Coming to Peace with Science by Appealing to the Consensus

In his book Coming to Peace with Science, Point Loma Nazarene University biology professor Darrel R. Falk makes many arguments for common descent and Darwinian evolution. Many of these arguments are evidence-based (some of this evidence is countered in a previous post), but some of his most forceful arguments are not based upon evidence. They are based upon appeals to authority. Consider the following: If you’re seeing a pattern here, it’s because Dr. Falk likes to appeal to the authority of “virtually all” scientists to make his arguments. Now to Dr. Falk’s credit, he spends a lot of time talking about the evidence, but this repeated argumentum ad “virtually all” scientists is a little troubling. Now as I wrote recently, Read More ›

Does Darrel Falk’s Junk DNA Argument for Common Descent Commit “One of the Biggest Mistakes in the History of Molecular Biology”?

Recently I was e-mailed by an individual who had read the book Coming to Peace with Science, by Darrel Falk, president of the BioLogos Foundation. This person was interested in a response to the arguments for human/ape common ancestry in Dr. Falk’s book. Not having read Dr. Falk’s book before, I wrote back that I hadn’t yet read the book but had a strong suspicion that it would argue that shared non-functional (aka “junk”) DNA between humans, apes, and other species is evidence of their common ancestry. This is an extremely common argument from theistic evolutionists–Francis Collins made it in The Language of God (and Collins wrote the foreword to Dr. Falk’s book). Of course in 2010, we’re seeing more Read More ›