Doubting Darwinism Dangerous

NPR's February 15 feature on Evangelical biology students in Kansas being taught to reconcile Darwinism with their Christian faith glossed over the depth of the difficulty. For these students believe—with some reason—that to get a Phd. in biology they must accept humanity’s not being a special creation of God as a fact as well established as Copernicus’s realization that earth is not the center of the solar system. And, indeed, as your intro indicated, this is what is believed by most academics in biology.

But the revolution of the earth about the sun can be confirmed by direct observations in the present and macroevolution, by contrast, cannot (because of its long time frame). Perhaps the science friendly way to deal with the continuing controversy over evolution is to acknowledge that now, as always since 1859, significant numbers of competent biologists hold that natural selection is a mechanism inadequate to explain the diversity of life.

Instead of allowing further debate and observations, however, those in control of the biological sciences establishment prefer to suppress dissent in defense of the reigning neo-Darwinian paradigm. And I think this intolerance has been well documented in Ben Stein’s documentary on the ID controversy, Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed.