Wednesday, March 03, 2004
Non-theists Attack Evolution
Although I don't share their religious views, Cremo & Thompson have produced an astounding compilation of anomalous evidence in support of their belief in the antiquity of man, i.e. evidence of the presence of man millions of years before he should have arrived on the evolutionary scene. (I interpret the data differently, of course; I believe radiometric dating is terribly flawed.) It is a well-documented, well-researched look at how scientists are able to ignore data that contradict their cherished personal beliefs.
The main point that must be gleaned is that Darwinism never gained popularity by virtue of scientific observation; rather, it was a systematic glossing over of horrendous obstacles in the form of contradictory data and theoretical conundrums rooted in a philosophical "need" for naturalistic explanations that drove its acceptance.
Michael Denton is another molecular biologist - an agnostic at the time of writing Nature's Destiny and Evolution: A Theory in Crisis.
