientific minority, it also no doubt vastly understates the number of Darwin-doubting PhD scientists,” wrote Discovery Institute Senior Fellow David Klinghoffer at Evolution News.

“When it comes to evolution, persecution is an all too well known fact of academic life. Endorsing Darwinian evolution is the safe careerist move, while questioning it can easily mean the end of your career,” added Klinghoffer. “So for every signer of the Dissent list, there is some multiplier’s worth of private skeptics in science, acting self-protectively. That is beyond reasonable doubt.”     

Indeed, the growing willingness of leading scientists to speak out with their doubts about Darwin’s theory of evolution is especially noteworthy because it comes in the face of increased persecution of dissenters.

In 2017, for example, California State University at Northridge (CSUN) fired a Christian scientist after he published explosive evidence indirectly contradicting the theory in a peer-reviewed journal. Basically, Mark Armitage, a microscopist, found soft tissue in a dinosaur bone that was supposed to be around “65 million years old,” strongly indicating that the dinosaur in question died much more recently. The university paid him almost $400,000 in a settlement.

More than a few scientists have argued that peer pressure and fear are preventing an honest examination of the subject. “Because no scientist can show how Darwin’s mechanism can produce the complexity of life, every scientist should be skeptical,” said biologist Douglas Axe, director of the Biologic Institute. “The fact that most won’t admit to this exposes the unhealthy effect of peer pressure on scientific discourse.”

Meanwhile, as more and more scientists speak out, Americans largely continue to reject the evolution theory as well, and interest in the question is surging. Despite the theory being taught to generations of American children in government schools as if it were a fact, recent polls show about half of Americans still believe in a literal interpretation of the Bible's Book of Genesis. In short, they believe that God created humans within fewer than 10,000 years. Only a minority — fewer than 15 percent — believe that godless evolution explains the origin of man, which is what is taught to children at government schools.    

“Where there’s a genuine controversy, as there is about Darwinian theory, anyone in search of truth has no choice but to weigh the evidence for himself,” observed the Discovery Institute’s Klinghoffer. "The observation that, beyond doubt, thousands of scientists are skeptical, and that a thousand of them publicly call for further ‘careful examination’ of the question, is one reason every thoughtful adult owes it to herself to consider the evidence without just passively swallowing the majority view.”

Beyond the scientific aspects, there are also profound implications of the theory. One reason religious humanists such as public-education founding father John Dewey latched on to it so fervently is because it allowed them to exclude the existence of a Creator. America's Founding Fathers held as a “self-evident” “truth” that man was created, and endowed by that Creator certain rights. Humanists such as Dewey and his cohorts, who designed the modern public-school system, rejected that — along with the concept of unalienable, God-given rights that governments exist to protect.  

Regardless of what one thinks about the evolution theory, it is still a theory. To force Americans who disagree with this controversial theory to fund its propagation in taxpayer-funded government schools — especially when no alternative is even allowed to be mentioned, and when the implications are so huge — is immoral and wrong. Parents and taxpayers should take a lesson from these courageous scientists and speak out.


TOPICS: Education; Science; Society
KEYWORDS: creation; evolution; michaelbehe
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To: Sopater
Regardless of what one thinks about the evolution theory, it is still a theory.

That statement is so stupid it invalidates the entire piece.

21 posted on 03/11/2019 4:32:18 PM PDT by freedumb2003 (As always IMHO)
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To: bigbob

You do not know what a Scientific Theory is so you should probably not opine on the science.


22 posted on 03/11/2019 4:33:51 PM PDT by freedumb2003 (As always IMHO)
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To: Sopater
"Nothing comes from nothing and nothing ever could."


23 posted on 03/11/2019 4:49:36 PM PDT by aMorePerfectUnion
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To: Dave Wright

Bingo. Well put.


24 posted on 03/11/2019 4:50:04 PM PDT by dinodino
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To: Sopater
...they believe that God created humans within fewer than 10,000 years.

100,000 years seems more viable to me. Otherwise, I'm in.

25 posted on 03/11/2019 5:28:48 PM PDT by onedoug
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To: Vaquero

Global warming is fake, so is evolution. You might see a white rabbit gain a brown coat in a more temperate setting, but species don’t mutate into other things. The creation is in Genesis. One can read that to see where things came from. If you don’t believe in the Bible, the evidence is there to see clearly anyways.


26 posted on 03/11/2019 5:37:46 PM PDT by Bulwyf
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To: Sopater

I really don’t care because I know no one can explain the first living cells and how they came about. Discussing evolution is like discussing a Boeing 777 and not first learning about the Wright brothers inventions.


27 posted on 03/11/2019 5:50:50 PM PDT by central_va (I won't be reconstructed and I do not give a damn)
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To: Sopater
n short, they believe that God created humans within fewer than 10,000 years.

Carbon dating puts first modern humans at 300,000 years ago.

28 posted on 03/11/2019 5:51:59 PM PDT by central_va (I won't be reconstructed and I do not give a damn)
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To: Vaquero
Evolution is a fact

So why are species split up into separate species? Wouldn't evolution dictate a smooth transition?

29 posted on 03/11/2019 5:54:32 PM PDT by central_va (I won't be reconstructed and I do not give a damn)
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To: Sopater
I find it ironic that we have "theistic evolutionists" on this site who will absolutely refuse to consider creationism, considering many of the same people believe in the virgin birth, the loaves and fishes, the resurrection, and that the angels carried Mary's house from Nazareth to Loreto, Italy. Just what makes the events described in Genesis one bit harder to believe than all these other things?

Too bad the article is from an anti-Israel publication, though.

30 posted on 03/11/2019 6:17:49 PM PDT by Zionist Conspirator (Modernism began two thousand years ago.)
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To: captain_dave

There are at least 7 or 8 examples of populations which have become different species.

Why so few? Because few scientists are interested in the question.


31 posted on 03/11/2019 6:29:19 PM PDT by buffaloguy (MSM: Wind up dolls of the DNC.)
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To: Vaquero

Vaquero -
It certainly is not a proven fact. You can’t just come on here and say Evolution is a fact and have no one challenge you.
Given the generally agreed definitions of “Evolution” in the context of article (Darwinian evolution a/k/a molecules-to-man evolution) and the generally agreed definition of “fact” there is ZERO basis for your assertion.
Now if you want to start by re-defining the essential terms in your statement, well, it’s your move.


32 posted on 03/11/2019 7:02:08 PM PDT by Honest Nigerian
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To: central_va; onedoug

n short, they believe that God created humans within fewer than 10,000 years.
“Carbon dating puts first modern humans at 300,000 years ago.”

And carbon dating depends on a constant carbon ratio for all those years which is clearly a guess or hope since there are so many variables that can change that ratio.

It still amazes me how many items have been carbon dated and then archeology has proved the carbon dating to be wrong and the comment is always I guess we need to re-calibrate.

To me basing life, death, and eternity on such variables seems most careless, but to each his own, God bless.


33 posted on 03/11/2019 7:48:57 PM PDT by mrobisr
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To: mrobisr

If these fossil bearing deposits can be identified with adjacent strata, then these can also be dated from rates of emplacement. If this agrees with C14, then two lines of evidence intersect, strengthening that argument.


34 posted on 03/11/2019 8:24:30 PM PDT by onedoug
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To: Sopater

Non-scientist here (but Ph.D). It defies logic that unimaginable complexity such as found in the “simplest” of organisms could spontaneously arise. This is the death knell of evolutionary theory.


35 posted on 03/11/2019 10:34:29 PM PDT by tjd1454
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To: bigbob

Well said, all you flat earth folks.


36 posted on 03/12/2019 2:50:29 AM PDT by BTCM (Death and destruction is the only treaty Muslims comprehend.)
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To: central_va

Over eons there were various methods of species splitting off. Smooth and abrupt due to various catastrophic inputs like the ‘great dying’ of 250 MYA (caused by the huge Siberian lava flow) and the dinosaur killer be it a Yucatán asteroid or Deccan Traps lava flow 66 million years ago. There is also some evuidence of various evolutionary change inputs caused by radiation from gamma ray burst stars from many light years away.


37 posted on 03/12/2019 3:48:39 AM PDT by Vaquero (Don't pick a fight with an old guy. If he is too old to fight, he'll just kill you .)
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To: Honest Nigerian

Darwin had an idea. The fine tuning of which I’m wasn’t until more recently.

Scientists are wrong all the time. But the basics of evolution are as solid as can be. See 37


38 posted on 03/12/2019 3:52:03 AM PDT by Vaquero (Don't pick a fight with an old guy. If he is too old to fight, he'll just kill you .)
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To: ml/nj
Do you really think "lots" of people disagree with atomic theory? Get a grip. Darwinian Evolution is a crock. This doesn't mean that Genesis is correct but only that Darwinian Evolution is not.

This is why I believe in the Genesis account of creation. It may not be true but every other theory is wrong so why not just believe Genesis? Any thing you believe about creation is at least as absurd as the Genesis account.

39 posted on 03/12/2019 3:57:48 AM PDT by BRL
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To: tjd1454
Non-scientist here (but Ph.D). It defies logic that unimaginable complexity such as found in the “simplest” of organisms could spontaneously arise. This is the death knell of evolutionary theory.

And also why I knew at age 5 and continue to know at age 59 that it is not true.

40 posted on 03/12/2019 3:59:40 AM PDT by BRL
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