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.
A theory is only as good as it’s predictions. Evolution fails to explain so many features and uses circular logic is claiming the age of the dirt give the age of the fossils and vice verse, can’t have it both ways! No explanation for Mt. St. Helens, for polystrate fossils, for carbon-14 found in dinosaur bones, etc.
Below is a link coming up on only 40 years old with proven predictions and explanations that agree with the Biblical record. Most of us don’t have the time to read 350+ pages of this free online book so I heartily endorse watching the video links because they’ll explain it in a way that words and pictures simply cannot:
Center for Scientific Creation
https://www.creationscience.com/
The link above is for the hydroplate theory by Dr. Walt Brown while the website has still been around more than half of that time. Granted 40 years is infancy when it comes to theories but this is truly the best scientific and christian explanation for the fossil record and a myriad of other previously unexplained features in our Earth, and solar system.
See, I took Logic in college.
A is false, therefore B is true just doesn't pass muster. I'm guessing you don't know anything about the General Theory of Relativity and couldn't understand the introduction in any text about it, so why form a belief about it. I don't know is a perfectly acceptable position about creation (and General Relativity).
ML/NJ
I follow the New Testament Of Jesus Christ. Much of the Old Testament are tales and morality plays. What is the difference between Noah’s Arc and the epic of Gilgamesh? Yes science has discussed a possible flood. It was caused possibly by the overflow of the Mediterranean through the Bosporus into the Black Sea 8000-10000 years ago from ice age melt water. Something like that is a theory. No solid evidence. Yet.
Evolution (no not early Darwinism as his theories were raw and lacked the kinds of evidence available today) as it stands today, Evolution is not a theory but a proven fact. Many small aspects of evolution ARE theories. The basic concept of Evolution is a fact.
God set the universe into motion. He allowed man to develop a brain. He expects man to use the intelligence he was endowed with to learn and understand…from learning how to use fire, invent the wheel and leverage to understanding the species on the planet and what they evolved from.
“The basic concept of Evolution is a fact.”
Please explain.
Thanks. Good you are here.
No, you do not follow the New Testament Of Jesus Christ if you think that much of the Old Testament are tales. Such as in predominate modern RC scholarship , the days of creation, Eve and the Serpent, the Flood, the Tower of Babel, the extreme ages of the patriarchs, the crossing of the Red Sea, Balaam and the donkey, Jonah and the Fish, Joshua's Long Day, etc.
For in the NT the Holy Spirit refers to such stories as being literal historical events (Adam and Eve: Mt. 19:4; Abraham, Issac, Exodus and Moses: Acts 7; Rm. 4; Heb. 11; Jonah and the fish: Mt. 12:39-41; Balaam and the donkey: 2Pt. 2:15; Jude. 1:1; Rev. 2:14). Indeed “the serpent beguiled Eve through his subtlety” (2Cor. 11:3; Rev. 12:9), and if such an account as that of Jonah and the whale is rejected as literally true, then so can the resurrection which the Lord likened to the story of Jonah: For as Jonas was three days and three nights in the whale's belly; so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. (Matthew 12:40) And Israel's history is always and inclusively treated as literal.
I am guessing that you converse with people from the position that you are smarter than they are. I am further guessing that you miss a lot when having discussions with others. Just a guess though.
I have a Physics Degree and I know that General Relativity is beyond the scope of MY brain. I assume that the same is true for almost everyone I might come in contact with.
Why don't you address the point I actually made, or did you not understand what it was?
ML/NJ
If you read my post you would realize I was agreeing with you. I accept relativity even though I don’t understand it, but evolution is a crock (your words). I agree with that. So my point is that if science cannot offer a sound explanation for creation, then what is wrong with “believing” creation. That does not mean I ascribe to if not a then b (that was really pompous). It means that if you are processing something in the realm of “pick a belief and run with it “ then why not pick creation. If you read my post you would read that I said one is absurd as the other.
You explain. Look it up. Read something not published by evangelicals whose whole purposes is to look for kinks in the science. Yes their are kinks. But the basic concept is rock solid...like dino coprolites from 66 MYA.
Luddites abound. I suppose as a constitutional conservative I must hang with strange bedfellows.
Likening those who believe the OT miraculous accounts (and thus not subscribing to liberal revisionism) to Luddites means that you have done so to the risen Lord savior and judge Jesus Christ and the holy apostles.
Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, (Romans 1:22)
How many thousands more consider Darwins theory on evolution to be sound science?
So says you. Not saying very much. Trying to make a point by comparing conservatives to liberals is a sad old saw.
I believe the teachings of Jesus Christ. I believe the whole shooting match from 14 billion years ago on down was caused by a divine presence. I don’t have to follow a very narrow teaching trying to explain everything they couldn’t fathom and written down by sandal wearing sheep herders.
On the other hand, I do know scientists, personally … I know how egotistical they can be…I don’t believe the crap they put forward to push a socialist agenda. (Some with eyes open and seeing their ‘prize’. Others are useful idiots of the left or just shills for the dollars they will get in research grants and are willing to say anything to get that money)
So I do not follow scientific propositions blindly. I take everything with a grain of salt.
“You explain. Look it up. Read something not published by evangelicals whose whole purposes is to look for kinks in the science. Yes their are kinks. But the basic concept is rock solid...like dino coprolites from 66 MYA.”
You made an unsubstantiated vaguely defined assertion. I am asking you to substantiate it and define it more clearly.
The remainder.
To many, it’s much much more than that.
—-
Exactly.
It's not the "theory" of evolution it's the "anecdotes" of evolution. There is no math what so ever to support the anecdotes.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.