Some Professionally-Safe Darwin Doubters Are Now Speaking Out

When the coast is clear, and their careers are safe, some academics can afford to doubt Darwin publicly.

My experience after teaching at three universities, when discussing Darwinism with colleagues, I have learned there exist many more Darwin skeptics than commonly believed. Most are in the closet for very good reasons (career survival), or at least they decline to publicly speak out about their views opposing Darwinism. The evidence against Darwinism is so great that it seems inevitable a few would speak out about their well-founded doubts about evolution. And some have.

Kalamata: "You are remarkably unlearned.
The Bible is loaded with science."

No, the words in 1 Timothy 6:20 which King James translated as "science so-called" are better translated "falsely called knowledge" and refer to the Greek "gnosis", meaning a false knowledge of the divine.
It has nothing to do with our understandings of science.

Elsewhere the Bible says nothing, nada, about what we understand as modern science.

Kalamata: "Who is we?
Scientists have found no evidence for the creation process.
There are boatloads of speculations, but no evidence"

Sure, scientific speculations on the origins of life are just that, speculations, at best "hypotheses", though none are today falsifiable.
Your speaker at the link you posted complained that these explanations are being presented in the media and schools as "facts" when they are nothing of the sort.
If he's correct, then it's a valid point.

But it remains a fact that nothing in the Bible speaks directly to our understanding of science.

Kalamata: "That is exactly the way it is.
Astronomer and astrophysicists have no clue how or when the universe was formed."

They have tons & tons of "clues" -- meaning confirmed observations = facts -- from which they've formed the best explanations available.
These explanations cover both the "how" and "when", but indeed in this sense you are 100% correct: they have no clues as to "who" and "why".

By definition, such questions are beyond the scope of natural-science.

Kalamata: "You are remarkably unlearned.
Moses outlined the creation process, the global flood, the dividing of the nations by language, and finally the dividing of the earth.
Christ told us that man and woman were created at the beginning of creation.
What else do you need?
The endorsement of an atheist?"

I have no doubt that God told Moses of His Creations in terms that not just Moses, but also Moses' contempories from Egypt to Mesopotamia, would understand.
Anything else would be considered obvious lies and so be rejected by the ancients.
What's remarkable to me is how closely the Bible corresponds to not just spiritual but also natural history.

Kalamata: "There are no observable facts supporting the religion of evolutionism.
It is strictly faith-based."

That's a flat-out lie which discredits both you and the faith you claim to support.

Kalamata on sanctimony: "No, that would be bwest, and now you."

Claims our King of Sanctimony.

Kalamata: "You are welcome to provide evidence for common descent, but I won’t hold my breath, because there is none."

There is evidence in fossils and DNA, but of course, only for those willing to see it.

Kalamata: "I read it is 80% of the genome and counting. These are from 2012 articles:"

That particular study is discredited by, if nothing else, its definition of "junk".
Originally "junk" meant simply non-coding DNA.

This article says 75% is "junk" DNA
This article says 95% is "junk" DNA
This article says 98% is "junk" DNA

Of course, as they say, one man's junk is another's treasure, so it all depends on your definition of "junk".
Originally, "junk" simply meant non-coding DNA, which is where figures like 98% come from.
But then some activity began to be discovered for some non-coding DNA and the 98% figure was adjusted downward.

However, the most important use for non-coding DNA still seems to be as a sort of reservoir, or "bank" for biological features not used now, but potentially needed in the future.
This article from 2007 discusses the idea of non-coding DNA becoming active though evolution.
Yes, I don't see it discussed in more recent articles, but I've also not seen it refuted.

Kalamata: "That is the typical excuse for wild imaginations and extrapolations, disguised as science, that we have been plagued with since Charlie Darwin arrived on the scene."

All new science begins as "wild imaginations and extrapolations" based on anomalies in data, then reduced to falsifiable hypotheses.
Eventually one or more hypotheses are confirmed as theories and so science advances.
That's how it's supposed to work.

>>Nonsense, I did listen to all of your 58 minute rabbit-hole [lecture by Dr. James Tour], and the take-aways are these:

James Tour is one of the top organic chemists in the world, if not THE top. The fact that you smugly dismissed his brilliant lecture is evidence that you are all hat and no cowboy.

************************************
>>As of today, there’s tons more unknown than known, so lots of employment opportunities for bright young researchers.”

Yea, go right ahead, if you don’t mind throwing taxpayer dollars down a true rabbit hole, when they could be spent on the advancement of science.

************************************
>>People who claim that their hypotheses & theories are “facts” do science more harm than good.

That is true of all who promote evolutionism, and especially those who hype “origin of life” research.

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>>In the end your speaker proposes a moratorium on further Origin of Life research, why?

Because it is a rabbit hole.

************************************
>>Apparently, to punish those who’ve claimed life has already been created by scientists.

There is no one to punish, because no one (NO ONE) has come even close to creating so much a few of the more complicated building blocks of life. James Tour wants to stop the hype and propaganda. That is all.

Did you even watch the video?

************************************
>>Then, I’d suppose, as soon as everybody who made such claims recants their heresies, then the research can continue.

Gibberish.

Mr. Kalamata

Kalamata: "No, science is science.
What many call science today, such as evolution, is not science, but religion."

Sorry, but that's just a lie, regardless of how often you repeat it, it never becomes objectively true.

Kalamata quoting Paine: "As to the Christian system of faith, it appears to me a species of Atheism— a sort of religious denial of God."

Paine was hardly the first to disparage Christians as "atheists" -- that's also what ancient pagan Greeks & Romans called Jews and Christians.
After all, they only believed in one God and He is invisible!
What a laugh, in the minds of ancient pagans.

Kalamata: "Paine was a deist"

Right, not an atheist.

Kalamata: "I adhere to the faith of a young earth and special creation, like Newton, Maxwell, Faraday, and Steno."

Sure, and as you say, it's your faith, not science.

Isaac Newton -- early 18th century mathematician, physicist, astronomer, alchemist & theologian.
Clark Maxwell -- 19th century, worked in electrical & chemical fields.
Michael Faraday -- 19th century, worked in electrical & chemical fields.
St. Nicholas Steno (Niels Steensen) -- 17th century, abandoned his advanced work in biology and geology after conversion to Catholicism.

None of the above can be described as having made an informed opinion regarding the overall age and natural history of the Earth.

Kalamata: "I showed you where “kinds” has been used in scientific literature?
Did you not bother to read my post?"

And that is post number what?

Kalamata: "Are you not aware that the Bible is not only historical and prophetic literature, but also scientific?"

Nowhere does the Bible itself claim to be scientific.

Kalamata: "You, yourself said there was no strict definition.
The “kind”, on the other hand, has been well-known and well-established in meaning for thousands of years."

In fact, there is no scientific definition of "kind", never was -- not even by Linnaeaus back in 1735!

Kalamata: "The subject was the concept of “kind”, and Paley understood it.
In fact, he frequently used the word to distinguish the different kinds of animals."

Sure, everybody speaks informally about "kinds of animals" or "kinds of plants", but "kinds" has never been a scientific classification.
Nor was Paley a scientist -- he was, naturally, a Unitarian theologian.

Kalamata: "Is that an adhominem?"

Well... would it be an ad hominem if you announce to the world that yours truly, BroJoeK, is literally, no rocket scientist?
Now just suppose I'd claimed to be a famous "rocket scientist" and you informed the world that, no, I'm not.
Is that ad hominem?

Kalamata: "Evolutionary biology is not science, so who cares what they think?"

Which scientists care what Kalamata thinks?

Kalamata: "Anyone who has been paying attention knows that atheists have been trying to erase all mention of the Bible from science and science education. "

Natural science, by definition excludes anything outside natural explanations for natural processes.
It's not a matter of "erasing the Bible from science," because the Bible was never part of science.

Kalamata: "But he that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh. Count on it."

Thus speaketh Kalamata!

Kalamata: "As aforementioned, the Bible, which is a book of science..."

The Bible itself never claims to be "a book of science".

Kalamata: "Recent research has substantiated that there are genetic barriers that keep species within their respective kinds.
Therefore, genetic research and observable science both point to the biblical kind as real science."

Science has never recognized "kinds" but instead has always divided plants and animals into many different categories beginning with breeds & varieties up through sub-species, species, genera, families, orders, etc.
At each higher level of generalization it becomes more difficult, then impossible for different sub-groups to interbreed.
Sometimes the dividing line is species -- where different species don't or can't naturally interbreed.
Among other groups it's genera that can't interbreed, but in some cases even different genera can & do sometimes naturally interbreed.

Kalamata: "Why are you quibbling about the created kind?
Shouldn’t you be trying to find evidence of evolution for everyone to see?"

There are literal tons of evidence for anybody to see in any public natural history museum.
You should go look someday.

Aspasia on science's definition: "That's a peculiar bird's-eye view. But at least you note its limitation."

Many older scientists, including Einstein, considered their work as trying to understand "the mind of God".
There was nothing atheistic about them.

Aspasia: "It's now gone beyond "-ism" for Darwinism. "

By the way, no scientist I know of recognizes your term "Darwinism" -- there's no such thing.
Sure, there is a theory of evolution, originated by Darwin, but scientific understandings today are light-years beyond anything Darwin could imagine.

Still, Darwin's basic concept of evolution has never been falsified.

Aspasia: "The dialogue must be turned off, especially if anyone suggests that Darwin took his idea too far to describe the whole picture."

If Darwin's ideas represented a "seed" idea, then today's understandings surrounding evolution are a large tree.
I can't think of an area where Darwin's little "seed" idea went "too far" in terms of today's science.
Perhaps his "warm little pond", but that was clearly speculation, not proposed as theory or fact.

Theologically, Darwin clearly understood what problems his ideas created, and had no real solutions for them.
But even at the end of his life Darwin claimed he'd never been an atheist.

>>No, the words in 1 Timothy 6:20 which King James translated as “science so-called” are better translated “falsely called knowledge” and refer to the Greek “gnosis”, meaning a false knowledge of the divine.
It has nothing to do with our understandings of science. Elsewhere the Bible says nothing, nada, about what we understand as modern science.”

Why the misdirection? Again, the Bible is loaded with science, for example:

1) The Bible teaches us that the universe, and everything in it, was created in 6 days; and that God stretched out the heavens. That not only explains redshift, but the phenomena called “quantized” red shifts, thousands of years before the telescope (Isa 40:22).

2) The Bible teaches us that there are ocean currents, thousands of years before a 19th century scientist discovered them (Ps 8:8).

3) The Bible teaches us that the stars of the Pleiades are gravitational bound, thousands of years before modern scientists discovered it (Job 38:31).

4) The Bible teaches us that animals and plants are bound within their respective kinds (e.g, evolution is a hoax,) which biochemists and geneticists are only now beginning to understand (Gen 1:21).

5) The Bible teaches us that the earth hangs on nothing (Job 26:7).

And so forth. The Bible is loaded with scientific gems.

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>>Your speaker at the link you posted complained that these explanations are being presented in the media and schools as “facts” when they are nothing of the sort. If he’s correct, then it’s a valid point.

They are presented as facts, and they have been all of my old life. This is a recent textbook example:

“The first genetic material was most likely RNA, not DNA. RNA plays a central role in protein synthesis, but it can also function as an enzyme-like catalyst (see Concept 17.3). Such RNA catalysts are called ribozymes. Some ribozymes can make complementary copies of short pieces of RNA, provided that they are supplied with nucleotide building blocks.

“Natural selection on the molecular level has produced ribozymes capable of self-replication in the laboratory. How does this occur? Unlike double-stranded DNA, which takes the form of a uniform helix, single-stranded RNA molecules assume a variety of specific three-dimensional shapes mandated by their nucleotide sequences. In a given environment, RNA molecules with certain nucleotide sequences may have shapes that enable them to replicate faster and with fewer errors than other sequences. The RNA molecule with the greatest ability to replicate itself will leave the most descendant molecules. Occasionally, a copying error will result in a molecule with a shape that is even more adept at self-replication. Similar selection events may have occurred on early Earth. Thus, life as we know it may have been preceded by an ‘RNA world,’ in which small RNA molecules were able to replicate and to store genetic information about the vesicles that carried them.

“In 2013, Dr. Jack Szostak and colleagues succeeded in building a vesicle in which copying of a template strand of RNA could occur—a key step towards constructing a vesicle with self-replicating RNA. On early Earth, a vesicle with such self-replicating, catalytic RNA would differ from its many neighbors that lacked such molecules. If that vesicle could grow, split, and pass its RNA molecules to its ‘daughters,’ the daughters would be protocells. Although the first such protocells likely carried only limited amounts of genetic information, specifying only a few properties, their inherited characteristics could have been acted on by natural selection. The most successful of the early protocells would have increased in number because they could exploit their resources effectively and pass their abilities on to subsequent generations. Once RNA sequences that carried genetic information appeared in protocells, many additional changes would have been possible. For example, RNA could have provided the template on which DNA nucleotides were assembled. Double-stranded DNA is a more chemically stable repository for genetic information than is the more fragile RNA. DNA also can be replicated more accurately. Accurate replication was advantageous as genomes grew larger through gene duplication and other processes and as more properties of the protocells became coded in genetic information. Once DNA appeared, the stage was set for a blossoming of new forms of life—a change we see documented in the fossil record.” [Self-Replicating RNA, in, Urry et al, “Campbell Biology.” Pearson, 11th Ed, 2017, Chap.25.1, p.526]”

That is pure 100% propaganda, and is typical of textbooks. Nearly all push the Miller-Urey experiment as if it was a big deal, rather than a dud.

***********************
>>But it remains a fact that nothing in the Bible speaks directly to our understanding of science.

The Bible is historically and scientifically accurate. If you had believed the word of God, in particular his creation and flood histories, you would not have been so easily brainwashed by promoters of evolutionism and the big-bang.

***********************
>>[Astromers] have tons & tons of “clues” — meaning confirmed observations = facts — from which they’ve formed the best explanations available. These explanations cover both the “how” and “when”, but indeed in this sense you are 100% correct: they have no clues as to “who” and “why”. By definition, such questions are beyond the scope of natural-science..

Big Bang theorists are little more than hole-patchers. The existence of mature galaxies and galactic super clusters in deep space is a mighty big monkey wrench, even if you ignore the problems with the CMB, such as the “Axis of Evil”. Further, they have no clue how to predict the age of the universe; and the highly imaginative speculation about the formation of the first star is, at best, a cosmic fairy tale.

It makes good theater, but not much else.

Mr. Kalamata

Kalamata: "James Tour is one of the top organic chemists in the world, if not THE top.
The fact that you smugly dismissed his brilliant lecture is evidence that you are all hat and no cowboy."

Kalamata is all about "smug", I don't do "smug".
In fact I enjoyed the lecture, it's why I listened to all 58 minutes (!) of it.
And I did hear some things I'd not heard before, but the key takeaway remains the fact that there's still vastly more we don't know than do.
That means to me there's unlikely to be an end to employment opportunities in this field.

Kalamata: "Yea, go right ahead, if you don’t mind throwing taxpayer dollars down a true rabbit hole, when they could be spent on the advancement of science."

We don't know how much Federal tax money supports origin of life research.
I suspect not very much money because to hear your man Tour tell it, there's not really very much of it going on.
Tour even claims there've been no real advances since Miller-Urey in 1952!

Kalamata on over-hyping: "That is true of all who promote evolutionism, and especially those who hype “origin of life” research."

By definition a "fact" is simply a confirmed observation, such as the globe-shaped Earth -- it was a theory, now a fact.
Evolution is a confirmed theory based on literal mountains of facts -- deny them all you wish, they still exist.

Most origin of life ideas are mere speculations, not even hypotheses, much less theories or facts.
Any honest scientist will tell you the truth about that.

Kalamata: "James Tour wants to stop the hype and propaganda. That is all.
Did you even watch the video?"

Right -- I did watch the video, all 58 minutes of it, and right, your man Tour wants to stop origin of life research to punish those who he claims have over-hyped it.
Tour's word is "moratorium" on research, until those people confess their alleged sins of claiming too much for science!

Kalamata: "Gibberish."

No! That's what he said, go back and review your own piece yourself.
I'll save you some time, start at minute ~54:50.
Tours goes straight from his moratorium to condemning over-hypers to quoting Deuteronomy 13: 3-4.
That text refers to:

"If a prophet, or one who foretells by dreams, appears among you and announces to you a sign or wonder..."

Such texts have nothing -- zero, zip, nada -- to do with our understandings of natural science.
As for the media, academia & politicians (Democrats all), of course, that's a very different story.

>>I suggest you review the science of the Dunning-Kruger effect. It gives all of us a framework for your posts.”

I am quite familiar with it. This journal article explains well the group-think within the evolutionism community:

“In essence, we argue that the skills that engender competence in a particular domain are often the very same skills necessary to evaluate competence in that domain—one’s own or anyone else’s. Because of this, incompetent individuals lack what cognitive psychologists variously term metacognition (Everson& Tobias, 1998), metamemory (Klin, Guizman, & Levine, 1997), metacomprehension (Maki, Jonas, & Kallod, 1994), or self-monitoring skills (Chi, Glaser, & Rees, 1982). These terms refer to the ability to know how well one is performing, when one is likely to be accurate in judgment, and when one is likely to be in error. For example, consider the ability to write grammatical English. The skills that enable one to construct a grammatical sentence are the same skills necessary to recognize a grammatical sentence, and thus are the same skills necessary to determine if a grammatical mistake has been made. In short, the same knowledge that underlies the ability to produce correct judgment is also the knowledge that underlies the ability to recognize correct judgment. To lack the former is to be deficient in the latter.” [Kruger & Dunning, “Unskilled and Unaware of It: How Difficulties in Recognizing One’s Own Incompetence Lead to Inflated Self-Assessments.” Journal of Personal and Social Psychology, Vol 77(6); December, 1999, pp.1121-1122]

By closing the “science” community to competing theories — theories other than Darwinism, Lyellism and Big-Bangism — the effect is perpetuated.

Mr. Kalamata

>>I have no doubt that God told Moses of His Creations in terms that not just Moses, but also Moses’ contempories from Egypt to Mesopotamia, would understand. Anything else would be considered obvious lies and so be rejected by the ancients. What’s remarkable to me is how closely the Bible corresponds to not just spiritual but also natural history.”

The flood stories are found in virtually every culture, implying the descendants of Noah passed on the flood story to their offspring, who then populated every culture of the world, as God commanded. These mention the Hawaiian, Western Australian, and Alaskan flood stories:

“Hawaiians have a flood story that tells of a time when, long after the death of the first man, the world became a wicked, terrible place. Only one good man was left, and his name was Nu-u. He made a great canoe with a house on it and filled it with animals. In this story, the waters came up over all the earth and killed all the people; only Nu-u and his family were saved.” [Monty White, Flood Legends]

“Western Australia: Gajara and his family survived a worldwide flood on a raft. He then sent birds to see if the waters had receded. Pleased by the smell of cooking kangaroo, the god Ngadja placed a rainbow in the sky to stop the rain clouds.” [Creation Museum, Worldwide Flood Legends]

“Alaska: The summary of the tradition of Eskimo in Orowingnarak, Alaska is: ‘A great inundation, together with an earthquake, swept the land so rapidly that only a few people escaped in their skin canoes to tops of the highest mountains.’” [Flood Traditions Around The World]

Pretty neat, huh?

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>>[My claim there are no observable facts supporting evolutionism] is a flat-out lie which discredits both you and the faith you claim to support.

You lie when you claim my statement is a lie. The only way you can redeem yourself is to present observable facts supporting evolutionism. You know you cannot.

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>>Claims our King of Sanctimony.

What are you claiming this time?

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>>There is evidence in fossils and DNA, but of course, only for those willing to see it.

If there was evidence of common descent in the fossil record, or in DNA, you would be splattering it all over this thread. You know you cannot, and sanctimonious belligerence is not evidence.

Mr. Kalamata

Kalamata: "Act dumb, much?"

Never, but your claim to be blind to literal mountains of evidence has to be the ultimate "dumb act".

Kalamata: "Okay, you pick one little pebble from that “mountain of evidence” you claim exists, and show us how it is scientific evidence for evolution.
We eagerly await."

I eagerly await your first ever visit to any natural history museum where you will steadfastly blind yourself to literal tons of evidence.

Kalamata: "It cannot be falsified, because it is not science."

Of course evolution theory could be falsified, in any of thousands of ways, should they ever be confirmed observations.
To pick just one example: dinosaur & elephant fossils, undisturbed in the same geological strata.
Consider, in the past 150+ years literally billions of fossils representing hundreds of thousands of extinct species have been found & classified, but not one confirmed as that type of anomaly.

But here is a partial listing of evolution predictions later confirmed.

Kalamata: "However, the fossil record reveals abrupt appearance followed by stasis, and disparity before diversity, both of which falsify any use of the fossil record to support evolutionism."

Now there is complete gibberish.
The fossil record, in fact, shows hundreds of thousands of species spread over hundreds of millions of years, and yet something like 99%+ of species aren't found because they left no recoverable fossils.
So all the "stasis" you allege is, first & foremost, the absence of fossils.

Second, geology shows that environmental conditions can sometimes remain unchanged for millions of years, during which life-forms also change little.
But when the environment changes -- hotter, colder, wetter, dryer, etc. -- then life too much change, or die.

The classic examples are dinosaurs whose fossils are found in strata dated over tens of millions of years, from beginning to end, then suddenly they disappeared.
Dinosaurs could not change enough to survive, but mammals & others did.

Kalamata: "And so forth.
The Bible is loaded with scientific gems."

Sure, but the Bible nowhere says that science itself is evil.

Kalamata: "They are presented as facts, and they have been all of my old life. This is a recent textbook example:"

"...was most likely..."
"..may have shapes . ..."
"...events may have occurred..."
"...may have been preceded..."
"...catalytic RNA would differ..."
"...If that vesicle could..."
"...daughters would be protocells..."
"...protocells likely carried only limited..."
"...early protocells would have increased..."
"... many additional changes would have been possible..."
"...RNA could have provided the template..."
"...the stage was set for a blossoming of new forms of life..."

Kalamata: "That is pure 100% propaganda, and is typical of textbooks."

Sorry, but as you can see, I found no speculation presented as "facts".

Kalamata: "Nearly all push the Miller-Urey experiment as if it was a big deal, rather than a dud."

Certainly Miller-Urey was a big deal if, as your man Tour claims, nothing more significant has been done since.

Kalamata: "The Bible is historically and scientifically accurate.
If you had believed the word of God, in particular his creation and flood histories, you would not have been so easily brainwashed by promoters of evolutionism and the big-bang."

The Bible itself nowhere claims to be "scientifically accurate", and it's impossible that it should, since the Bible's whole purpose in being to demonstrate God's rule over nature.
The Bible is not trying to accurately portray nature as it is, but rather to show God's mastery of nature.

To God it's irrelevant whether we agree "scientifically" with the Bible, what matters is we agree that God rules over whatever we think science tells us today.

Kalamata: "Further, they have no clue how to predict the age of the universe..."

In fact they have several different methodologies, all of which roughly agree.
The current estimate of 13.8 billion years is simply considered the best of the group.

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