Hes not giving up Darwinism without some remorse. It means one less beautiful idea in our world" says David Gelernter.
This isnt someone youd expect to reject Darwin. He lives and works at the heart of the intellectual establishment. Hes a renowned computer scientist at Yale University the New York Times called him a rock star" and served on the National Council on the Arts. He explained in a recent essay in the Claremont Review of Books why he no longer believes Charles Darwins theory of evolution. He makes similar points in a recent interview with the Hoover Institutions Peter Robinson.
Gelernter who is famous for predicting the emergence of the World Wide Web credits three books with changing his mind. One is Darwins Doubt by Stephen Meyer of The Discovery Institute. A second is The Deniable Darwinand Other Essays by mathematician David Berlinski. A third is Debating Darwins Doubt an anthology edited by David Klinghoffer.
Why Reject Darwinism?
Why did Gelernter reject Darwinism? For one thing he points to the fossils missing from the record. This bothered even Darwin. Why is this a problem? The number of fossils of major animal groups exploded during the Cambrian era. That means we should have lots of fossils of simpler transitional" creatures in the precambrian period. But we dont. Darwins theory predicts that new life forms evolve gradually from old ones in a constantly branching spreading tree of life" Gelernter writes. Those brave new Cambrian creatures must therefore have had Precambrian predecessors similar but not quite as fancy and sophisticated. They could not have all blown out suddenly like a bunch of geysers. Each must have had a closely related predecessor which must have had its own predecessors."
The Precambrian fossils that should have spawned the emergence of all those Cambrian fossils are not there.
Some argue that the Precambrian precursor fossils are missing because they were soft-bodied organisms that didnt survive as fossils. But some Precambrian soft-bodied fossils did survive they just werent the predecessors to the Cambrian fossils.
Gelernter says the incremental development of new species is largely not there. Most species enter the evolutionary order fully formed and then depart unchanged." Darwinism cant explain that.
Neo-Darwinian Evolution Refuted After Darwin
Perhaps the biggest flaw with Darwinism he writes is how hard it would be to randomly make new functional proteins. Darwinian evolution depends a huge number of them. Our understanding of molecular biology developed after Darwin. His theory doesnt fit well with this new understanding. Gelernter carefully reviews the evidence and his article provides a very helpful short guide to the problem. He cites Douglas Axe a distinguished scientist who has calculated the chances of hitting a stable protein that performs some useful function and might therefore be preserved by natural selection are only 1 in 1077. Thats just one of the many many proteins needed for any organism. Gelernter summarizes the evidence. Immense is so big and tiny is so small that neo-Darwinian evolution is so far a dead loss. Try to mutate your way from 150 links of gibberish to a working useful protein and you are guaranteed to fail. Try it with ten mutations a thousand a million you fail. The odds bury you. It cant be done." Help us champion truth freedom limited government and human dignity. Support The Stream He has plenty of other problems with Darwinism. The last one he brings up is the (neo-)Darwinian belief that gene mutations drive macro-evolution." These can explain changes in existing forms but not the development of new forms. The mutations are fatal and the organism dies before it can reproduce. There are no examples of mutations that are not fatal. This Georgia Tech geneticist John F. McDonald calls the great Darwinian paradox." Though he takes down Darwinism Gelernter doesnt propose an alternative. He doesnt quite embrace the idea that intelligent design explains the origin of the species. He asks why a creator would have created so many doomed organisms. Why are we so disease prone heartbreak prone and so on?" On the other hand The religion is all on the other side." Its the Darwinians who have become dogmatic.Follow-up Interview
Gelernter appeared in an interview in June with the Hoover Institutions Peter Robinson entitled Mathematical Challenges to Darwins Theory of Evolution." Two of the authors he cites appeared along with him Berlinski and Meyer. In the interview Gelernter expanded on his article. He explained that it wasnt the mathematics that challenged Darwin it was that Darwin didnt understand the biology. Meyer says we didnt figure out that the possibilities of random molecules forming a meaningful protein are extraordinarily rare until the last couple of decades. Back in Darwins day very little was known about molecular structure. Science has outgrown Darwins theory.
Gelernter admits intelligent design is an absolutely serious argument."
The odds are so prohibitive of a mutation forming a functional protein that there is hardly a difference between saying its unlikely versus saying its impossible. Theres no practical difference. We know if there are a million monkeys typing on a million typewriters theyre not going to produce the collected works of Shakespeare."
The group moved on to intelligent design. Berlinski is skeptical. Meyer is a proponent and says blind material processes cant explain the origin of the information necessary to build a new biological form. He suggests that the pain and suffering in life caused by say aggressive bad viral strains could be the result of the very mutations that evolutionary proponents claim transition a species.
Intelligent Design Maybe
Gelernter admits intelligent design is an absolutely serious argument." Its the first and obviously most intuitive one that comes to mind." Its got to be dealt with intellectually. It cant be dismissed with anti-religious bigotry. His colleagues have treated him courteously since he changed his position on this issue he says. Still for them Darwinism has passed beyond a scientific argument. You take your life into your hands to challenge it intellectually. They will destroy you." Hes seen nothing approaching free speech on this topic." Its not a scientific or intellectual discussion. They think hes attacking their religion." Alas hes not hopeful that Darwinism will be phased out of academia anytime soon. Follow Rachel on Twitter at Rach_IC. Follow The Stream at streamdotorg. Send tips to [email protected].