The whole business about “fake news” misses a point that’s relevant to considering how questions of biological origins are handled in professional science literature. Nate Silver edits the political site FiveThirtyEight, but the political context of his remark is irrelevant. He tweets:

6. A story can be 100% factually accurate (narrowly true) and yet basically be BS. Many stories driven by “the narrative” have this problem.

— Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) January 21, 2017

My read as a science consumer is that as in politics, so too in science. Couldn’t, in other words, much the same be said of the conclusions of many a peer-reviewed article on evolution? I asked Biologic Institute’s Doug Axe, author of Undeniable.

Yes. Once a view dominates, the distinction between assumption and data is blurred. Whatever you can say without being challenged is “true.” https://t.co/aqAd1KUjwN

— Douglas Axe (@DougAxe) January 25, 2017

The theory of evolution by natural selection operating on random mutations, as a sweeping explanation for life and how it got there, is a “narrative.” It presents a very smooth story, persuasive to most scientists. The facts may all be true, but the conclusion: BS.

Photo: Smooth-billed ani, by Charlesjsharp (Own work, Sharp Photography) [CC BY-SA 4.0], via Wikimedia Commons.

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