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New Book Discusses Scientific and Theological Problems with Darwinian Evolution

More than Myth.jpegA new book, More Than Myth?, features contributions from various pro-ID authors discussing the scientific and theological problems with Darwinian evolution. The editors include Paul Brown, a professor of chemistry, biology, and environmental studies at the evangelical university Trinity Western, and Robert Stackpole, a Catholic theologian.

Their vision for the book was to show that both Catholics and Protestants can agree that there is scientific and theological evidence showing that intelligent design — rather than Darwinian evolution — is the best way to explain life. Contributors include Brown, Stackpole, Hugh Ross, Fazale Rana, Father Michael Chabarek, Greg Moore, and myself.

Though many of the other contributions in the book are theological, discussing ways to interpret the Bible from an “old earth” perspective, my entry is strictly scientific, and only discusses scientific problems with evolutionary science. My chapter’s title is “The Top Ten Scientific Problems with Biological and Chemical Evolution,” originally inspired by my two posts “What Are the Top Ten Problems with Darwinian Evolution?” and “Top Five Problems with Current Origin-of-Life Theories.” However, the version in the book expands greatly on some of the points there. I list the following problems:

  • Problem 1: No viable mechanism to generate a primordial soup.
  • Problem 2: Unguided chemical processes cannot explain the origin of the genetic code.
  • Problem 3: Random mutations cannot generate the genetic information required for irreducibly complex structures.
  • Problem 4: Natural selection struggles to fix advantageous traits into populations.
  • Problem 5: Abrupt appearance of species in the fossil record does not support Darwinian evolution.
  • Problem 6: Modern biology has failed to yield a grand “tree of life.”
  • Problem 7: Convergent evolution challenges Darwinism and destroys the logic behind common ancestry.
  • Problem 8: Differences between vertebrate embryos contradict the predictions of common ancestry.
  • Problem 9: Neo-Darwinism struggles to explain the biogeographical distribution of many species.
  • Problem 10: Neo-Darwinism has a long history of inaccurate predictions about vestigial organs and “junk DNA.”
  • And a bonus problem: Humans display many behaviors and cognitive abilities that offer no apparent survival advantage.

Of course there are many other problems with biological and chemical evolution, but these are some important ones that come up often. There are a couple in the book that were relatively new, or at least, I had not written much about them before. I’ll elaborate on those in future articles.

Casey Luskin

Associate Director and Senior Fellow, Center for Science and Culture
Casey Luskin is a geologist and an attorney with graduate degrees in science and law, giving him expertise in both the scientific and legal dimensions of the debate over evolution. He earned his PhD in Geology from the University of Johannesburg, and BS and MS degrees in Earth Sciences from the University of California, San Diego, where he studied evolution extensively at both the graduate and undergraduate levels. His law degree is from the University of San Diego, where he focused his studies on First Amendment law, education law, and environmental law.

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