The use of the term Anti-Science today has evolved to mean anti-evolution and anti-climate change. How candidates manage the “evolution” question will likely leverage an effect on the final vote next year.” Question like “Do you believe in evolution” are now one of the most dreaded types of questions on the political campaign trail. But, what is Anti-Science? As we will see, the history of the Anti-Science is an amazing saga of irony.

At the core of the Anti-Science debate is the definition of Science. The Oxford English Dictionary says that science is “a method of procedures that has characterized natural science since the 17th century, consisting in systematic observation, measurement, and experiment, and the formulation, testing, and modification of hypotheses.”

The father of “method of procedures” is the Scientific Method founded by English philosopher Francis Bacon (1561-1626). Use of Bacon’s method launched the Scientific Revolution in the late sixteenth century.

Often called the Baconian Method, or simply the Scientific Method, Bacon replaced deductive reasoning with strict adherence to inductive reasoning for the purpose of discovering natural laws, Bacon’s insistence on establishing a planned procedure marked a new turn for defining the essence of science.

Using Bacon’s method of investigation, the early Scientific Revolution period culminated in 1687with the publication of the Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica by Isaac Newton. Darwin initially followed the footsteps of Newton. In the same way Newton discovered the natural laws of gravity and motion, Charles Darwin was intent on discovering the natural laws of evolution.

The Scientific Revolution was center stage in the eighteenth century. John Herschel’s book, Preliminary Discourse on the Study of Natural Philosophy (1830), encapsulated the concepts of the scientific method. Darwin read Herschel’s Discourse while at Cambridge. William Whewell, a professor at the University of Cambridge, supported Herschel’s approach to the scientific method and later published The History of Inductive Sciences (1837) and The Philosophy of Inductive Sciences (1840).

In the prelude to The Origin of Species, Darwin quotes from William Whewell and Francis Bacon. Ironically, since even the fossil record failed to support his theory, Darwin was forced to abandon the Scientific Method.  Darwin was painfully aware that the Cambrian Explosion actually contradicted his theory.

In response to a letter from Asa Gray, professor of biology at Harvard University, Darwin declared: “I am quite conscious that my speculations run quite beyond the bounds of true science.” Darwin was “anti-Science”.

When questioned further by Gray, Darwin confirmed Gray’s suspicions: “What you hint at generally is very, very true: that my work is grievously hypothetical, and large parts are by no means worthy of being called induction.”  Darwin had turned against the use of scientific principles in developing his theory of evolution.  The “Anti-Science” movement was popular in the nineteenth century, sponsored by the emerging influential members of the X Club.

Darwin was very concerned about the effect of the Anti-Science approach. Just two weeks before the lease of The Origin of Species, Erasmus Darwin, his brother, consoled him in a letter: “In fact, the a priori reasoning is so entirely satisfactory to me that if the facts [evidence] won’t fit, why so much the worse for the facts, in my feeling.”

In the final chapter of The Origin of Species, Darwin actually only lends hedging confidence to his theory of evolution, noting that the “whole volume is one long argument.… We ought to be extremely cautious in saying that any organ or instinct, or any whole structure, could not have arrived at its present state by many graduated steps.”

Ironically, the use of the popular Anti-Science labeling in politics should be applied to Charles Darwin−the founder of modern evolutionary thought.

Paul Nurse, writing in the September 14 edition of the New Scientist in the article “Stamp out anti-science in US politics” said, “Get the science right first, then discuss the political implications.”

The fact is, the evidence for developing a comprehensive theory of evolution is more in a crisis now, than at any time since the turn of the twenty-first century. As the evidence continues to mount, scientists are now abandoning the once central unifying dogma of evolution established during the late twentieth century−the Modern Synthesis theory that had replaced Darwin’s theory of evolution.

The Altenberg Summit in Austria during the summer of 2008 was a turning point for the evolution industry. At the summit, leading evolutionary scientists declared the Modern Synthesis theory of evolution extinct. Genetic mutations acted on by natural selection are no longer recognized as the natural law for biological evolution.

In the wake of the summit, evolutionary scientists are feverishly in the process of exploring theoretical replacements. The MIT Press book, “Evolution, the Extended Synthesis” (2010) edited by Massimo Pigliucci and Gerd B Műller presents 16 potential theories from the summit. Yet, none of the potential replacement theories have emerged as a forerunner. Currently, a cohesive theory of evolution simply does not exist.

Political candidates on both sides of the isle should actually be asked the question: “What is the theory of evolution?”

As it stands, evolution is simply a philosophy and not a science based on any known natural law verified by “systematic observation, measurement, and experiment(s)”. Ironically, the theory of evolution in the twenty-first century, as Darwin plainly acknowledged during the nineteenth century, falls into the realm of Anti-Science, not Science.

Presidential candidate, Jon Huntsman, highlights the current conundrum. In an interview with Bret Baier on Fox News “Special Report”, Huntsman said “When we take a position that isn’t willing to embrace evolution, when we take a position that basically runs counter to what 98 of 100 climate scientists have said, what the National Academy of Sciences has said about what is causing climate change and man’s contribution to it, I think we find ourselves on wrong side of science and therefore in a losing position.”

Amazingly, notice that Huntsman had to turn to “climate scientist[s]” to garner a mirage of scientific support for the theory of evolution.  Even the National Science Teachers Association, the vanguard of evolution in public education, takes distance from any particular theory of evolution by concluding: “There is considerable debate about how evolution has taken place.”

Today, evolution is only alive as a philosophy but not as a science. Contrary to Huntsman’s contention, to claim biological evolution as a scientifically proven fact plays into the realm of Anti-Science.

No wonder, Alan Love of the University of Minnesota and one of the Altenberg Summit members concluded that “a fully unified view of evolutionary processes may be out of reach.”

Ironically, the Anti-Science label applies to the sponsors of evolution. By Oxford English Dictionary standards, the Science label only applies to the “Teach the Controversy” sponsors.

Today, Darwin’s theory of evolution is promoted as a “fact” that accepted by “all scientists”. Evolution as a “fact”, not theory, is center stage in the realm of politics. The media hammered presidential candidate Rick Perry for stating that evolution is “just a theory”. Ironically, though, the facts of evolution continue to elude even the vast majority of the most educated in Western society.

In an article published in BioEssays (2011) entitled “Why is it so difficult to accept Darwin’s theory of evolution?” Jacques Dubochet, professor of Ecology and Evolution at the University of Lausanne, Switzerland, was amazed to discover that less than 20% of attendees to a celebration of Darwin’s 200th birthday could “[w]rite down in a few words, the essential elements of Darwin’s theory of evolution”.

“Most educated people”, Dubochet concluded, “do not understand Darwin’s theory of evolution.” Underscoring the reasons against understanding evolution, he “states that life evolves without a goal and in the absence of finality is shocking for most people because it clashes with their idea of the meaning of life.” This is a philosophical problem for evolutionists.

The fact is “most educated people” are not brain dead to the chicken or the egg problem. As Dubochet notes, “how can it [natural selection] account for an eye or a wing since they must first exist before selection can take place?” This is an empirical problem for evolutionists.

“The idea of biological design is so obvious that,” Dubochet laments, “it constantly appears in discussions on biological matters and even in the scientific literature.” The intuitive influence of design in nature is pervasive even within the realm of evolutionary scientists. Intuitively, Dubochet concludes, “[t]he principle of Darwin’s theory of evolution is much more difficult to grasp”. Evolutionary biologists still intuitively slide into a world of hypocrisy.

The “in biology, nothing makes sense except in the light of the theory of evolution” dogma once espoused by Ukrainian evolutionary biologist, Theodosius Dobzhansky, in 1942 has now become the sound of discordant rhetoric.

James Le Fanu, physician, medical journalist, and author of the award winning The Rise and Fall of Modern Medicine, reminds us in the article “Inconsistent Nature: The Enigma of Life’s Stupendous Prodigality” that “[t]he purpose of such inconsistencies, if there is one, must be to remind us that Nature is too profound to be readily accessible to the finite human mind. And while many aspects of the diverse being and ways of life are more or less well described, hardly anything is really understood.”

Dubochet’s discovery on the educated reflects the actual state of evolution in 2011: a consistent theory of evolution simply does not exist.   This realization has been highlighted by the 2008 Altenberg Summit coordinated by Massimo Pigliucci of Stony Brook University and Gerd B Műller of the University of Vienna.

The purpose of the Altenberg Summit was to develop a new comprehensive theory of evolution following the demise of the Modern Synthesis theory of evolution once championed by Dobzhansky earlier in the mid-twentieth century.

The sixteen evolutionary scientists attending the summit contributed to the book “Evolution, the Extended Synthesis” published by The MIT Press. Contrary to the goal of achieving a new single unifying and comprehensive theory of evolution, sixteen different theories of evolution emerged.  In the last chapter of the book, Alan C. Love of the University of Minnesota concluded “that a fully unified view of evolutionary processes may be out of reach.”

With at least sixteen different popular theories of evolution at play today, the fact that nearly 20% of Dubochet Darwin’s 200th birthday celebration attendees came close to any single theory registers as a near phenomenon.

In 1975, Jacques Monad, an early Modern Synthesis advocate noted that “a curious aspect if the theory of evolution is that everyone thinks he understands it. I mean philosophers, social scientists, and so on. While in fact very few people understand it, actually, as it stands, even as it stood when Darwin expressed it, and even as we now may be able to understand it in biology.”

The words of French geneticist Jerome Lejeune encapsulates the current theory of evolution and should resolve Dubochet dilemma: “[t]here is no theory of evolution”. Italian geneticist Giuseppe Sermonti agrees, “[e]volution is really more of a paradigm or methodology than a theory.”

Evolution is only a “fact” as a philosophy−but, not as a natural law. The scientific basis of evolution has remained unchanged for more than 150 years. Dubochet and evolutionary scientists could regain credibility by stating the essential elements of Darwin’s own words in a letter Asa Gray in 1857: “I am quite conscious that my speculations run quite beyond the bounds of true science.”

“I hear your mom was asking about evolution,” Perry said. “That’s a theory that is out there — and it’s got some gaps in it.”

Writing in The Guardian, an original supported of Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution starting in the nineteenth century, liberal commentator Paul Krugman in his column, The Observer, ran crazy with the comment in the article entitled “The Republicans are now the anti-science party, on climate change and evolution, the party’s presidential hopefuls are wilfully ignorant.”

“Mr Perry, the governor of Texas,” according to Krugman, “recently made headlines by dismissing evolution as just a theory’, one that has “got some gaps in it”, an observation that will come as news to the vast majority of biologists.” Really?

Apparently, Krugman is “wilfully ignorant” about the “majority of biologists”. The book, Evolution-the Extended Synthesis published by MIT Press explains in detail why the “gaps” in evolution theory still persist.

The Evolution-the Extended Synthesis was written by sixteen leading scientists from around the world that met in Altenberg, Austria during the summer of 2008. The purpose of the meeting was to develop a new unifying and comprehensive theory of evolution to eliminate the “gaps” as mentioned by Perry. This meeting has been since been popularly called the Altenberg-16 Summit.

What emerged from the summit meeting, ironically, were sixteen different theories rather than a one unifying and comprehensive theory. Today, amazingly there are more “gaps” in the theory  of evolution than at any time since the publication of The Origin of Species by Darwin in 1859.

Kruger, apparently, is not aware of the controversies with the evolution of theories over the past 150 years, including Darwinism, neo-Darwinism, and the Modern Evolutionary Synthesis. No theory, to date, has arisen as an adequate unifying candidate to account for presumed evolution. Today, the field of evolution not only has gaps”, evolution is simply a philosophy without a scientific theory.

Ann Coulter was quick to jump into the debate with the blog posted on Human Events. However, unlike Kruger, Coulter in the post entitled “Liberals’ View of Darwin Unable to Evolve” on August 31^st with substance rather than typical extinct rhetoric produced by the government financed evolution industry.

From the genetic evidence, Coulter points out that scientist now recognize that “the vast majority of mutations are deleterious to the organism.” Krugman, apparently, is “wilfully  ignorant” that mutations, the foundation of the Modern Evolutionary Synthesis theory, have been abandoned as a theoretical mechanism for evolution.

Damaged genetic data cannot pave a road to progressively greater complexity as once anticipated by genetic evolutionists during the twentieth century.

As Coulter notes, not only do evolutionists have a problem with the Modern Evolutionary Synthesis theory, they have problem with the fossil record: “We also ought to find a colossal number of transitional organisms in the fossil record — for example, a squirrel on its way to becoming a bat, or a bear becoming a whale,” “But that’s not what the fossil record shows. We don’t have fossils for any intermediate creatures in the process of evolving into something better. This is why the late Stephen Jay Gould of Harvard referred to the absence of transitional fossils as the ‘trade secret’ of paleontology.” Krugman, apparently, is “wilfully ignorant” that the fossil record is a problem, not a solution, for the evolution industry.

How did evolutionists end up with a problem rather than a viable theory? Coulter explains: “Darwinists start with a theory and then rearrange the evidence.” Krugman, apparently, is “wilfully ignorant” that starting with Darwin,
the evolution industry has long since abandoned the scientific method. After the sparring, the obvious fact emerges, Krugman, not the Republicans, represent news media “anti-science” journalism.

Never has a theory played such leverage in a national presidential election campaign. Perhaps, Coulter is wrong - the Krugman camp is evolving into extinction.

Go campaign 2012.

“It’s a theory hat’s out there,” Perry replied. “It’s got some gaps in it. In Texas we teach both creationism and evolution.” Perry went on to explain: “I figure you’re smart enough to figure out which one is right.”

The Washington Post wasted no time to launch a panel debate hosted by Sally Quinn entitled “On  evolution, can religion evolve?” The infamous atheist from the UK, Richard Dawkins, quickly joined the debate noting “There is nothing unusual about Governor Rick Perry. Uneducated fools can be found in every country and every period of history, and they are not unknown in high office… Intellect, knowledge and linguistic mastery are mistrusted by Republican voters”. At stake is the challenge by non-evolutionist to of critical thinking in public schools.

Paula Kirby, a former Christian, is a Scottish writer specializing in freethinking and secular organizations joined the debate with the declaration: “Evolution is a simple fact.” In reference to The Origin of Species by Charles Darwin, Kirby argued, “Education is about overcoming ignorance – so the idea of allowing ignorance to set the school curriculum and to perpetuate itself by continuing to teach generation after generation information that for the last 150 years we have known to be false.”

“Creationism,” Kirby continued, “is a purely religious doctrine, with no scientific underpinning whatsoever. Indeed, all the evidence points very strongly to its being false… and any teacher who tries to teach faith-based dogma [creation] in a science class is clearly demonstrating her unsuitability for the role.”

Apparently, Kirby is unaware of that Darwin was an agnostic, not an atheist, and Darwin acknowledged and referred to the Creator numerous times in his books and letters. Even in the last paragraph of The Origin of the Species, Darwin wrote: “There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed by the Creator.”

Contrary to Kirby’s  opinion, Darwin promoted, although non-biblical, what she would recognize as a faith-based approach. By Kirby’s standards, then, even Darwin would be “unsuitable” for teaching the evolution versus creation sides of the controversy.

Kirby opposes the blending of evolution with creation. Kirby vividly explains why the blending of evolution with any notion of creation by a loving God, as embraced by theistic evolutionists, like Francis Collins and his BioLogos Foundation, is simply an exercise in insanity.

Kirby poignantly recognizes that “evolution is not pretty, is not gentle, is not kind, is not compassionate, is not loving. Evolution is blind, and brutal, and callous. It is not an aspiration or a blueprint to live up to (we have to create those for ourselves): it is simply what happens, the
blind, inexorable forces of nature at work. An omnipotent deity who chose evolution by natural selection as the means by which to bring about the array of living creatures that populate the Earth today would be many things – but loving would not be one of them. Nor perfect. Nor compassionate. Nor merciful. Evolution produces some wondrously beautiful results; but it happens at the cost of unimaginable suffering on the part of countless billions of individuals and, indeed, whole species, 99 percent of which have so far become extinct. It is irreconcilable with a god of love.”

A loving God did create a perfect world that was subsequently destroyed by one man−Adam. Redemption from Adam’s destruction is only through one loving man, the “Second Adam”−Jesus.

Evolution is heating up the 2012 election campaign. Candidates espousing to be Christians will be pushed to clarify their position. At the center of the evolution debate is the answer to the question, is God loving? How could a loving God ever use evolution as the means of creation?

Let creation be taught alongside evolution. Let the evidence speak. The evidence is the same, only the interpretation is different. Let the students decide. The exclusion of popular ideas in public education would tragically institutionalize totalitarianism.

The cracks in evolution are now too big to ignore. Even Kirby’s perspective on evolution in The Washington Post contradicts Dawkins.

While Kirby argued that evolution “is not an aspiration or a blueprint”, Dawkins countered Kirby with “interlocking parts also conspire to make it good for something – in the case of most birds, good for flying. An aero-engineer is struck dumb with admiration for the bird as flying machine”. For some evolutionists, life arose from chaos, while for other evolutionists life is an expression of design, somehow without a designer.

Like The Washington Post confusion, and as the Altenburg Summit during the summer of 2008 highlighted, the evolution industry is in a deeply divided crisis.

In Evolution, the Extended Synthesis, published by MIT Press, Alan Love of the University of Minnesota notes that “a fully unified view of evolutionary processes may be out of reach.” As even evolutionary biologist of the State University of New York, Stony Brook Douglas Futuyma notes, “like most scientific theories, evolutionary theory is incomplete.”

The evolution industry does not want anyone to know that a comprehensive theory of evolution does not even exist. That is why evolutionists are shaken to the core with the prospect of engaging in an evolution versus creation debate.

Evolution in the 2012 election will likely be a refining season for the evolution debate and the nature of the candidates. Let the evidence alone through the Scientific Method speak. Let evolution become center stage. Let the 2012 campaign begin.

Since the publication of the first edition of The Origin of Species in November 1859, attempts over the past 150 years to avoid fulfilling Darwin’s own prediction have largely been a failure, according to an article in The New York Times —at least in the classroom.

In the Times article “On Evolution, Biology Teachers Stray From Lesson Plan,” free-lance writer Nicholas Bakalar notes “that only 28 percent of biology teachers consistently follow the recommendations of the National Research Council to describe straightforwardly the evidence for evolution and explain the ways in which it is a unifying theme in all of biology.”

While only 28 percent of the teachers consistently follow the recommendations, Bakalar was even more dismayed that researchers discovered that “13 percent explicitly advocate creationism, and spend at least an hour of class time presenting it in a positive light.”

Bakalar’s article was based on a research paper by political science professors, Michael B. Berkman and Eric Plutzer at Penn State, Pennsylvania, entitled “Defeating Creationism in the Courtroom, But Not in the Classroom” published in the January 2011 issue of Science.

In an interview with ScienceDaily and published in an article entitled “High School Biology Teachers in U.S. Reluctant to Endorse Evolution in Class, Study Finds,” Berkman and Plutzer noted in dismay that “Considerable research suggests that supporters of evolution, scientific methods, and reason itself are losing battles in America’s classrooms.”

To solve this apparent schoolroom “breathtaking inanity,” Berkman and Plutzer propose the following solution: “Combined with continued successes in courtrooms and the halls of state government, this approach offers our best chance of increasing the scientific literacy of future generations.” Really?

Perhaps rather than spending time in “courtrooms and the halls of state government,” Berkman and Plutzer should consider exploring the range of known scientific problems with evolution. Berkman and Plutzer would undoubtedly be surprised to discover that evolution is a theory in crisis—not a scientific fact.

Even the National Science Teachers Association (NSTA), the vanguard of promoting the teaching of evolution in the public classroom, will not even lend support to any of the currently popular theories of evolution, only noting, “There is considerable debate about how evolution has taken place.”

The fact is public science teachers appear far more aware of the debate over evolution than Berkman and Plutzer. Massimo Pigliucci and Gerd B Műller in Evolution the Extended Synthesis published by MIT Press, spells out the now blatant dilemma: “Although it [Modern Synthesis] is still regarded as the standard theoretical paradigm of evolutionary biology, for several years now dissenters from diverse fields of biology have been questioning aspects of the Modern Synthesis.”

Since Nobel Prize winner Jacque Monod endorsement of the gene centric Modern Synthesis Theory declaration, “a mechanism for Darwinism is at last securely founded” in the mid-twentieth century, new scientific discoveries employing technological advances in the following decades has delivered a crushing blow to the Modern Synthesis Theory.

According to Marc Kirschner of Harvard University and John C Gerhart of the University of California, Berkley, “The Modern Synthesis was a great intellectual accomplishment in an important era for evolutionary biology. Viewed today it is neither modern nor much of a synthesis.”

Sean B. Carroll of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute agrees: “The Modern Synthesis established much of the foundation for how evolutionary biology has been discussed and taught in the past sixty years. However, despite the monikers of ‘Modern’ and ‘Synthesis’, it is incomplete.”

Pigliucci, Műller, Kirschner, Gerhart, and Carroll are just five of the sixteen evolutionary scientists that convened for Altenberg Summit during the summer of 2008 in Altenberg, Austria. The goal of the summit was to develop a new consensus on a new theory for evolution following the complete demise of the Modern Synthesis.

In their own “breathtaking inanity,” Berkman and Plutzer appear to be completely oblivious to the fact that a consensus for a theory of evolution does not exist. While Stuart Newman, professor of cell biology and anatomy at New York Medical College agrees that “No natural law may suffice to describe the full evolution of the biosphere, human economy, and the human culture,” French geneticist Jerome Lejeune, cuts to the chase —“There is no theory of evolution.”

In the words of Italian geneticist and editor of the longest running biology journal in the world, Giuseppe Sermonti, “There never really has been a scientific theory of evolution.”

Before drawing reigning judgment on teacher performance in the classroom and drawing up legal entanglements in the courts, perhaps Berkman and Plutzer evaluate the weight of scientific evidence now known to be against evolution. Berkman and Plutzer should spend more time on the laboratory bench rather than the not in the courthouse. The presentation of evolution in the classroom should be a matter of science, not law.

Public school teachers seem to understand the following principle of teaching better than Berkman and Plutzer – that which is unknown should not be taught as fact—even when mandated by the court.

In his 1518-page “European Declaration of Independence,” Breivik reveals himself as a champion of modern biology and the scientific worldview, listing The Origin of Species by Charles Darwin as one of his most “important” books. (p. 1407)

“Social-darwinism was the norm before the 1950”, Breivik laments. “Back then, it was allowed to say what we feel. Now, however, we have to disguise our preferences to avoid the horrible consequences of being labeled as a genetical preferentialist.” (p. 1227)

According the Breivik, the “perfect Europe” includes the rule of Social Darwinism—the summation of “logic” and “rationalist thought.”

‘Logic’ and rationalist thought (a certain degree of national Darwinism) should be the fundament of our societies (p. 1386)

Brevivik aligns with Princeton University evolutionary biologist, Lee Silver, for a revival of eugenics, arguing that, “radical policies will have to be implemented” to reduce the human population by more than half, or 3.8 billion people. (p. 1202)

Using Darwin’s argument, “extinction and natural selection … go hand in hand”,  Breivik writes that if “second and third world countries” cannot curb their production of human offspring, “nature will correct their suicidal tendencies as they are unable to feed their populations.” (p. 1202)

Continuing the argument, Breivik argues that Western countries should not interfere in this natural process.

If starvation threatens the countries who have failed to follow our [population control] guidelines we should not support them by backing their corrupt leaders or send any form of aid.” (p. 1202) Indeed, “[f]ood aid to 3rd world countries must stop immediately as it is the primary cause of overpopulation.  (p. 1203)

While The New York Times was busy making the case that Breivik was a “Christian Extremist” on the front page, the informed world could see the hand writing on the wall: Breivik is a Darwinist—not a Christian.

John West, writing for the Evolution News and Views of Discovery Institute, in the article “The Professor and the Madman” details the re-emergence of the eugenics movement, now known as “reprogenetics”, as promoted by Breivik and Silver. Tragically, history will repeat itself, again, if the history of evolution is not known and exposed.

“Looking for a textbook that teaches your high school science students about the fallacies of the theory of evolution? Darwin, Then and Now challenges the evolutionary theory with a critical examination of the science and history of evolution. Written by Professor Richard William Nelson, this book is an in-depth study of the most amazing story in the history of science, the rise of the evolutionary theory. Darwin, Then and Now, is a must-read for the home school science student.

Darwin, Then and Now, is a must-read for the home school science student

“In this recently published book, Darwin, Then and Now, Nelson gives a complete analysis of evolution’s entire history from before Darwin to the times of Neo-Darwinism. Nelson shows that the evolutionary theory originated in Greek Philosophy, such as the works of Aristotle and Heraclitus of Ephesus, and rose to prominence in the wake of the Scientific Revolution during the Victorian times. Then, Nelson discusses whether or not evolution is based on science or philosophy. Further, after finding that Darwin’s arguments use deductive, not inductive reasoning, Nelson answers the question of whether or not the basis of evolution is a subjective viewpoint or scientific investigation.

Nelson answers the question of whether or not the basis of evolution is a subjective viewpoint or scientific investigation

“Darwin, Then and Now opens with an account of Darwin’s early life and the lives of his naturalist friends and geology professors who mentored him. In complete detail, Nelson recounts the celebrated voyage of the Beagle and Darwin’s time on the Galäpagos Islands. Nelson proceeds to analyze the rest of Darwin life and writings, his admirers and critics, and most importantly his famous work, The Origin of Species, which changed the world and influenced modern society. Quoting from Darwin’s own works, as well as works of his contemporaries, Nelson reveals what makes Darwin one of the most remembered figures in the history of science.

Nelson reveals what makes Darwin one of the most remembered figures in the history of science

“Continuing, Nelson makes a thorough investigation of whether or not there is evidence that supports evolution, the Origin of Species, and Darwin’s theories about Natural Selection. Nelson examines the alleged evidence for evolution found in the fossil record, such as Piltdown man and Lucy, as well as that seen in geological columns, such as the Burgess Shale of British Columbia and the Ediacara Hills of Australia. Also, Darwin, Then and Now has in-depth discussions of molecular biology, chemical evolution, embryology, and genetics to see whether or not evolution has revealed the origins of life. Further evolutionary evidence is examined: peppered moths, Darwin’s finches, mutations in species. Throughout Darwin, Then and Now, Nelson carefully analyses over one thousand quotations from Darwin’s works and the writings of other scientist and historians. Nelson clearly and thoroughly answers the question of whether or not there is any scientific evidence for evolution.

Nelson clearly and thoroughly answers the question of whether or not there is any scientific evidence for evolution

“Darwin, Then and Now allows the home school high school student to understand the errors in one of today’s most commonly accepted theories: evolution. Darwin, Then and Now should be an essential book for every high school science class. Combine science, history, and philosophy into an amazing story, the Most Amazing Story in the History of Science: Darwin, Then and Now.”

Darwin, Then and Now should be an essential book for every high school science class

Lisa recommends the book for Grade Level 8^th-12^th.

Of Charles Darwin’s alleged facts in The Origin of Species, the embryo drawings by Haeckel were “by far the strongest single class of facts in favor” of the theory. Darwin explains,

Professor Haeckel in his ‘Generelle Morphologie’ and in [other] works has recently brought his great knowledge and abilities to bear on what he calls phylogeny, or the lines of descent of all organic beings. In drawing up the several series he trusts chiefly to embryological characters.

Long after Darwin had been laid to rest in Westminster Abbey in 1882, Haeckel shocked the world in 1909 made the following confession of forgery, in a letter to the Munchener Allegemeine Zeitung, an international weekly publication for the sciences and arts –

After this compromising confession of ‘forgery’ I should be obliged to consider.… The great majority of all the diagrams in the best biological textbooks, treatises, and journals would incur in the same degree – the charge of ‘forgery,’ for all of them are inexact, and are more or less doctored, schematised, and constructed.

On October 7, 2010, National Geographic quietly held a news conference to announce they had “entirely fabricated” ancient Greece, a culture long thought to be the intellectual basis of Western civilization.

The announcement acknowledged that the idea of a sophisticated, flourishing society existing in Greece more than two millennia ago was a complete fiction created by a team of some two dozen historians, anthropologists, and classicists who worked nonstop between 1971 and 1974 to forge “Greek” documents and artifacts.

“Honestly, we never meant for things to go this far,” said past professor Gene Haddlebury and chair of Hellenic Studies at Georgetown University. “We were young and trying to advance our careers, so we just started making things up: Homer, Aristotle, Socrates, Hippocrates, the lever and fulcrum, rhetoric, ethics, all the different kinds of columns—everything.”

According to Haddlebury, the invention of a fraudulent ancient culture came about when he and other scholars realized they had no idea what had actually happened in Europe during the 800-year period before the Christian era.

Frustrated by the gap in the record, and finding archaeologists to be “not much help at all,” they took the problem to colleagues who were then scrambling to find a way to explain the origin of astronomy, cartography, and democracy.

“One night someone made a joke about just taking all these ideas, lumping them together, and saying the Greeks had done it all 2,000 years ago,” Haddlebury said. “One thing led to another, and before you know it, we’re coming up with everything from the golden ratio to the Iliad.”

“That was a bitch to write, by the way,” he continued, referring to the epic poem believed to have laid the foundation for the Western literary tradition. “But it seemed to catch on.”

Unknowingly, around the same time, a curator at the Smithsonian Institute turned to Haddlebury to develop an exhibit of Greek history. The museum had received a sizeable donation to create an exhibit on the ancient world but “really didn’t have a whole lot to put in there.”

Haddlebury and his history colleagues immediately set to work, hastily falsifying evidence of a civilization that— complete with its own poets and philosophers, gods and heroes—would eventually become the centerpiece of schoolbooks, college educations, and the entire field of the humanities.

Emily Nguyen-Whiteman, one of the young academic historians who “pulled a month’s worth of all-nighters” working on the project, explained that the whole of ancient Greek architecture was based on buildings in Washington, D.C., including a bank across the street from the coffee shop where they met to “bat around ideas about mythology or whatever.”

“We picked Greece because we figured nobody would ever go there to check it out,” Nguyen-Whiteman said. “Have you ever seen the place? It’s a dump. It’s like an abandoned gravel pit infested with cats.”

Continuing, Nguyen-Whiteman lamented, “Inevitably, though, people started looking around for some of this ‘ancient’ stuff, and next thing I know I’m stuck in Athens all summer building a goddamn Parthenon just to cover our tracks.”

Nguyen-Whiteman acknowledged altering documents ranging from early Bibles to the writings of Thomas Jefferson to reflect a “Classical Greek” influence—a task that also included the creation, from scratch, of a language based on modern Greek that could pass as its ancient precursor.

Haddlebury and his history colleagues told reporters that some of the so-called Greek ideas were in fact borrowed from the Romans, stripped to their fundamentals, and then attributed to fictional Greek predecessors. But others they claimed as their own.

“Geometry? That was all Kevin,” said Haddlebury, referring to former graduate student Kevin Davenport. “Man, that kid was on fire in those days. They teach Davenportian geometry in high schools now, though of course they call it Euclidean.”

In a joint statement, Haddlebury and his history colleagues expressed “profound apologies” for misleading the world for almost 40 years. Amazingly, the Greek history fraud revelation continues National Geographic’s legacy of invention. In 1999, the National Geographic was forced to acknowledge the “Feathers for T. rex?” article as fraud.

National Geographic’s latest round of Greek history fraud highlights how philosophy, not science, is driving the invention of a fabricated worldview—code for fraud, a practice ubiquitous in the evolution industry.

Tennessee House of Representatives, ruffling Charles Darwin’s feathers,  sent tremors across the realm of public education on last week on April 7. The Representatives overwhelmingly approved HB 368, sponsored by Bill Dunn (R-District 16), a measure allowing science teachers to encourage students to “develop critical thinking skills” in the science classroom.

The Senate version, SB 893, sponsored by Bo Watson (R-District 11) although discussed, has yet to be voted on, by the Senate Education Committee.

The approved House version of HB 368 reads – “The teaching of some scientific subjects, including, but not limited to, biological evolution, the chemical origins of life, global warming, and human cloning, can cause controversy… The state board of education, public elementary and secondary school governing authorities, directors of schools, school system administrators, and public elementary and secondary school principals and administrators shall endeavor to create an environment within public elementary and secondary schools that encourages students to explore scientific questions, learn about scientific evidence, develop critical thinking skills, and respond appropriately and respectfully to differences of opinion about controversial issues.”

Opposition for these bills is the long-standing avant-garde warriors of the evolution industry – the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), the National Center for Science Education (NCSE), and the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).

“There has been a widespread pattern of discrimination against educators who would challenge evolution in the classroom,” according to Casey Luskin, a policy analyst for the Discovery Institute, in Seattle, Washington, in an interview with ScienceInsider. “Schools censor from students the evidence against evolution. This [HB 368] protects the rights of teachers to teach in an objective way.”

In a Science editorial, staff writer Jeffrey Mervis sees that the bills will have “the opposite effect on critical thinking by introducing nonscientific beliefs into science classes and by undermining the principles of scientific inquiry.”

Avoiding the controversy over evolution is simply Dark Age revival insanity—even elementary school students are keenly aware of the controversy. At the college and university level, evolution, global warming and the origins of life discussions and debates are front and center. The newly released book entitled Evolution; the Extended Synthesis edited by Massimo Pigliucci and Gerd B. Műller and published by Massachusetts Institute of Technology (The MIT Press) highlights the central controversies over evolution. Pigliucci, in referring to evidence from molecular biology concludes: “All of these molecular processes clearly demolish the alleged central dogma [of evolution].”

“The Modern Synthesis [evolution] was a great intellectual accomplishment in an important era for evolutionary biology,” according to Marc Kirschner of Harvard University and John C. Gerhart of the University of California, Berkley. “Viewed today it is neither modern nor much of a synthesis [theory].”

Sean B. Carroll of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute agrees: “The Modern Synthesis established much of the foundation for how evolutionary biology has been discussed and taught for the past sixty years. However, despite the monikers of ‘Modern’ and ‘Synthesis’, it is incomplete.”

Alan C. Love of the University of Minnesota in the chapter entitled “Rethinking the Structure of Evolutionary Theory for an Extended Synthesis” expresses the real fears of the ACLU, the NCSE, and the AAAS: “My account also meshes with the recognition that a fully unified view of evolutionary processes may be out of reach…. The proliferation and heterogeneity of life science disciples and methodologies following the advent of molecular biology has led to a centrifugal force within evolutionary research, making it difficult to recover a single big-picture or ‘grand unified theory.”

Discussions on evolution, global warming, and the origins of life equip students to live in the real world—beyond the classroom. Show your appreciation to Bill Dunn for the passing of HB 368 and show your support to Bo Watson for SB 893.

Rep Bill Dunn

Senator Bo Watson

Nashville address

301 6th Avenue North
Suite 6A Legislative Plaza
Nashville, TN 37243
Phone (615) 741-3227
Fax (615) 253-0280
sen.bo.watson@capitol.tn.gov

Stunning the intellectual elite, Anthony Flew turned on the validity of evolution.

In an Associated Press article in 2004 entitled “Famous Atheist Believes in God: One of the World’s Leading Atheists Now Believes in God”, goes on to report, “A British philosophy professor who has been a leading champion of atheism for more than a half-century has changed his mind. He now believes in God more or less based on scientific evidence.”

In his latest and last book, There is a God, How the World’s Most Notorious Atheist Changed His Mind, Flew chroniclizes his role in the atheist movement during the twentieth century in 2007.

While atheism was floundering to develop a systematic logic in the wake of the Age of Enlightenment earlier thinkers like David Hume and Friedrich Nietzsche in the mid-century, Flew developed a systematic and comprehensive exposition of atheism to spur the atheist movement through to the end of the twentieth century.

It was a short paper, “Theology and Falsification”, presented to the Socratic Club at Oxford University, and published in 1950 that launched Flem’s career as an atheist. In a little more than 1,000 words, the paper powerfully argued that the idea of God is philosophically meaningless, since it cannot be falsified.

At the Socratic Club weekly meetings, Flew was noted for engaging in spirited debates with C. S. Lewis, the renowned Christian apologist.

With over thirty books, Flew out published all rival atheist, including Richard Dawkins with only ten publications.

Ironically, in part, Richard Dawkins’ deductive logic in The Selfish Genes edged Flew to the tipping point. Dawkins had gone beyond the bounds of science and into myth building, as had Ernst Haeckel during the ninteenth century. Flew notes, “Richard Dawkins’s The Selfish Genes was a major exercise in popular mystification.” The history of evolution follows a legacy of fruad.

While Dawkins contends, “We are all the choiceless creatures of our genes… we, and all other animals, are machines created by our genes”, Flew counters, “Genes, as we have seen, do not and cannot necessitate our conduct.” The mere assimilation of molecules is not the essence of life.

In following Plato’s dictum, “we must follow the argument wherever it leads”, Flew after decades of arguing against the existence of God followed the scientific developments of the late twentieth century demonstrating the existence of God.

Flew explains: “Science spotlights three dimensions of nature that point to the existence of God:  first, “nature obeys laws,” second, life is “intelligently organized and purpose-driven”, and third “the very existence of life.”

Eventually Flew, like Charles Darwin, rejected atheism. “Since the mystery of the beginning of all things is insoluble by us,” Darwin explains, “I for one must be content to remain an agnostic”. Flew agrees: “The origin of life cannot be explained if you start with matter alone”.

Like Flew and Darwin, Albert Einstein was not an atheist, either: “I’m not an atheist.” In fact, Einstein was passionate “to know how God created this world… I want to know his thoughts, the rest are details”. Einstein was driven to discover the laws of nature designed by God.

Like Darwin and Einstein, however, Flew never really got the Message, either. William Grimes, writing for the New York Times in 2010, records, “Mr. Flew, the son of a Methodist minister, embraced atheism as a teenager. ‘It just seemed flatly inconsistent to say that the universe was created by an omnipotent and perfectly good being,’ he told The Sunday Times of London in 2004. ‘Yet there were evils in abundance which could not be put down to a consequence of human sin.’”

As a teenager, apparently Flew was not aware that the “evils in abundance” were the direct result of The Fall of Adam: sin—not an act of God.

Whether Darwin, Einstein, or Flew finally discovered the complete Message in their final months, weeks or days will be known, soon. Flew died on 8 April 2010.

We’re here to announce the first synthetic cell.

Venter told reporters that the new species — dubbed Mycoplasma mycoides JCVI-syn1.0 — is similar to one found in nature, but each cell is controlled only by a single million-base pair chromosome assembled from the bio-computer laboratory. The research is reported in the May 20 issue of Science.

The new species, Venter said, started with researchers digitizing the genetic code for the new species on computers, and then assembling the nucleotides using “four bottles of chemicals” into sections of DNA. The DNA sections were assembled in yeast cells to form a synthetic chromosome, which was then transferred to a related species of bacteria, M. capricolum.

Late in March, the researchers told reporters, the modified cells began replicating and formed a “blue colony” of the new species. Venter said,

This is the first self-replicating species that we’ve had on the planet whose parent is a computer.

Indeed, he and his colleagues consistently used computer language to describe the work. The new chromosome is like an operating system, they said, and it reprograms the M. capricolum cells to become M. mycoides.

The result comes after 15 years of research — and some $40 million — aimed at finding what Venter has called the minimal genome: the smallest set of genes that can support a living creature. But it could quickly have spinoffs, the researchers said.

This process has enormous commercial potential, including new tools for developing future vaccines, pharmaceuticals, biofuels, biochemicals, and perhaps synthetic algae to cope with oil spills such as the one currently threatening the Gulf Coast of the U.S.

Describing the new species as “synthetic” may be going too far, according to some experts. It’s “synthetic in the sense that its DNA is synthesized, not in that a new life form has been created,” according to molecular biologist Jim Collins of Boston University writing in the Nature. “Its genome is a stitched-together copy of the DNA of an organism that exists in nature, with a few small tweaks thrown in.”

Mark Bedauv of Reed College in Portland, Ore., also writing in the Nature commentary called the new species “a normal bacterium with a prosthetic genome.”

The prosthetic genome had some problems, however. Venter and colleagues were stalled for several months because one of the pieces of DNA they painstakingly crafted had a typo – a single base-pair deletion – that means the whole chromosome could not function.

“So accuracy is essential,” Venter said. “There’s parts of the genome where it can’t tolerate even a single error and there’s parts where we can put in large blocks of DNA and it can tolerate all kinds of errors.”

Molecular geneticist Georgia Purdom from Ohio State University noted that this kind of genetic engineering is “like taking the hard drive of computer #1 and putting it into computer #2 that has had its own hard drive removed. So effectively computer #2 becomes computer #1.”

Regardless of the inference to molecules-to-man evolution, even Venter noted that they “didn’t create life from scratch.”

Frances Arnold, synthetic biologist at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, emphasized “[w]e can write anything we want,” said Arnold. “The problem is that we don’t know what to write.”

This historical event highlights the fact that writing genetic information has an absolute requirement—intelligence with perfection.

Jonathan Wells of the Discovery Institute explains further what’s going on behind the headlines at Evolution News & Views:

In the wake of the article published in Science on May 7, 2010, entitled “A Draft Sequence of the Neanderthal Genome”, the Smithsonian Institute is definitely destined for a very busy summer updating the fiasco at the Human Origins exhibit.

The reason is the research team led by geneticist Svante Pääbo at the Max-Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Germany that wrote the article has discovered that the Neanderthals are indistinguishable from humans—Neanderthals and humans are the same species. John Hawks, assistant professor of anthropology at the University of Wisconsin, told BBC News: “They’re us. We’re them.”

Geneticist Gregory Hannon commenting on the historical event noted – the “publication of the full Neandertal genome is a watershed event, a major historical achievement.” The evidence from “A Draft Sequence of the Neanderthal Genome,” clearly contradicts the Human Origin exhibit at the Smithsonian Institute.

 The now evident fiascos at the Smithsonian Human Origin exhibit destined for updating include the following statements:

The Neanderthal sequences were substantially different from modern human mtDNA.

These results confirmed the earlier study that showed that Neanderthals were unlikely to have contributed to the modern human genome.

Neanderthals and modern humans were separate species.

“[T]he really surprising thing for many of us,” noted Professor Chris Stringer, research leader in human origins at London’s Natural History Museum, “is the implication that there has been some interbreeding between Neanderthals and modern humans in the past.”

By definition, different species cannot develop interbreeding populations, therefore the Neanderthals can no longer be considered ancestral to humans – because they are simply humans.

Clearly, the Smithsonian exhibit had presented Neanderthals as a missing link to humans not on scientific evidence, but on an evolutionary paradigm—a saga that continues as a ubiquitous plague.

 In using logic rather than scientific evidence, the Smithsonian exhibit theorized that humans and Neanderthal represents the missing link to humans because they were not interbreeding populations—a gamble that was lost.

More glaring fiascos destined for updating at the Smithsonian include the following statements:

They did not find a match between derived alleles or gene forms in modern humans and those in Neanderthals, which is evidence against interbreeding.

The preliminary sequence shows no evidence that Neanderthals and modern humans interbred.

Also, since studies show that Neanderthal mtDNA and Y chromosomes are very different, it is unlikely that Neanderthals and modern humans were interbreeding.

The exhibit exemplifies a greater fiasco to the evolutionary movement in which ideology has replaced science. With a long legacy of wrong theories and fraud, hopefully the Smithsonian will update the Human Origin exhibit based on scientific evidence—not an ideological agenda.

The immediate addressing of the Neanderthal fiasco will avoid the “fraud” label and not become the U.S. version of the Piltdown man.   

But what could the confusion be over? Here are some examples.  Charles Darwin wrote in The Origin of Species - “There is no logical impossibility in the acquirement of any conceivable degree of perfection through natural selection”. Coyne contradicts Darwin by stating – “natural selection does not yield perfection”. Over a trivial issue, confusion reigns over whether natural selection can or cannot produce perfection in nature.

Presumably, to show how easy the theory of evolution is to understand, Coyne features what he calls the six basics of evolution: “evolution, gradualism, speciation, common ancestry, natural selection, and nonselective mechanisms”. For Coyne, natural selection is not the exclusive driving force of evolution.

Niles Eldredge, evolutionary biologist and curator of the American Museum of Natural History, disagrees. Niles Eldredge, architect  and designer of the museum’s currently touring Darwin exhibit in the companion book Darwin, Discovering the Tree of Life (2005), credits Darwin with discovering the actions of natural selection—the essence of evolution: “When [Darwin] formulated the principle of natural selection, he had discovered the central process of evolution.”

Unlike Coyne, Eldredge envisions evolution acting exclusively through the process of natural selection: “A century and a half ago, Charles Darwin offered the world a single, simple scientific explanation for the diversity of life on Earth: evolution by natural selection.” Unlike Coynes six basics of evolution, Eldredge uses a VISTA acronym for natural selection that stands for Variation, Inheritance, Selection, Time, and Adaptation.

Differences in approach even between Coyne and Eldredge, exemplify why evolution theory continues to be confusing—even on the basics. The teaching of evolution is in chaos. Coyne pines “most of my university students who supposedly learned evolution in high school, come to my courses know almost nothing about this central organizing theory of biology.” Could it be because a unified theory of evolution simply does not exist?

Even university science major graduates seem to be no better. T. Ryan Gregory and Cameron A. J. Ellis, in their paper entitled “Conceptions of Evolution Among Science Graduate Students” published in BioScience 59(9):792-799 (2009), surprizingly found that less than 30% of students pursuing advanced science degrees could correctly identify even the basic principles of evolution.

The reason is—a comprehensive theory of evolution simply does not exist. Even with the convening of the most respected evolutionary scientists at the Altenberg Summit in 2008, no consensus was reached on a comprehensive theory of evolution.

Given the flood of available evidence, in the wake of Crick’s Central Dogma collapse, evolution is a theory that remains in chaos—now more than ever.

Evolution is a theory in crisis. Even students pursuing advanced degrees in science cannot grasp the basics of evolution, according to a new study by University of Guelph researchers.

The finding reveals evolutionary teaching is in chaos from elementary school up, said Ryan Gregory, a professor in Guelph’s Department of Integrative Biology, who conducted the research with former student Cameron Ellis.

The study was published in BioScience and is particularly timely, given that this year is the bicentennial of Charles Darwin’s birth and the 150th anniversary of publication of On the Origin of Species, which underpins understanding of the diversity of Earth’s organisms and their interrelations.

“Misconceptions about natural selection may still exist, even at the most advanced level,” Gregory said.

“We’re looking at a subset of people who have spent at least four years, sometimes even six or seven years, in science and still don’t necessarily have a full working understanding of basic evolutionary principles or scientific terms like ‘theories.’”

Many previous studies have assessed how evolution is understood and accepted by elementary, high school and undergraduate students, as well as by teachers and the general public, Gregory said. But this was the first to focus solely on students seeking graduate science degrees.

The study involved nearly 200 graduate students at a mid-sized Canadian university who were studying biological, physical, agricultural, or animal sciences. When the students were asked to apply basic evolutionary principles, only 20 to 30 per cent could do so correctly, and many did not even try to answer such questions. Of particular interest to Gregory was the finding that many students seem less than clear about the nature of scientific theories.

“This is telling us that traditional instruction methods, while leading to some basic understanding of evolution, are not producing a strong working knowledge that can be easily applied to real biological phenomena.”

The outcome underscores the failure of single cohesive theory of evolution to emerge since the collapse of evolution’s Central Dogma at the turn of the century. Ryan Gregory’s study further demonstrates that education on an non-cohesive theory leads to chaos in the schoolhouse.  

A British film about Charles Darwin has failed to find a US distributor because his theory of evolution is too controversial, according to its producer. 

The film entitled Creation, starring Paul Bettany, details Darwin’s “struggle between faith and reason” as he wrote On The Origin of Species. It depicts him as a man who loses faith in God following the death of his beloved 10-year-old daughter, Annie.

The film was chosen to open the Toronto Film Festival and has its British premiere this Sunday, September 20. Creation was developed by BBC Films and the UK Film Council. US distributors, however, have resolutely passed on the film. The film has sparked fierce debate because of Darwin’s known influence on the wave of twentieth century social engineering struggles, and more simply, the convergence physical of evidence has failed to support Darwin’s theory after 150 years. 

Movieguide.org, described Darwin as the father of eugenics and denounced him as “a racist, a bigot and an 1800s naturalist whose legacy is mass murder”. His “half-baked theory” directly influenced Adolf Hitler and led to “atrocities, crimes against humanity, cloning and genetic engineering”, the site stated. According to a Gallup poll conducted in February, only 39% of Americans believe in the theory of evolution.

Had pre-production marketing not been so far off-target, Jeremy Thomas, the Oscar-winning producer of Creation, would not have been so stunned and left wondering why “People have been saying this is the best film they’ve seen all year, yet nobody in the US has picked it up.”

Darwin was on target stating, “Lamarck, who believed in an innate and inevitable tendency towards perfection in all organic beings, seems to have felt this difficulty so strongly that he was led to suppose that new and simple forms are continually being produced by spontaneous generation. Science has not as yet proved the truth of this belief.”

 On May 10, 2009, the Daily Mail published reports that the BBC had made a documentary revealing the discovery of what might be a vital ‘missing link’ in human evolution, giving an outline of the study and its intended publication date as well as a brief statement. On 15 May the Wall Street Journal carried a report with interviews, who cautioned that “Lemur advocates will be delighted, but tarsier advocates will be underwhelmed.” Around the same time, a press release headed “World Renowned Scientists Reveal a Revolutionary Scientific Find That Will Change Everything” announced that the find was “lauded as the most significant scientific discovery of recent times.”

 On May 19, 2009, the Ida investigative team headed by Jens Franzen revealed their findings to the world at a press conference, simultaneously with online publication of the paper in PLoS ONE. At the press conference, the fossil was described as the “missing link” in human evolution, and “This fossil rewrites our understanding of the evolution of primates… It will probably be pictured in all the textbooks for the next 100 years.”

 The authors and compared its importance to the Mona Lisa. The authors also said that Darwinius was “the closest thing we can get to a direct ancestor” and that finding it was “a dream come true”. Team member Dr Jens Franzen said the state of preservation was “like the Eighth Wonder of the World”, with information “palaeontologists can normally only dream of”, but while he said it bore “a close resemblance to ourselves” in some aspects, other features indicated that it was not a direct ancestor.

 The Franzen team should have searched for a more definitive conclusion; experts were quick to counter.

 Henry Gee, a senior editor at Nature, said the term “missing link” was misleading and that the scientific community would need to evaluate its significance.

“The PR campaign on this fossil is I think more of a story than the fossil itself,” said anthropologist Matt Cartmill of Duke University in North Carolina. “It’s a very beautiful fossil, but I didn’t see anything in this paper that told me anything decisive that was new.”

 Chris Beard, curator of the Carnegie Museum of Natural History, said he “would be absolutely dumbfounded if it turns out to be a potential ancestor to humans.”^[

 “It’s not a missing link, it’s not even a terribly close relative to monkeys, apes and humans, which is the point they’re trying to make,” Carnegie Museum of Natural History curator of vertebrate paleontology Chris Beard said.

Ann Gibbons in “Revolutionary’ Fossil Fails to Dazzle Paleontologists” and published in ScienceNOW noted, “Many paleontologists are unconvinced.”

 Robert Roy Britt writing “Ida Fossil Hype Went Too Far” in LiveScience noted, “Problem is, most of the coverage is done, and the public could be left with the impression that Ida is a rock-solid missing link in the human evolutionary chain.”

 Ida’s unveiling was highly scripted with some “Barnum and Bailey aspects,” said paleontologist Richard Kay of Duke University. Britt continued, “More important, it can now be said the findings may well have been significantly overstated. We won’t know for sure until further research is done. But if this event causes the public to distrust science and media, that distrust is well placed.”

Gary Marcus,

 Yet, in percieving perfection in nature, Darwin wrote, “the belief that an organ so perfect as the eye could have been formed by natural selection is enough to stagger any one.” Darwin suggested, “There is no logical impossibility in the acquirement of any conceivable degree of perfection through natural selection.”

 Marcus may have been confused, since Darwin was confused had contradicted himself by writing in The Origin of Species, “Natural selection will not produce absolute perfection, nor do we always meet, as far as we can judge, with this high standard under nature.”

While researchers in Germany, announced completion of the first draft of the Neanderthal genome, to coincide with the 200th anniversary of Charles Darwin’s birth, the hoped for links to human evolution are still missing.

 The genome team led by geneticist Svante Paabo after isolating 3.7 billion base pairs could only conclude:  ”We’re currently analyzing if we see evidence in the Neanderthal genome of contribution from human ancestors,” Paabo said. “That question I think is still totally open.”

Again, this big golden nugget of evolution, like the fossil record, continues as the emperor without clothes. In the Guardian, palaeontologist Simon Conway Morris writes:

 “[P]erhaps now is the time to rejoice not in what Darwin got right, and in demonstrating the reality of evolution… “Isn’t it curious how evolution is regarded by some as a total, universe-embracing explanation, although those who treat it as a religion might protest and sometimes not gently. Don’t worry, the science of evolution is certainly incomplete.”

Even the New York Times writer, Carl Safina, in an essay for the science section entitled “Darwinism Must Die So That Evolution May Live” concludes, “So let us now kill Darwin.”

 After 150 years, since the natural mechanism of evolution that Darwin was looking for is still missing, in this post-modern evolution era the birthday party fizzled.