
Giving Up Darwin - fortran77
https://www.claremont.org/crb/article/giving-up-darwin/#d
======
timwaagh
"Bringing to bear the work of many dozen scientists over many decades, Meyer,
who after a stint as a geophysicist in Dallas earned a Ph.D. in History and
Philosophy of Science from Cambridge and now directs the Discovery Institute’s
Center for Science and Culture"

I'd sooner trust anyone with a bachelor's in Biology over a physicist and
especially a philosopher as those folks tend to believe thruth can be
constructed through arguments.

"Meyer doesn’t only demolish Darwin; he defends a replacement theory,
intelligent design (I.D.)"

The point wasn't ever to put Natural Selection to the test. The point was God.
The point is God and the point was going to be God all along.

"Meyer and other proponents of I.D. are the dispassionate intellectuals making
orderly scientific arguments"

They are mostly reputable scientists from other fields who just happen to be
devout christians, as well. They use their reputations to make the argument
for religion. That doesn't make them bad scientists, just unqualified to speak
on this topic. I'd recommend Meester's probability textbook interested in
probability theory even though he is pro-id.

as for the whole cambrian thing, i defer to someone qualified but let's be
clear that the author is stating at least one untruth here: the first animals
appeared not during the cambrian but during the preceding period. To quote
wikipedia: "The fossil record from the Ediacaran Period is sparse, as more
easily fossilized hard-shelled animals had yet to evolve. The Ediacaran biota
include the oldest definite multicellular organisms (with specialized
tissues), the most common types of which resemble segmented worms, fronds,
disks, or immobile bags".

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vo2maxer
Intelligent Design rears its head from someone who should know better. FWIW:
[https://quillette.com/2019/09/09/david-gelernter-is-wrong-
ab...](https://quillette.com/2019/09/09/david-gelernter-is-wrong-about-
ditching-darwin/)

~~~
fortran77
I do agree that Gerlernter's argument is weak, at least as presented in this
essay. Still, there is something to be said for the fact that the
"statistical" nature of mutations over the timeframe don't quite add up. It
could, of course, be something like survivor's bias.

But when a bright mind like Gerlernter raises the question, it's worth taking
a look; many Darwinists won't.

~~~
vo2maxer
Coyne, a Darwinist, discusses the Cambrian explosion as not being quite what
creationists claim: it would be improbable for such fecundity of life to have
occurred in the timeframe observed. This argument is refuted by Prothero [1].
Furthermore, the statistical incongruity seems like a red herring, and has
been answered repeatedly [2]. Even if it still does not add up, I would argue
that it’s not necessary to thump scriptures as a credible biological
reference.

[1]
[https://www.skeptic.com/eskeptic/13-08-07/](https://www.skeptic.com/eskeptic/13-08-07/)

[2]
[https://science.sciencemag.org/content/sci/341/6152/1344.1.f...](https://science.sciencemag.org/content/sci/341/6152/1344.1.full.pdf)

~~~
hcrisp
The evidence is not what you would make it seem, nor are counter-arguments
based on theology. See the the rebuttal to Coyne I posted above if you have an
open mind.

