A Scientific Dissent from Darwinism
In 2001, PBS aired its documentary series: “Evolution.” In promoting this series, it was stated: "virtually every scientist in the world believes the theory to be true." Several years ago, the National Academy of Sciences stated: “today there is no significant scientific doubt about the close evolutionary relationships among all primates, including humans.”
However, starting about 2001, a group of doctoral-level scientists and engineers, signed “A Scientific Dissent from Darwinism” list. The list was started and made available by the Discovery Institute, a conservative thinktank out of Seattle, Washington. The statement they signed says: “We are skeptical of claims for the ability of random mutation and natural selection to account for the complexity of life. Careful examination of the evidence for Darwinian theory should be encouraged.” As of February of 2019, there were 1,043 scientists on the list, and it continues to grow.
The list includes scientists from the US National Academy of Sciences, Russian, Hungarian and Czech National Academies, as well as from universities such as Yale, Princeton, Cambridge, Oxford, Harvard, Stanford, MIT, UC Berkeley, UCLA, the University of Pennsylvania and others. The signers of the Dissent list have all risked their careers or reputations in signing.
“More scientists than ever before are now standing up and saying that it is time to rethink Darwin’s theory of evolution in light of new scientific evidence that shows the theory is inadequate,” said John West, associate director of the Center for Science & Culture.
Existing Peer Pressure
Physicist Brian Miller, Research Coordinator for the Center for Science & Culture, has written about what he calls an “underground” in academia. Dr. Miller observed: “A biologist in our network worked as a postdoctoral researcher at Harvard. He recounted how about a quarter of the postdocs he encountered were at least sympathetic to design arguments, but none were willing to acknowledge their support publicly due to the likely repercussions.”
“The world of secular science makes it nearly impossible for researchers who don’t buy into Darwinian evolution to publish their work in peer-reviewed journals, no matter how credible and scientifically rigorous it may be,” stated Nathaniel Jeanson, who earned a doctorate in cell and developmental biology at Harvard.
Statements by Signers of the Dissent from Darwinism
Philip Skell – Member of the National Academy of Sciences – stated: “I even queried biologists working in areas where one would expect the Darwinian paradigm to have most benefited research, such as the emergence of resistance to antibiotics and pesticides. Here, as elsewhere, I found that Darwin's theory had provided no discernible guidance, but was brought in, after the breakthroughs, as an interesting narrative gloss.” “Why do we invoke Darwin? Evolutionary theory contributes little to experimental biology.”
Dr. Skell also stated: “Scientific journals now document many scientific problems and criticisms of evolutionary theory and students need to know about these as well. … Many of the scientific criticisms of which I speak are well known by scientists in various disciplines, including the disciplines of chemistry and biochemistry, in which I have done my work.
In 2005, Dr. Skell sent an open letter to the Kansas State Board of Education encouraging them to revise the state’s science standards to allow students to learn the scientific evidence both for and against biological and chemical evolution.
…Dean Kenyon, professor emeritus of biology at San Francisco State University, states: "We have not the slightest chance of a chemical evolutionary origin for even the simplest of cells." “It is my conviction that if any professional biologist will take adequate time to examine carefully the assumptions upon which the macro-evolution doctrine rests, and the observational and laboratory evidence that bears on the problem of origins, he/she will conclude that there are substantial reasons for doubting the truth of this doctrine.”
Dr. Michael Behe – Professor of Biological Science – Lehigh University stated: “It is a shock to us in the twentieth century to discover, from observations science has made, that the fundamental mechanisms of life cannot be ascribed to natural selection, and therefore were designed. But we must deal with our shock as best we can and go on.”
Dr. Behe also said: “Creationism is a theological concept, but intelligent design is a scientific theory. One can be a creationist without any physical evidence. That’s 180 degrees different from intelligent design.” … “Intelligent design relies on physical, empirical, observable evidence from nature plus logical inferences.”
One of the scientists who signed the list, Dr. Roland Hirsch, Ph.D. in chemistry stated: "Life as revealed by new technologies is more complicated than the Darwinian viewpoint anticipated. Thus, evolutionary theory, which was considered to be a key foundation of biology in 1959, today has a more peripheral role. … modern science makes it possible to be a scientifically informed doubter of Darwinian theories of evolution."
Dr. Scott Minnich - Associate Professor of Microbiology University of Idaho stated:
“Molecular machines display a key signature or hallmark of design, namely, irreducible complexity. In all irreducibly complex systems in which the cause of the system is known by experience or observation, intelligent design or engineering played a role in the origin of the system... We find such systems within living organisms.”
Moorad Alexanian - Professor of Physics - University of North Carolina, Wilmington stated: “a proposition is not a scientific theory at all unless it’s falsifiable in principle.” …. but the claims made by those advocating evolutionary theory can never really be falsified.”
Dr. Rebecca Keller, Biophysical Chemistry stated: “I found it important to sign this statement because I believe intellectual freedom fuels scientific discovery. If we, as scientists are not allowed to question, ponder, explore, and critically evaluate all areas of science but forced to comply with current scientific orthodoxy then we are operating in a mode completely antithetical to the very nature of science.”
Dr. Douglas Axe, Director of Biologic Institute and Maxwell Visiting Professor of Molecular Biology, Biola University stated: “Because no scientist can show how Darwin’s mechanism can produce the complexity of life, every scientist should be skeptical. The fact that most won’t admit to this exposes the unhealthy effect of peer pressure on scientific discourse.”
Dr. Marcos Eberlin, member of the Brazilian Academy of Sciences, founder of the Thomson Mass Spectrometry Laboratory stated: “As a (bio)chemist I became most skeptical about Darwinism when I was confronted with the extreme intricacy of the genetic code and its many most intelligent strategies to code, decode and protect its information, such as the U x T and ribose x deoxyribose exchanges for the DNA/RNA pair and the translation of its 4-base language to the 20AA language of life that absolutely relies on a diversity of exquisite molecular machines made by the products of such translation forming a chicken-and-egg dilemma that evolution has no chance at all to answer.”
Dr. Yvonne Boldt, Ph.D. Microbiology, Univ. of Minnesota stated: “When Darwinian proponents claim there is no controversy regarding the cohesiveness of the scientific evidence for evolution as creator, they are merely expressing a heartfelt desire. … There is a growing contingent of scientists who have found the evidence for Darwinian evolution wanting, and who are ready and willing to debate Darwinists on scientific grounds.”
Raul Leguizamon, M. D., Pathologist, and a professor of medicine at the Autonomous University of Guadalajara, Mexico stated: “I signed the Scientific Dissent from Darwinism statement, because I am absolutely convinced of the lack of true scientific evidence in favour of Darwinian dogma. Nobody in the biological sciences, medicine included, needs Darwinism at all. Darwinism is certainly needed, however, in order to pose as a philosopher, since it is primarily a worldview. And an awful one, as Bernard Shaw used to say.”
Professor Colin Reeves, Coventry University stated: “Darwinism was an interesting idea in the 19th century, when handwaving explanations gave a plausible, if not properly scientific, framework into which we could fit biological facts. However, what we have learned since the days of Darwin throws doubt on natural selection’s ability to create complex biological systems – and we still have little more than handwaving as an argument in its favour.”
Chris Williams, Ph.D., Biochemistry Ohio State University stated: “As a biochemist and software developer who works in genetic and metabolic screening, I am continually amazed by the incredible complexity of life. For example, each of us has a vast ‘computer program’ of six billion DNA bases in every cell that guided our development from a fertilized egg, specifies how to make more than 200 tissue types, and ties all this together in numerous highly functional organ systems. Few people outside of genetics or biochemistry realize that evolutionists still can provide no substantive details at all about the origin of life, and particularly the origin of genetic information in the first self-replicating organism. What genes did it require — or did it even have genes? How much DNA and RNA did it have — or did it even have nucleic acids? How did huge information-rich molecules arise before natural selection? Exactly how did the genetic code linking nucleic acids to amino acid sequence originate? Clearly the origin of life — the foundation of evolution – is still virtually all speculation, and little if no fact.”
"Darwin’s theory of evolution is the great white elephant of contemporary thought. It is large, almost completely useless, and the object of superstitious awe."
Dr. David Berlinski, Philosophy