Daily Archives: February 11, 2017

The Darwinian theory considers as a driving force in evolution the adaptation to the environment derived from the combined effect of the natural selection and of the random mutations.

There is a brief description of the Theory of Darwin in chapter 9.

Despite the generally acceptation of Darwinism, since its start, it has posed quite a few problems from the scientific point of view and there have always been a criticism of Darwinism.

Before getting into enumeration of the main points of criticism of Darwinism, I would like to analyze why it beat onto the Theory of Lamarck or other evolutionary theories. At the end of this section, after the cited enumeration, I will discuss the current difficulties for its rejection or substitution.

In the second half of the 19th century, the humanist rationalism had extended into all of the scientific circles and found itself in full peak. There were already sufficient indications that the Earth was much older than what had been thought; a scientific theory was needed that would position the human being in the planets history.

Of course, the new theory had to comply with a seemingly scientific condition, and had to completely and radically remove itself from the religious ideas that had hindered the scientific development so much. The old problems of Galileo and Miguel Servet had not been forgotten by the scientific community. Lets hope they never forget!

The Theory of Lamarck seems very logical and reasonable, but it suffered a problem: it was given a leading role in the life outside of the human dimension. There was something inside the plants and animals that, faced with environmental modifications, evolved consciously and guidingly.

On one side, the powerful influence of the religious ideas, still existing today, could not allow losing monopoly of spirituality; and, on the other, the scientific community was not going to openly struggle with the religious powers that be in order to shift conscious and intelligent life on an internal scale to the live organisms different from themselves. Moreover, there wasnt any scientific proof of their existence. In this case, we could talk about thesis, antithesis and synthesis; any theory that resolves the contradictions of the era with a minimum of rigor in its approaches would undoubtedly triumph.

In this context, emerged the Darwinian Theory clearly showing the effects of the evolution of the species and, from the scientific point of view, there was no reasonable doubt that man descended from the ape, and, that we know of, no one has questioned it outside of the strictly religious realm such as the Creationist Theory or Creationism. In fact, even the predominantly religious confessions do not directly attack the Darwinian Theory or pose a strong criticism of Darwinism.

Another interesting aspect is that the title of Darwins work comes about referring to the "evolution of species" and not to the "life evolution" for which it avoids having to define life; this should not be anything easy because it is not well-known whether the existence of life has scientific or rather a philosophical nature.

We are not trying to deny or diminish the great contribution of Darwins theory to modern thought in anthropology, but rather to make a positive criticism of Darwinism delimiting the extension of the theory and to avoid erroneous or defective implications having negative effects in the development of society. It is worth pointing out that any theory of evolution has countless consequences on philosophical and social thinking that pervade any number of individual attitudes and acts; for example, different approaches to certain problems of social justice or to the efficiency of a certain educational system.

The weak points allowing the criticism of Darwinism are numerous and interrelated; nonetheless, we are going to try to indicate them in order of importance from a methodological perspective even if it means repeatedly mentioning some topic by presenting problems of a different nature:

The Darwinian Theory of natural selection tries to explain the disappearance of non-optimal genetic modifications by lesser, or lack of, adaptation of individuals to the environment, but it does not say anything about the origin of modifications or about the processes in which they are carried out.

This is the first argument of criticism of Darwinism because it is implicitly denying or limiting the slightest expression of the very concept of evolution, given that the new beings have the same genetic information as their ancestors with supposed mutations that can have a positive as well as negative effect. (Let us think about the idea of all humans been born with the same potential of intelligence)

The process of evolution is not in the changes in the genetic information but rather the disappearance of the less favorable changes. In Darwins time, there was no genetic knowledge, but they knew that something goes from some generations to others.

Likewise, it is indirectly assumed that where there is no natural selection there is no evolution.

The second issue of criticism of Darwinism is that the main argument of natural selection, or putting it another way: "that which exists is because it has survived and hasnt disappeared" is a tautology for which there is no humanly way to deny it. The only possible criticism is to point out the total lack of scientific severity in it.

The Spanish mountain cats, direct descendants of the wild cats of 20,000 years ago, see better during the day than the domestic cats...

...but its true importance lies in that it proposes a new mechanism of rapid adaptation of the species in very few years (between 15,000 and 20,000) in evolutionary terms.

...The adaptation of animals to their environment takes place by means of the death of certain cells, in this case: neurons, during the second half of fetal development...

El Pas 15-01-1993. Journal of Neuroscience

The model, designed the way it is, only works in long-term in our physical scale. Later, it eliminates short-term evolution and thats the way ideas emerge, reaching completely into present day, like the Homo sapiens in their beginning moments who practically had the same intellectual capacity as nowadays. With that, all that is achieved is unnaturally intensifying the problems of evolutionary leaps.

Implicitly, the Darwinian Theory accepts the randomness of genetic modifications, hence the generally used name of "random mutations", denying the existence of a real driving force of evolution without any scientific proof on this matter, when logic appears to indicate the contrary. The lack of evidence it clear a subject of the criticism of Darwinism.

...complete sequencing of the small human Y chromosome...

...The surprise has been that a fourth are long palindromes: genetic sequences that are read equally from left to right as right to left and consist of two arms.

The investigators think that the palindromes, which contain all of the genes from the testicles, allow the interchange of information within the same chromosome and that thus the mutations are repaired or transmitted.

El Pas 21-06-2003.

Obviously, Darwin did not scientifically show the randomness in all of the cases of the variation in genetic information, nor was it shown later; it is become an axiom.

As far as I know, modern Neo-Darwinism still have not told us which statistical distribution the random mutations follow; it could be the uniform or normal distribution, that of Poison or that of Fisher. Without a doubt, it is a great secret of science or a metaphysical mystery.

Under certain assumptions, the method of evolution by means of random mutations or modifications can be acceptable. We know that some bacteria produce different bacteria in an extremely small proportion. If there were a change in the environmental conditions, such as the acidity of the environment in which they live, those bacteria would be the ones that would survive. After numerous generations, these bacteria would be the ones that make up the new population. At the same time, would produce an extremely small population of bacteria like the initial one that, where appropriate, they would again allow the survival of the species.

This is the common example that used to "prove" Darwins theory of evolution, but it is a very special case, in which generations change at an extremely fast rate with enormous quantities of descendants.

This example of Neo-Darwinism is not completely free of criticism, since the attempted random mutations or modifications are not random modifications of so many elemental letters or units of DNA. But rather that they could easily be understood as pre-established modifications and generated in one or various parts of DNA that make up an efficient set in regard to the different characteristics of the new being and preserving the structural code in its totality. That is, the fact of definitely using the mechanism of natural selection doesnt itself imply that other mechanisms arent used to create diversity in the descendants.

The mysterious origin of the resistance of bacteria.

It is not known yet from where the genes that bacteria borrow to make themselves resistant to antibiotics, for example, really come from. The results of the search for these genes on different grounds have shown to be negative, as explained by professor Jorge Laborda.

El Pas 24-11-2010

Moreover, natural selection does not manage to eliminate the supposedly less adapted variant, given that this evolutionary line is maintained as the same example shows.

However, the most serious issue of the criticism of Darwinism here is the fact that after accepting as proven that the mutations are random, it is also accepted that the contrary is proven. That the mutations are random but by perfectly delimited groups and with specific points of entrance which would be completely incompatible with the first randomness so "proven" according to the scientific method.

In its day, there were criticisms of Darwinism about the lack of the scientific method of this theory; specifically, it is a theory supported by the inductive reasoning from the observation of certain facts and making inferences about generality.

The inductive reasoning is perfectly valid but the generalization that it makes should comply with certain requirements. One of requirements is that whatever example not satisfying the theory implies its refutation. In this respect, we can cite the following cases:

The genetic changes that are obtaining the new techniques do not have a random but guided nature; moreover, the mechanism of the natural selection is not bringing about the appearance of the new beings like in the agriculture field. It could be argued whether these changes made by humans are natural or not, but we have to keep in mind that we humans, except for contrary evidence, make up a part of nature just like the viruses do.

Likewise, we are aware that the viruses make changes in the DNA of the invaded cells, in order to reproduce themselves. It would not be surprising if they could perform another type of changes; for example, with the intention of cheating the immune system in the future, that not even one of these modifications would be transmitted or that one of the reactions would not be transmitted in the genetic sphere as a defense against these aggressions.

Recently, new knowledge of genetic evolution has been emerging that openly contradicts the Darwinian Theory of evolution. They are so numerous that they cannot be mentioned, but some of them are distributed throughout this book in the form of literal quotes from biology news that have been appearing subsequent to the initial formulation of the General Theory of the Conditional Evolution of Life (GTCEL) and, in the majority of the cases, of the very redaction of the book.

More than 200 of the identified human genes seem to be the result of the direct or horizontal transference of the genes of bacteria (without passing through another organism in the evolution)

El Pas 19-02-2001. Conference of the American Association for the Advancement of Science

Darwinism has, on one hand, significant shortcomings when it comes to explaining reality. Darwin tried, unsuccessfully, to give sexual differentiation a broader sense than that of pure specialization of certain tasks because he sensed that it was necessary to do so; but his theory did not offer any explanation, except that of having to be one of the best methods of evolution, and for that reason it exists.

Of course, it does not explain why in superior animals the descendants of very genetically close individuals, such as in the case of siblings, is not feasible or presents serious defects.

I have the impression sexual selection, about which Darwin wrote a book, goes conceptual and directly against natural selection. The first one explains the evolutionary tendency while the second one only explains the deletion of some branches of the real evolutionary process.

Any farmer knows perfectly the preeminence of sexual selection versus natural selection. It makes sense that Darwin needed to go to Galapagos Islands to convince about the non-relevance of sexual selection; obviously, no farmer could correct him because they were not in Galapagos Islands.

The irony of the evolution of the life does that to the sexual selection, of stallion or seed, the present engineers, farmers and cattle dealers denominate natural selection. Without a doubt, it must be another conquest or adaptation of the Darwinist Theory.

Another important shortcoming is the almost impossibility of producing the commonly called evolutionary leaps; it is difficult to logically argue a change in the basic structure of the genetic code through mutations. The only option is to resort once again to the long-term evolution with the added advantage that, when we talk about the long-term evolution, we automatically lose the temporal notion. However, the very concept of the evolutionary leap impedes us from using the long-term in evolutionary terms.

Other aspects related to the sexual differentiation and the evolutionary leaps discussed in the section about the objectives of evolution, and that make up part of the main argument of the Conditional Evolution, are completely absent from the approaches of the Darwinian Theory. It makes sense due to the temporal difference of both; but as I will cite much later, the criticism is that neither the Neo-Darwinian Theory nor the Modern Evolutionary Synthesis says anything on this matter. Quite the contrary, they dont exist. The life in the scientific realm has no objective and doesnt make any sense at all!

...that fusion of two bacteria occurred first, and later the mitochondria were added...

... the transition of prokaryotes to eukaryotes' is the greater evolutionary discontinuity in the Earths history. The differences are enormous, and the transition is very sudden.

El Pas 14-03-2001

In view of the previous premises of the criticism of Darwinism, there should be strong reasons for Darwinian Theory of evolution to have lasted throughout the entire 20th century with small conceptual modifications contributed by the trend called Neo-Darwinian and by the Modern Synthetic Theory. In fact, these modifications suppose a mere update of the Darwinian Theory of evolution according to the new scientific discoveries in the subject matter, as we will see when talking about them. For this reason, the theory is still Darwinism for the population in general.

Some of these strong reasons are similar to those that made its acceptance possible. Before I have discussed the formal requirements of a scientific theorys independence from any philosophical or religious approach; nowadays this requirement is still maintained but with an additional problem. To refute the Darwinian Theory now would assume, to a certain extent, that not just rationalism of the 18th and 19th centuries but the whole scientific community of the 20th century have made a serious mistake in embracing an evolutionary theory so weak. Once more, the philosophers are partly right and the scientific method, to which it would have to be added, is not foolproof, especially if it is not correctly applied.

The basic novelty of the General Theory of Conditional Evolution of Life is the consideration of evolution as an internal improvement mechanism of living beings; which transmits to the descendants and that, given the complexity of the involved aspects, uses multiple systems, methods or processes, depending for each case according to its specific conditions.

For a large part of society, the acceptance of the Conditional Evolution, or of any other evolutionary theory assuming the existence of the mentioned internal improvement mechanism of the living beings, would mean a step back. Scientifically recognizing that there seems to be an intelligent evolution guided from the very interior of living beings sounds like a religious idea about life. It distorts the distinction of the human being and attacks the delightful egocentrism of the human species; in other words, it is completely unacceptable on principle.

Another large part of society maintains its religious ideas, and as a result, the comments in the previous paragraph are equally applicable; so in the same words, it is completely unacceptable on principle.

Putting it another way, the Theory of Darwin is a very convenient theory, socially speaking, having a strong idealist component given that denying short-term evolution does not compromise the implanting of certain traits in the genetic sphere related to the desirable equality of opportunities.

In this sense, efforts have been made to keep the essence of the evolutionary theory. However, the mentioned weakness in the previous points 1) and 5) are practically maintained, in spite of the fact that, with the introduction of genetics and the knowledge derived from other advances in science, we can talk about short-term evolution but always on a microscopic scale. These updates have been carried out principally first, by the trend called Neo-Darwinism and, afterwards, by the Modern Synthetic Theory; although the latter tries to distance itself a little more, in my opinion, it does not manage to do it.

The updates have been possible to a great extent due to that we still do not have conclusive proof of the non-random nature of the modification of the genetic information, despite that there well-known are special points of DNA change. In addition, one of the main issues of criticism of Darwinism, that the term "natural selection" has, at times, an almost absurd generalization because of its tautological content.

Everything unknown has come to be considered random a priori, even against logic. This tendency also diminishes or limits itself in the view of the explanations, based on the theory of chaos and the fractal structures, of facts that previously seemed totally random (incidentally, it is the contrary to the famous example of the butterfly)

Despite of the greater comprehension of the sexual differentiation concerning its difference with the germ line evolution and about the sexual equality in society from the scientific point of view; the lack of satisfactory explanations of previous points 7) and 8) allows the criticism of the essence of the Darwinian Theory by methodological means in the fields of biology and genetics. In any case, any rational explanation of the facts to which the mentioned points are referring to will difficult to be compatible with the theory of natural selection.

There have always been authors that do not share the predominant vision, although they have not managed to formulate an alternative evolutionary theory capable of shifting it. And on the other hand, the expression of this attitude conveys of some way, although increasingly less, a professional marginalization and the risk of being described as being close to certain ideologies that have nothing to do with a scientific attitude or the contrary; without a doubt, this is due to the apparent philosophical and social repercussions that can implicate several theories. I say apparent because reality is not going to change by explaining it better one way or another.

The General Theory of Conditional Evolution of Life will suffer this risk largely, by citing the inheritance of intelligence as a recurrent example. I want to take advantage of the occasion to state in defense of this example, which has been, if not the principal, the direct cause of the development of the new evolutionary theory and, therefore, not having been chosen to intentionally attract attention. Furthermore, it is difficult to obtain models of evolution that can be statistically confirmable.

The list of authors would be too long but we can make a special note of Adam Sedgwick (1785-1873), a distinguished English geologist for being one of the first which, regardless of his attack on Darwinian Theory for religious reasons (he was educated in the Creationist Theory which was dominant in his time), after reading his theory, expressed the following:

"You have deserted - after a start in that tram-road of all solid physical truth-the true method of induction..."

It basically says that Darwin, after a beginning in the path of pure physical reality, abandons the true inductive reasoning...

Adam Adam Sedgwick, despite his creationist education, was not opposed to evolution or development in its broad sense. He believed that the Earth was extremely old, as Darwin recognizes in his notes from classes that Adam Sedgwick received at the university.

However, Adam Sedgwick believed in the Divine creation of life during long periods of time Given that, he also said that evolution was a fact of history. His personal objections to the theory of Darwin were the immoral and materialistic nature of natural selection and the abandonment of the scientific method.

In conclusion, the Conditional Evolution understands that natural selection is just one more method of evolution, but it is neither unique, nor general, nor the most important. In addition, from a conceptual point of view, this method is produced in a moment subsequent to the changes in the genetic information that makes up the actual evolution.

On the page on Studies on evolution of intelligence, the EDI Study is explained and its incredible results that confirm the Conditional Evolution are discussed. Besides, the Darwinout experiment is suggested to verify the aforementioned extremes of the new scientific theory, with a much simpler methodology than the one used in the research of the EDI Study, both in its execution and comprehension.

See the article here:

Criticism of Darwinism - MOLWICK

In Mouse and Human Embryo Development, Critical Transition Points Beyond Neo-Darwinism Discovery Institute On a new episode of ID the Future, Sarah Chaffee talks with CSC Senior Fellow Ann Gauger about a recent paper in the journal Cell, and how it seems that the more we look, the more complexity and sophistication we find. Download the episode by clicking ...

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In Mouse and Human Embryo Development, Critical Transition Points Beyond Neo-Darwinism - Discovery Institute

As an article at The Conversation by Professors Ian Godwin and Yuri Trusov observes, "The tragic story of Soviet genetics shows the folly of political meddling in science."

There is much truth in the article, but its authors assume that during the era of Trofim Lysenko the Soviet government persecuted people who "embraced evolution and genetics." On this point, they quote "Australia's Chief Scientist, Alan Finkel, [who] mentioned him [that is, Lysenko] during a speech at a meeting of chief scientists in Canberra."

They continue:

The emerging ideology of Lysenkoism was effectively a jumble of pseudoscience, based predominantly on his rejection of Mendelian genetics and everything else that underpinned [Nikolai] Vavilov's science. He was a product of his time and political situation in the young USSR.

In reality, Lysenko was what we might today call a crackpot. Among other things, he denied the existence of DNA and genes, he claimed that plants selected their mates, and argued that they could acquire characteristics during their lifetime and pass them on. He also espoused the theory that some plants choose to sacrifice themselves for the good of the remaining plants -- another notion that runs against the grain of evolutionary understanding.

In fact, the Soviet government embraced Darwinian evolution (which according to Darwin's own writings contained Lamarckian elements), and persecuted Mendelian genetics, which was considered to be a threat to Darwinism. For more, see the abridged excerpt below from Chapter 16 of my 2006 book The Politically Incorrect Guide to Darwinism and Intelligent Design:

American Lysenkoism

When Mendelian biologists criticized Trofim Lysenko, he simply evaded their arguments and declared that Mendelian genetics was unacceptable because it contradicted Darwinian evolution.1 By then, many Western biologists were accepting the "modern synthesis" of Darwinian evolution and Mendelian genetics, but Soviet Minister of Agriculture Jakov Jakovlev supported Lysenko by declaring Mendelism to be incompatible with true Darwinism. In 1937, Prezent praised Lysenko for "marching under the banner of reconstruction of biological science on the basis of Darwinism raised to the level of Marxism," while he demonized the Mendelians as "powers of darkness."2

If government officials and Darwinist ideologues had not come to Lysenko's rescue, the Mendelians would probably have prevailed -- as they did outside the Soviet Union -- because they had better science on their side. Lysenko's Stalinist suppression of Mendelians in the 1940s made matters much worse, but the underlying problem was that the government-supported scientific establishment had chosen to support one side in a scientific dispute. For many years, biologists in the Soviet Union were persecuted by the government if they challenged the official view of Darwinian orthodoxy or defended Mendelian genetics.3

So, contrary to the claims of [American Darwinists], the scientific conflict underlying Lysenkoism was not Lamarckism against Darwinism, but classical Darwinism (which had undeniably Lamarckian elements) against the new Mendelian genetics. The present conflict between neo-Darwinism and intelligent design resembles Lysenkoism in the sense that the Darwinists are still opposing new ideas.

Darwinists would like us to believe that ID proponents -- like Lysenko -- want to use the government to oppose evolution. But as often happens, Darwinists have things exactly upside-down. Stalin and Lysenko were Darwinists who persecuted Mendelians, just as modern Darwinists persecute IDers (though, thank God, they haven't imprisoned us). In fact, Darwinism is at the root of the persecution in both cases. And like Mendelism, ID is better science than Darwinism.

So the lesson is legitimate: Don't allow the government to use its power to enforce a particular view on a scientific question. If only the government would stay out of the evolution-ID controversy!

Notes:

(1) Nils Roll-Hansen, The Lysenko Effect: The Politics of Science (Amherst, NY: Humanity Books, 2005), 86-89. Valery N. Soyfer, Lysenko and the Tragedy of Soviet Science (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1994), 63. David Joravsky, The Lysenko Affair (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1970), 208, 238-239. Zhores Medvedev, The Rise and Fall of T. D. Lysenko (New York: Columbia University Press, 1969), Chapter 3.

(2) Roll-Hansen, 218-220. Medvedev, 46-49.

(3) Medvedev, Chapter 11. Loren R. Graham, What Have We Learned about Science and Technology from the Russian Experience? (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1998), Chapter 1 and Conclusions. Roll-Hansen, Chapter 10.

Photo: Trofim Lysenko (left) at the Kremlin, with Stalin (far right), via Wikicommons.

Read the original here:

The Truth about Soviet Science and Darwinian Evolution Isn't as Darwinists Would Like Us to Believe - Discovery Institute

February 12 is Darwin Day, and this year the international celebration falls on a Sunday. Look for theistic Darwinists to reassure churches that Charles Darwin believed in God, or at least that his theory of evolution harmonizes beautifully with Christian theology.

The reality is more complex.

In The Origin of Species, Darwin suggested the idea of a God who created a few original forms and then let the laws of nature govern the outcome. It is just as noble a conception of the Deity to believe that He created a few original forms capable of self-development into other and needful forms, he wrote, as to believe that he required a fresh act of creation to supply the voids caused by the action of his laws.

But later he wrote privately to friend Joseph Hooker, I have long regretted that I truckled to public opinion, and used the Pentateuchal term of creation. And in 1862, he told Harvard botanist Asa Gray there seemed to be too much misery in the world. He could not accept, for example, that a beneficent and omnipotent God would have designedly created [digger wasps] with the express intention of their feeding within the living bodies of caterpillars, or that a cat should play with mice.

A Devils ChaplainFor Darwin it always came back to the problem of pain. What a book a devils chaplain might write on the clumsy, wasteful, blundering, low, and horribly cruel works of nature! he wrote to Hooker around 1856.

Wounded pride also may have played a role. In his autobiography, Darwin recalled that while on board H.M.S. Beagle he was heartily laughed at by several of the officers for quoting the Bible as an unanswerable authority on some point of morality.

So he reconsidered the Old Testament and later described it as a manifestly false history of the world, with the Tower of Babel, the rainbow as a sign, etc., etc. The Bible, he concluded, was no more to be trusted than the sacred books of the Hindoos, or the beliefs of any barbarian.

Methodological AtheismGray told Darwin that he didnt see why they couldnt have both Darwins theory of evolution and a role for a designing intelligence. Darwin would have none of it, but realizing that a thoroughgoing materialism wasnt an easy sell, he actively concealed this aspect of his thinking. In one notebook he reminded himself to avoid stating how far, I believe, in Materialism.

Darwin promoted his materialistic worldview indirectly by supporting the principle that science should invoke only material causes. According to this methodological rule, you neednt be an atheist to do science, but you should offer only hypotheses consistent with atheism when doing science. Call it methodological atheism. As he told geologist Charles Lyell, I would give absolutely nothing for the theory of Natural Selection, if it require miraculous additions at any one stage of descent.

This methodological dogma is in full bloom today. We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs, in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just-so stories, because we have a prior commitment, a commitment to materialism, wrote Harvard geneticist Richard Lewontin. Moreover, he added, that materialism is absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door.

A Blind EyeOne doesnt hear much about the materialism of Darwin and Darwinism, likely because there has been a longstanding effort to ignore and suppress it. Many of todays theistic Darwinists play this game, but they are hardly the first. So, for instance, Darwins mounting hostility to Christianity was suppressed by his widow, who removed some inflammatory comments from his Autobiography. The following passage was not generally known until restored by his granddaughter Nora Barlow in 1958: Thus disbelief crept over me at a very slow rate, but was at last complete. The rate was so slow that I felt no distress, and have never since doubted even for a single second that my conclusion was correct.

Rumors of Darwins deathbed conversion are without basis. Darwin put his faith in mindless evolution and lost his faith in God.

Its a shame. Almost 160 years after The Origin of Species appeared, the case for intelligent design is stronger than ever. The origin of the first animal forms in the Cambrian explosion; the origin of the first microscopic life; the cellular world of sophisticated molecular machines; the origin of a finely tuned universe from nothing each is part of a march of discovery since Darwins day that has taken us further and further from a world empty of final meaning, and deeper into one charged with the grandeur of some extraordinary design.

Thats something worth celebrating this Darwin Day, and every Sunday.

Praised by Tom Wolfe as one of our most brilliant essayists, Tom Bethell is author of the new book Darwins House of Cards: A Journalists Odyssey Through the Darwin Debates.

Go here to read the rest:

The Lord's Day, Meet Darwin Day and Shudder | The American ... - American Spectator

Update: Darwin Day is also Academic Freedom Day. Be sure to check back in here after midnight to find out who our 2017 Censor of the Year will be!

This year, Darwin Day falls on a Sunday -- tomorrow, February 12. Of all the Darwinist talking points, the most transparently false may be the claim that this 19th-century materialist theory of origins poses no challenge whatsoever to serious, sincere religious belief.

Oh, please! Do they really think we're that gullible? Well, maybe they are not wrong about that anyway.

As Tom Bethell (that's him in the video above) points out over at The American Spectator, many churches and synagogues, pastors, priests, and rabbis, have been captivated by the idea that they can have their cake and eat it too: enjoy the prestige and regard that come with assenting to evolutionary theory, while retaining the authority and regard that come with their clerical position.

February 12 is Darwin Day, and this year the international celebration falls on a Sunday. Look for theistic Darwinists to reassure churches that Charles Darwin believed in God, or at least that his theory of evolution harmonizes beautifully with Christian theology.

The reality is more complex.

In The Origin of Species, Darwin suggested the idea of a God who created a few original forms and then let the "laws" of nature govern the outcome. "It is just as noble a conception of the Deity to believe that He created a few original forms capable of self-development into other and needful forms," he wrote, "as to believe that he required a fresh act of creation to supply the voids caused by the action of his laws."

But later he wrote privately to friend Joseph Hooker, "I have long regretted that I truckled to public opinion, and used the Pentateuchal term of creation." And in 1862, he told Harvard botanist Asa Gray there seemed to be "too much misery in the world." He could not accept, for example, "that a beneficent and omnipotent God would have designedly created [digger wasps] with the express intention of their feeding within the living bodies of caterpillars, or that a cat should play with mice."

Darwin was careful to conceal his own loss of faith, and his surviving family members kept up the tradition.

[R]ealizing that a thoroughgoing materialism wasn't an easy sell, [Darwin] actively concealed this aspect of his thinking. In one notebook he reminded himself to "avoid stating how far, I believe, in Materialism."

...

One doesn't hear much about the materialism of Darwin and Darwinism, likely because there has been a longstanding effort to ignore and suppress it. Many of today's theistic Darwinists play this game, but they are hardly the first. So, for instance, Darwin's mounting hostility to Christianity was suppressed by his widow, who removed some inflammatory comments from his Autobiography.

Read the rest here. Veteran journalist Bethell's new book is Darwin's House of Cards: A Journalist's Odyssey Through the Darwin Debates. As a writer, he is a delight, praised by Tom Wolfe as "one of our most brilliant essayists." The tragedy of the clergy and their mass surrender to evolutionary thinking is that it is so unnecessary.

Yes, it requires some homework and independent thinking to realize this, but the cogency of evolution's main claim -- that blind churning produces brilliant novelties -- rests on remarkably little evidence. Bethell, as I've pointed out, has put to the rest "I'm not a scientist" dodge beloved by clergy, journalists, and other professionals unwilling to do that homework for themselves.

I'm on Twitter. Follow me @d_klinghoffer.

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With Darwin Day Coming Tomorrow, Here's Tom Bethell on Darwin's Deception - Discovery Institute