The Achilles of Evolution

, Malcolm A. Kline, Leave a comment

Although evolutionists are hard at work trying to keep competing theories of creation science—namely intelligent design—out of the classroom, these Darwinists are hard put to offer up evidence that supports their own scientific theories.

This leaves fans of Origin of SpeciesOrigin of Species in the same position that the 19th Century biologist’s supporters were in during the 1920s. Back then, a school teacher was tried in court for attempting to teach Darwin’s theories to his class.

Because of the growing doubt over the evidence of evolution, since 2001, 300 scientists have called for a reexamination of Charles Darwin’s theories, according to the Discovery Institute. The Seattle, Wash.-based think tank, which sponsors studies of intelligent design, calculates that these scholars join 100 doubters who had already gone on record with their skepticism by 2001.

One major problem with evolution theory that is causing some once-die-hard Darwinians to jump ship is the lack of a fossil record that shows species evolving. “Paleontologists have found two things in species,” Dr. Stephen C. Meyer said recently at the Heritage Foundation, “sudden appearance and stasis.”

In other words, species suddenly appear and stay the same. Dr. Meyer serves as senior fellow and director of the Center for Science and Culture. The Cambridge graduate does point out that paleontologists have found some change in lower taxonomic orders.

Nonetheless, the sudden appearance of species generally leaves evolution adherents stumped. “I tell my students that you will know evolutionists by their terms,” Dr. Meyer says, “such as ‘The Cambrian Explosion’ or The Mammalian Revolution.’”

“Fossil studies reveal ‘a biological big bang’ near the beginning of the Cambrian period (530 million years ago) when many major, separate groups of organisms or ‘phyla’ (including most animal body plans) emerged suddenly without clear precursors,” Dr. Meyer explained in an article in the San Francisco Chronicle last year. “Fossil finds repeatedly have confirmed a pattern of explosive appearance and prolonged stability in living forms—not the gradual “branching tree” patterns implied by Darwin’s common ancestry thesis.

“Discoveries in molecular genetics and embryology have also challenged universal common ancestry.”

In fact, according to Dr. Meyer, evolution itself has evolved. Where scientists who support evolution once agreed that the universe came together by chance, they now try to profer a more nuanced explanation. “Blind chance,” scientist A. G. Cairns-Smith once noted, “is very limited.”

Malcolm A. Kline is the executive director of Accuracy in Academia.