Over 500 Scientists Proclaim Their Doubts About Darwin’s Theory

Discovery Institute ^ | 02.20.06

[Coleus]

The Scientific Dissent From Darwinism list is now located at a new webpage, www.dissentfromdarwin.org.

SEATTLE — Over 500 doctoral scientists have now signed a statement publicly expressing their skepticism about the contemporary theory of Darwinian evolution.

The statement reads: “We are skeptical of claims for the ability of random mutation and natural selection to account for the complexity of life. Careful examination of the evidence for Darwinian theory should be encouraged.”

The list of 514 signatories includes member scientists from the prestigious US and Russian National Academy of Sciences. Signers include 154 biologists, the largest single scientific discipline represented on the list, as well as 76 chemists and 63 physicists. Signers hold doctorates in biological sciences, physics, chemistry, mathematics, medicine, computer science, and related disciplines. Many are professors or researchers at major universities and research institutions such as MIT, The Smithsonian, Cambridge University, UCLA, UC Berkeley, Princeton, the University of Pennsylvania, the Ohio State University, the University of Georgia, and the University of Washington.

Discovery Institute first published its Scientific Dissent From Darwinism list in 2001 to challenge false statements about Darwinian evolution made in promoting PBS’s “Evolution” series. At the time it was claimed that “virtually every scientist in the world believes the theory to be true.”

“Darwinists continue to claim that no serious scientists doubt the theory and yet here are 500 scientists who are willing to make public their skepticism about the theory,” said Dr. John G. West, associate director of Discovery Institute’s Center for Science & Culture. “Darwinist efforts to use the courts, the media and academic tenure committees to suppress dissent and stifle discussion are in fact fueling even more dissent and inspiring more scientists to ask to be added to the list.”

According to West, it was the fast growing number of scientific dissenters which encouraged the Institute to launch a website -- www.dissentfromdarwin.org -- to give the list a permanent home. The website is the Institute’s response to the demand for information and access to the list both by the public, and by scientists who want to add their name to list.

“Darwin’s theory of evolution is the great white elephant of contemporary thought,” said Dr. David Berlinski, one of the original signers, a mathematician and philosopher of science with Discovery Institute’s Center for Science and Culture (CSC). “It is large, almost completely useless, and the object of superstitious awe.”

Other prominent signatories include U.S. National Academy of Sciences member Philip Skell; American Association for the Advancement of Science Fellow Lyle Jensen; evolutionary biologist and textbook author Stanley Salthe; Smithsonian Institution evolutionary biologist and a researcher at the National Institutes of Health’s National Center for Biotechnology Information Richard von Sternberg; Editor of Rivista di Biologia / Biology Forum --the oldest still published biology journal in the world-- Giuseppe Sermonti; and Russian Academy of Natural Sciences embryologist Lev Beloussov.

[MilspecRob]

Just good ol' logic. Science cannot say not demonstrate where intelligence comes from.

Talk to me in 500,000 years, or perhaps 150 year's to see if intelligence is a survival trait offering advantages over the millions of years of the thunder lizards.

[Minuteman23]

The Church of Darwinism gets really bent out of shape when proclaimations get nailed to their door.

Well put!

[My2Cents]

When you consider that pretty much every biologist has based his/her career upon evolutionary theory and they would do their utmost to defend that upon which their professions are based, these 154 are people of courage.

[My2Cents]

And, of course, truth is determined by majority vote.

[connectthedots]

“Darwin’s theory of evolution is the great white elephant of contemporary thought,” said Dr. David Berlinski, one of the original signers, a mathematician and philosopher of science with Discovery Institute’s Center for Science and Culture (CSC). “It is large, almost completely useless, and the object of superstitious awe.”

Hammer - nail.

[delacoert]

Can ID be proven in a laboratory setting?

I thought the scientific method was based on falsification of hypotheses.

[g_suvorov]

And his proof of this is...?

It's an unsupported statement. If evolution is a white elephant, let him back that claim up.

[Holdek]

Oh I don't doubt that they are courageous. But they are also very wrong. Until they provide some proof and hard evidence, the idea that evolution is not true will continue to remain on the fringe.

[Ghost of Philip Marlowe]

Excellent allusion!

[g_suvorov]

Correct. I should have said proven or disproven. Either way, ID can't fit the bill.

[CodeToad]

"Careful examination of the evidence for Darwinian theory should be encouraged.”


The religious followers of Darwin want us, like the Muslims do, to believe in their faith or else. There is only suggestions of evolution, not proof, but they want evolution to be scientific fact by law and religion banned.

[Sola Veritas]

"If scientists did not fear for their livelihoods and reputations, this list would be VASTLY larger."

I believe this to be a correct statement. Based upon the tone of ardent proponents of evolutionary theory, like "Right-Wing Professor", that are in academia. I would suspect that many would never risk expressing any doubts publically. BTW - I don't mean to pick on RWP, it is just he has made it perfectly clear that he has zero tolerance for anyone in "science" that doesn't agree with what he considers settled dogma. IF is is representative of others in academia, then it would be a career killer to stand up.

[Holdek]

What on Earth are you talking about?

[g_suvorov]

The religious followers of Darwin want us, like the Muslims do, to believe in their faith or else. There is only suggestions of evolution, not proof, but they want evolution to be scientific fact by law and religion banned.

I take offense to this statement, as would most others on this thread who believe in the scientific theory of evolution. None of us want religion to be banned. That's just ridiculous.

Personally, I think ID belongs in a comparative religion class or a philosophy class. It's not science.

[jennyp]

Brave men. The grand exalted priesthood of Darwin will surely not tolerate this dissent from revealed truth. There will be purges and inquisitions at at least some of these institutions of "higher" learning.

How very postmodernist of you. :-)

In [pro-ID professor Steven] Fuller's mind, working scientists are in an important sense intellectually deformed. They constitute a narrow, cloistered, inbred hierarchy of myopic specialists largely blind to the "true" nature of science and oblivious to its future trajectory. Science, on this view, maintains its prestige, authority, and access to resources by playing the power game, bullying and intimidating the rest of society. It is "an arrested social movement in which the natural spread of knowledge is captured by a community that gains relative advantage by forcing other communities to rely on its expertise to get what they want." In other words, what we now think of as "science" does not truly comprehend nature, but rather constructs from its own idiosyncratic perspective a limited image of nature, while using the prerogatives of a privileged mandarinate to nullify or suppress all rival knowledge claims that impinge on its territory.

From this article.

[Jacobis]

The question is why do they doubt that mutation and natural selection can account for the diversity of life. For a rundown, see our website:

http://faithfacts.gospelcom.net/ev_origins.html

[Holdek]

The idea that scientists really don't believe in evolution but are just "too afraid" to say so is bunk. Scientists are a competitive lot who live on the cutting edge, who dedicate their existence to challenging ways of thinking and discovering new things. If any of them found some sort of proof that unsettled Darwin, they would publish it. Everyone wants to be the next Einstein-toppling-Newton.

[g_suvorov]

Ummm...mutation and natural selection are part of the theory of evolution that Darwin proposed.

[Doctor Stochastic]

Woehler dispelled this about 1828.

[edsheppa]

My, it seems only a couple of years ago when it was 500 and now it's 514. Maybe by 2010 there'll be 600.