Would Science Miss Darwin?

If evolutionism fell out of favor
in academia, science would
continue—without a ball and chain

Rumblings of discontent with evolutionary theory are slowly increasing in volume and frequency. For instance, evolutionary biologist and professor Bret Weinstein told popular podcaster Joe Rogan that Darwinism is “broken” and that intelligent design is “catching up” in some respects (read David Klinghoffer’s article and listen to Weinstein’s remarkable admissions during the podcast at Evolution News). “We have a very crude understanding of what ‘fitness’ means,” confesses this veteran Darwinist who taught evolution for years at the college level. That’s astonishing after a century of DODO education.

Another revealing admission from origin-of-life scientists writing in Nature was announced in my article at Evolution News on 28 Feb 2024. Nick Lane and Joana Xavier still cling to evolutionary theory but admit that scientists embracing intelligent design are making good points and putting Darwinians on the defensive. Weinstein struggles to explain how Darwinians might regain their respectability, but his theory rescue devices commit circular reasoning, personification and magical thinking. Meanwhile, Christian chemist James Tour at Rice U. continues to put the heat on chemical evolutionists, as if pushing them back into the hot springs from which they believe they emerged.

Oh, the Irony

Yesterday, “Darwin Day” (see 23 Nov 2008) passed without much fanfare. A growing number of scientists are skeptical of the ability of random mutations and natural selection to account for the complexity of life (dissentfromdarwin.org). On this centennial year of the Scopes Trial, it would be profoundly ironic for Darwin’s theory to trend downward and lose prestige on a path to becoming a discarded philosophy on the junk pile. While still difficult to imagine anytime soon, is a scientific revolution of this magnitude possible? What would be the impact on science as a whole?

The answer is, “probably not much” in terms of the ability of academia to continue doing the work they normally do. Darwinism has been like a ball and chain on science, or at least a tradition of dubious utility. Mentioning evolution appears to be a formality or obligation sometimes grudgingly performed to satisfy reviewers. Many researchers seem obliged to say “it evolved” somewhere in their writings even if not directly concerned with evolution. In a similar way, many papers insert the phrase “climate change” in papers about other matters as if needing to satisfy censors or funding agencies.

This article will claim that real science wouldn’t miss Darwin if he became “uncool” to a new generation of researchers. In fact, some might feel released from a burden.

Bad stuff happens to bad people, too (Grok/XI).

Take a look at the categories of papers published in the Darwin-Day-Eve (Feb 11) issue of PNAS (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, a major American science journal). Where, exactly, does Darwinism have anything to contribute to these subjects?

• Profiles and Interviews: Does anyone really care if a featured scientist believes in Darwin’s Stuff Happens Law?
• Applied Mathematics: Darwin need not apply. He was not good at math.
• Applied Physical Sciences: No need for Darwin here.
• Biophysics and Computational Biology: Too detailed for just-so storytellers.
• Chemistry: Darwin would have flunked chemistry. Ask Dr James Tour.
• Engineering: This field is the exact opposite of the Stuff Happens Law.
• Environmental Sciences: This field needs outdoor research in the present, not speculations about the past.
• Physics: Evolutionists have long had physics envy. Physics is heavy into laws of nature and mathematical precision.
• Statistics: This field depends on surveys and measurement, not evolutionary speculations.
• Anthropology: Paleoanthropologists cannot interview the dead. Real anthropologists study the living.
• Economic Sciences: Keep Darwinists out; they are far behind on their promissory notes.
• Political Sciences: The last person citizens should elect to politics is Emperor Charles, the dictator.
• Social Sciences: Evolutionary racists gave this field a bad name. Kick Darwin out.
• Sustainability Science: This future-thinking field has no use for Darwinian tales about the past.
• Agricultural Science: This field needs God-fearing, altruistic engineers like Carver, not evolutionists.
• Biochemistry: The exquisite design in molecular machines should send Darwinists running for the hills.
• Biophysics and Computational Biology: Ditto.
• Cell Biology: Double Ditto.
• Developmental Biology: Triple Ditto.
• Genetics: Quadruple Ditto. How could a coded language evolve?
• Ecology: The philosophical trend from competition to cooperation and balance of nature has been hard on old-style red-in-tooth-and-claw Darwinism.
• Immunology and Inflammation: No use for Darwin in health sciences. Keep him out.
• Medical Sciences: Block the doors. Darwin wants to kill the unfit!
• Microbiology: Double-block the doors. Darwin thinks that germs are proving their evolutionary fitness by killing us! He’s rooting for our enemies!
• Neuroscience: Anyone who thinks brains happened by chance should be permanently barred from this field.
• Plant Biology: Remember Darwin’s “abominable mystery” unsolved even today? What does he have to offer?
• Population Biology: Fisher’s paper was debunked. This field can do fine without the Darwin Party.
• Psychological and Cognitive Sciences: Mental disorders result from devolution, not evolution. Freud is gone; Darwin needs to go.
• Corrections: Here’s where Darwinians can make a showing. Everything they said needs correcting.

Although not mentioned in PNAS, even scientists in astrobiology and SETI could continue working. There is no necessary connection in those fields to Darwinian evolution. If life is found on another world, it might have been created. There are Darwin skeptics who are interested in the question of life beyond Earth. It would be a non-sequitur to assume that it emerged by chemical evolution or became intelligent by biological evolution. It does not hurt to find out the extent of life in the solar system and the universe; if it exists, Bible-believing creationists like Johannes Kepler would praise the Lord. If we are alone, they would still praise the Lord. The existence of life anywhere in the universe does not need to be associated with blind, unguided processes of scientific materialism, which has been roundly falsified in either case. Some would complain about spending government money on these projects, though, arguing that science should not waste time and money trying to prove a universal negative.

Summing up, there is not one field in the PNAS list that needs Darwinism. Notice that “Evolutionary Biology” is not even listed. All of these fields of research will continue just fine without Darwin’s Stuff Happens Law. Scientists will not miss him.

Darwin’s house of cards has collapsed, Darwin’s bluff has been exposed, and Humpty Darwin is falling off the wall. Let Big Science turn the page on this unfortunate detour and enter a new golden age of honest, rigorous, observation-based discovery. Sorry about the racism, eugenics, genocides and censorship that Darwinists promoted. We’re better now.

Humpty Darwin sits on a wall of foam bricks held together by decayed mortar. Cartoon by Brett Miller commissioned for CEH. All rights reserved.