The Sunset of Darwinism

tfp ^ | 06.04.08 | Julio Loredo

[Coleus]

Praised until recently as dogma, Darwin’s theory of evolution is now fading away, discredited by the same science that bore its poisoned fruit. Instead, the Christian vision of a supernatural design is being increasingly affirmed. “Evolution is now a datum proven beyond any reasonable doubt and no longer a theory, it’s not even worth taking the trouble to discuss it.” This is what a spokesman proclaimed at the Festival of Science held in Genoa in November 2005, thereby neglecting a very important aspect of modern science—the need to be open to new perspectives. Instead, the truth is quite the opposite. Paradoxically, evolutionists are taking an ever greater distance from empirical science and are wrapping themselves up in a dogmatism that borders on ideological fanaticism.

Unprovable Hypothesis
“What is left, then, in evolutionism, that is valid according to the scientific method? Nothing, actually nothing!” This is the conclusion of journalist Marco Respinti in his recent book Processo a Darwin (Darwin on Trial, Piemme, 2007). He continues: "Not one of his postulates can be verified or certified based on the method proper to the physical sciences. His whole claim escapes verification. Based on what, therefore, other than on strong prejudices of an ideological nature, can anyone affirm or continue to affirm that the evolutionist hypothesis is true?"  Indeed, the consistency of a scientific theory is founded on its capacity to be verified empirically, be it through observation of the phenomenon in nature or by reproducing it in the laboratory. The evolutionist hypothesis fails on both counts. “Thus,” Respinti shows, “Darwinism remains simply an hypothesis devoid of empirical or demonstrable foundation, besides being unproven. . . . The evolutionist hypothesis is completely unfounded for it does not master the very domain in which it launches its challenge.”

Respinti reaches this “verdict” after a rigorous “trial of Darwin” in which he analyzes the main arguments that debunk the notorious theory, ranging from nonexistent fossil records to the conflict of Darwinism with genetic science and the flimsiness of the “synthetic theory” of neo-Darwinism, without forgetting the countless frauds that have stained notable evolutionists in their insane quest to fabricate the “proofs” that science tenaciously denied them.  Respinti concludes by denouncing the ideological drift of the evolutionist school: “To categorically affirm the absolute validity of the theories of Darwinian and neo-Darwinian evolution based on the claim that discussing them would be unscientific by definition, is the worst proof that human reason can give of itself.”

A Long Sunset
The sunset of the Darwinist hypothesis has picked up speed over the last two decades. For example, consider the work carried out by the Osaka Group for the Study of Dynamic Structures, founded in 1987, in the wake of an international interdisciplinary meeting convened “to present and discuss some opinions opposed to the dominant neo-Darwinist paradigm.” Scientists from all over the world participated, including the outstanding geneticist Giuseppe Sermonti, then a professor at the University of Perugia, Italy. In 1980, together with Roberto Fondi, now a professor at the University of Siena, Sermonti wrote Dopo Darwin—Critica all’evoluzionismo (After Darwin—A Critique of Evolutionism, Rusconi, 1980). “Biology,” Sermonti explains, “has no proof at all of the spontaneous origin of life, or rather biology has proved its impossibility. There is no such thing as a gradation of life from elementary to complex. From a bacterium to a butterfly to man the biochemical complexity is substantially the same.”   For his part, Fondi shows that from the first appearance of fossils to this day, the variety and riches of living beings have not increased. New groups have replaced older ones, but the intermediate forms that the evolutionists have so frantically searched for do not exist. “The theory of evolution,” Sermonti and Fondi conclude, “has been contradicted as have few other scientific theories in the past.”

In Le forme della vita (The Forms of Life, Armando, 1981), Sermonti unveils other obstacles to Darwinism. According to the renowned geneticist, the “random” origin of life and the gradual transformation of the species through “selective change” are no longer sustainable because the most elementary life is incredibly complex and because it is now proven that replacement of living groups takes place “by leaps” rather than “by degrees.”  Putting together forty years of experience, in 1999 he wrote Dimenticare Darwin—Ombre sull’evoluzione (Forgetting Darwin—Shadows on Evolution, Rusconi, 1999). With rigorous argumentation, the author demolishes the three pillars of Darwinism: natural selection, sexual mixing and genetic “change.” According to him, history will remember the theory of evolution as the “Big Joke.”

Not Just Creationists
Sermonti has been often accused of being a “creationist” or a “religious fundamentalist” even though he has always said he does not fit his scientific vision into a Christian perspective, and this yet one more aspect to note in the polemic against Darwinism, which many people other than Christians also contest it.  In this sense, it is interesting to note the recent editorial in Il Cerchio, “Seppellire Darwin? Dalla critica del darwinismo agli albori d’una scienza nuova,” ("Bury Darwin? From a Critique of Darwinism to the Dawn of a New Science") containing essays by seven specialists including Sermonti, Fondi and Giovanni Monastra, director of Italy’s National Institute for Food and Nutrition Research. The title refers to the famous phrase by Chandra Wickramasinghe, a professor of applied mathematics of the University College of Cardiff, “The probability that life was formed from inanimate matter is equal to 1 followed by 40,000 zeros . . . . It is large enough to bury Darwin and the whole theory of evolution.”

From Dimenticare Darwin—Ombre sull’evoluzione’s introduction: For the first time in Italy, a critique of Darwinism is presented in all its complexity thanks to the interdisciplinary contribution of scholars of several orientations—[b]eyond the polemic between neo-Darwinian fundamentalists and religious integralists, the essay demonstrates how the critique of the now old neo-Darwinist paradigm opens the doors to a new science.

A Crisis of the Positivist Paradigm
Francis Crick, who together with Watson discovered the structure of DNA, openly declared, “An honest man, armed only with the knowledge available to us, could affirm only that, in a certain sense, the origin of life at the moment appears to be rather a miracle,” In the same wavelength, Harold Hurey, a disciple of Stanley Miller who made history with his failed attempt to recreate life in the laboratory from a so-called primordial broth, said, “All of us who studied the origins of life uphold that the more we get into it, the more we feel it is too complex to have evolved in any way.” Indeed, a lot of faith is required to believe in evolutionism, and it is precisely that faith, of a clearly positivist^[1] mold, that is now beginning to weaken.

In Darwinismo: le ragioni di una crisi (Darwinism: The Reasons of a Crisis), Gianluca Marletta sticks his finger in the wound by observing that “The crisis of Darwinism is above all a crisis of the philosophical paradigms that allowed its success.”  “One cannot understand the origin of this doctrine,” Marletta explains, “without going back to the cultural climate of ‘triumphant positivism’ straddling the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.” According to Marletta, Darwinism constituted a wonderful occasion to strengthen the positivistic view of the world being affirmed at that time. Darwinism represented the perfect tool to transplant, into the biological field, the mechanic and materialist paradigms already imposed on the social sciences. This is the true motive of this theory’s success. A motive that now begins to subside with the crisis of the positivist paradigm. This explains the almost fanatical tenacity with which evolutionists are defending their convictions. “Many fear,” concludes Marletta, “that the fall of Darwinism can bring down with it the whole positivist vision of the world.”

God’s Comeback
The crumbling of positivism is bringing back to the limelight issues that a certain conventional wisdom thought to have definitively eliminated. Shaken from the sudden crumbling of old certainties, worried about the chaos that increasingly marks this postmodern age, many people are once again asking the fundamental questions: Does my life have a transcendental meaning? Is there an intelligent project in nature? In short, does God exist?   Sociologist Rosa Alberoni wrote about this in her book, Il Dio di Michelangelo e la barba di Darwin (The God of Michelangelo and Darwin’s Beard), published last November by Rizzoli with a preface by Cardinal Renato Martino, president of the Pontifical Council Justice and Peace. The onslaught of “Darwin’s worshippers,” Alberoni explains, is carried out by the “usual destructive atheists obsessed with the goal of stamping out Christ and destroying the Judeo-Christian civilization after having sucked its blood and essence.” This sullen assault, however, in the deeply changed ambience of post-modernity, risks being counterproductive: The monkey myth is what really shook ordinary people. Like soldiers woken up by an alarm in the middle of the night, Christian believers and [O]rthodox Jews prepared for the defense. Or rather for the war, because that is what it has become . . . [o]n the symbolic level, the bone of contention is the ancestor of man: God or a monkey? Should one believe in God or in Darwin? This is the substantial nature of the ongoing clash in our civilization.

In other words, a real war of religion looms in the dawn of the Third Millennium. Precisely that which secularists have tried to avoid at all cost.

Footnote:

1. Positivism is the philosophical system created by August Comte (1798–1857), which only accepts the truths that we can reach by direct observation or by experimentation. Thus it denies classical philosophy, theology and all supernatural religion.

[Fichori]

"This isn't about evolution. It's about rocks. Nobody is claiming that rocks evolve."

Yes, its about rocks.

Rocks that they claim are millions of years old.

Those millions of years are a philosophical assumption of the Non Empirical Evolutionary Dogma.


If there was as much money poured into YEC as there is being poured into Evolution, YEC would squash Evolution like a bug.

[tacticalogic]

Those millions of years are a philosophical assumption of the Non Empirical Evolutionary Dogma.

Not being more than 6,000 years old is a theological assumpion of a literal interpretation of Genesis. Claiming the other guy is dogmatic doen't mean you aren't.

[Fichori]

"Not being more than 6,000 years old is a theological assumpion of a literal interpretation of Genesis. Claiming the other guy is dogmatic doen't mean you aren't."

Its only a theological assumption if you dogmatically ignore the evidences.

I suggest you read: Evolution: The Anti-science

There is a difference between being dogmatically consistent in the empirical scientific method, and being dogmatic about ignoring evidence.

[tacticalogic]

Its only a theological assumption if you dogmatically ignore the evidences.

The "evidences" are "the Bible tells me so". That's a theological assumption.

[Coyoteman]

Rocks that they claim are millions of years old.

And have evidence to support those claims. There is no scientific evidence to contradict those claims. Only religious belief.

Those millions of years are a philosophical assumption of the Non Empirical Evolutionary Dogma.

Nonsense. Scientists all over the world come up with those radiometric ages. None of them are evolutionists. (Try geologists, nuclear physicists, nuclear chemists and a bunch of other 'ologists. Evolutionary biologists don't do their own dating.)

If there was as much money poured into YEC as there is being poured into Evolution, YEC would squash Evolution like a bug.

Nonsense again. The only thing that would happen is a bunch of dubious preachers would get richer, they would spin even taller tales for their TRVE believers, and even more of them would end up in jail for tax evasion and other dubious adventures.

Look at the RATE Project -- over a million dollars in creationist money and what did they get? They confirmed what scientists had been saying all along (and then they refused to believe their own data). See Assessing the RATE Project: Essay Review by Randy Isaac.

[Fichori]

"The "evidences" are "the Bible tells me so". That's a theological assumption."

Strawman and you know it.

I think this discussion has become, to quote the RM, "Dead horse"

[Fichori]

You’ve made it very clear that in your opinion, anything anyone says that contradicts Evolution is nonsense.

You look like a perfect example of an Evolutionist who dogmatically ignores/denies anything/everything that does not agree with his world view.

[tacticalogic]

Strawman and you know it.

The references you posted explicitly specify a requirement of a biblical framework for science before it can be considered valid.

You're requiring an explicitl and very specific theological test that any scientific theory or evidence must pass before it can be considered valid.

[Tailgunner Joe]

It does not follow that because a new species branches off from another species, that therefore all species share a common ancestor. It's a logical leap of faith.

[Teacher317]

Umm, what is posted is empirical truth that can be verified by anyone. He basically typed that untold numbers of scientists have run similar tests, and gotten similar results. That makes it quite likely that the test results accurately reflect the truth. How can asserting this simple truth be decried as “ignoring everything that does not agree”? What is there that does not agree with those test results on those rocks? What tests or logical suppositions do you have that would counter those test results on those rocks?

[Tailgunner Joe]

Claiming that all species share a common ancestor is claiming something about the origins of life, namely that whatever caused the origin of life only happened once, creating a single simple lifeform which is the ancestor of all living things. Darwinists act like their disinterest in the question of the origins of life is some kind of strength of the theory of evolution. In fact it may be its greatest weakness. The whole theory practically begs the question of origins. If some simple single-celled life form was created out of the “primordial soup” once, then why not twice? Why not many times? If life came to Earth on a comet, couldn't it have come on more than one comet? Could different animal kingdoms not be related at all? If unrelated living things adapted to the same environments, it is not surprising that they could have developed similar traits. Different animals might have similar qualities, but it does not therefore follow that they are all related to one another.

[tacticalogic]

In other words, there were lots of mountains after the flood that did not exist before the flood.

Sorry, I missed that post earlier.

This still appears to be, by your own standards, untestable and unprovable.

Even assuming such a flood did take place, there is no recorded history of the geography of this continent before about 300 years ago, and none on the area in question until Lewis and Clark. By the standards you want applied to empirical evidence, you can posit that there was a volcano there, but you cannot say when it erupted unless you have a record of it being observed.

[LeGrande]

I believe in ID, and the idea behind ID is contradictory to Evolution.

Where is the contradiction?

I also don't believe that God started the 'Evolutionary Process' (I belive that God designed all genetic information, which has, since the fall, Devolved.)

So you believe God screwed up and you believe in devolution? Do you also believe that mankind was created separately from everything else?

BTW, TOE claims a net increase of usable information, TOC claims a net DECREASE of usable information.

Yes I understand that the 'Theory of Creation' disagrees with evolution but the theory of Intelligent Design claims a net increase in usable information too.

So what are you a proponent of Creation or ID?

[Ha Ha Thats Very Logical]

Claiming that all species share a common ancestor is claiming something about the origins of life, namely that whatever caused the origin of life only happened once, creating a single simple lifeform which is the ancestor of all living things.

No, it's only claiming that all the life that survives has a common ancestor. Maybe life did get started multiple times, but none of the other attempts made it. Maybe life continued to arise even after the common-ancestor life was established, and it didn't survive. There doesn't have to have been one and only one origin of life on earth--just one that survived.

[Ha Ha Thats Very Logical]

Science presupposes that the universe is logical and orderly and that it obeys mathematical laws that are consistent over time and space. Even though conditions in different regions of space and eras of time are quite diverse, there is nonetheless an underlying uniformity.

Because there is such regularity in the universe, there are many instances where scientists are able to make successful predictions about the future... Without uniformity in nature, such predictions would be impossible, and science could not exist.

You quote the above with approval, and yet you argue for events in the past that require the complete opposite. You argue that "the universe is designed and upheld by God in a uniform way," but then claim there were all these non-uniform events in the past. You acknowledge that scientists can make successful predictions about the future, based on uniformity, but deny that they can make accurate inferences about the past based on the same principle.

It starts to appear as though you'll argue for whatever you need to support your religious views, regardless of its contradictions.

[Fichori]

"Umm, what is posted is empirical truth that can be verified by anyone." [excerpt]

Well then, lets have a look at an example of what was posted:

"There is no scientific evidence to contradict those claims." [excerpt: 265]

That is a little bit of religious dogma.
Denying the existence of of contradicting evidence is not empirical science.

Another:

"Scientists all over the world come up with those radiometric ages. None of them are evolutionists." [excerpt: 265]

Here, he throws a strawman.
I said that "Those millions of years are a philosophical assumption of the Non Empirical Evolutionary Dogma.", aka, Conjecture derived from Methodological Naturalism, to which he replies that the scientists who do radiometric dating are not evolutionists.
(Even though they use a methodology that is tuned to suit Evolution)

So, tell me, how many 'empirical truths' have you tested yourself?

[Fichori]

Where is the contradiction between random mutation and intelligently designed?

"So you believe God screwed up and you believe in devolution?" [excerpt]

Nope.

The word I actually used was devolved.

"Do you also believe that mankind was created separately from everything else?" [excerpt]

Go read Genesis 1.

"Yes I understand that the 'Theory of Creation' disagrees with evolution but the theory of Intelligent Design claims a net increase in usable information too.

So what are you a proponent of Creation or ID?" [excerpt]

Intelligent Design only stipulates an Intelligent Designer.
Of course there are those who would say that ID is Intelligently Designed evolution, but then they should say IDE.

I believe in an Intelligently Designed Creation.

[Ha Ha Thats Very Logical]

Next time you want to accuse me of contradicting myself, first make sure you have the guts to excerpt in context all the contradicting quotes.

I quoted those entire two paragraphs, except for their one example about what can be predicted. Get off your high horse.

What significant difference do you think adding the sentence back in about predicting astronomical events makes? The primary other thing we've been talking about predicting is the stability of Yucca Mountain. Is there a reason you believe astronomy can make predictions but geology can't?

And does highlighting the sentence about diverse conditions mean that you accept the idea that conditions on Earth can change so much in 6000 years as to render the evidence against the Flood unreliable? If things can change that much in that short a time, what possible meaning can "uniformity" have?

Last, please stop staying "strawman" to posts that aren't straw men at all; and what the heck is a "flying elephant"?

[Fichori]

"What significant difference do you think adding the sentence back in about predicting astronomical events makes? The primary other thing we've been talking about predicting is the stability of Yucca Mountain. Is there a reason you believe astronomy can make predictions but geology can't?" [excerpt]

Predicting the orbit of the moon based on current observation is very simple.(most if not all the variables are known)

Predicting the 'orbit' of a mountain is not so simple.(Only a fraction of the variables are known)

"And does highlighting the sentence about diverse conditions mean that you accept the idea that conditions on Earth can change so much in 6000 years as to render the evidence against the Flood unreliable? If things can change that much in that short a time, what possible meaning can "uniformity" have?" [excerpt]

Strawman.
Thats not meaning I, or the writer of the article meant to convey.

"Last, please stop staying "strawman" to posts that aren't straw men at all; and what the heck is a "flying elephant"?" [excerpt]

I say strawman when someone twists something I said.
If you don't like me saying strawman, don't twist what I say or put words in my mouth.