Was Darwin wrong? Bring this question up in mainstream academia and you’re likely to be attacked by colleague and media operatives alike, if not run-out of any institution you’re working at.
According to some, the ‘glory days’ of science are over. In The End of Science, author John Horgan contends that, “Science will keep extending and tweaking its current paradigms, like evolution by natural selection and the big bang, but there won’t be any more comparably profound ‘revelations or revolutions.'”
Others are taking this inquiry a bit further, and actually dismantling the highest sacred cows of science, including the seemingly untouchable: Darwin’s theory of evolution. They are asking a fundamental question: since new evidence and knowledge that functioning proteins are extremely rare, then maybe Darwin should be replaced with a theory of intelligent design? If so, then the following two questions are essential:
- Has modern science developed institutionalized dogmatic belief structures that are similar to that of the church?
- Has Darwinism really failed?
Probing for answers…
‘The origin of species is exactly what Darwin cannot explain’
Jennifer Kabbany from College Fix writes…
In May, the Claremont Review of Books published a column by Gelernter headlined “Giving Up Darwin.” In it, he explained how his readings and discussions of Darwinian evolution and its competing theories, namely intelligent design, have convinced him Darwin had it wrong.
In particular, he cited Stephen Meyer’s 2013 book Darwin’s Doubt as well as The Deniable Darwin by David Berlinski. The professor expanded on his views in an interview with Stanford University’s Hoover Institution that was published last week.
Gelernter stops short of fully embracing intelligent design, both in his essay and during his interview. He said in his interview he sees intelligence in Earth’s design, and has no quarrel with ID proponents, but notes the world is a mess, its suffering far outweighs its goodness.
“My argument is with people who dismiss intelligent design without considering, it seems to me — it’s widely dismissed in my world of academia as some sort of theological put up job — it’s an absolutely serious scientific argument,” Gelernter said during his interview. “In fact it’s the first and most obvious and intuitive one that comes to mind. It’s got to be dealt with intellectually.”
Gelernter conducted his interview alongside Meyer and Berlinski, and the three weighed in on the problems facing Darwinian and neo-Darwinian evolution. Watch:
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Gelernter said an ideological bent has taken over the field of science. There are good scientists doing good work, “but we have a cautionary tale in what happened to our English departments and our history departments could happen to us, God forbid,” he said.
Gelernter said he likes many of his colleagues at Yale, that they are his friends, but when he looks at “their intellectual behavior, what they have published — and much more importantly what they tell their students — Darwinism has indeed passed beyond a scientific argument as far as they are concerned. You take your life in your hands to challenge it intellectually. They will destroy you if you challenge it.”
Continue this story at College Fix
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