While not necessarily expressing an adherence to biblical creation, more than 1,000 scientists worldwide have signed on to a “Dissent From Darwinism” statement that expresses skepticism over the theory of biological evolution and calls for the “careful examination” of Charles Darwin’s teachings.
“We are skeptical of claims for the ability of random mutation and natural selection to account for the complexity of life. Careful examination of the evidence for Darwinian theory should be encouraged,” the statement reads.
The list was first launched in 2001 by the Discovery Institute’s Center for Science & Culture, and has now grown to 1,000 and counting. The organization has launched a site where other scientists can sign the statement. It includes comments from prominent professors and researchers who explain why they support the dissent from Darwinism.
“Darwinian evolutionary theory was my field of specialization in biology. Among other things, I wrote a textbook on the subject thirty years ago. Meanwhile, however I have become an apostate from Darwinian theory and have described it as part of modernism’s origination myth,” wrote Dr. Stanley Salthe, professor emeritus at the Brooklyn College of the City University of New York.
Dr. Marcos Eberlin, the founder of the Thomson Mass Spectrometry Laboratory, said that he became skeptical about evolutionary theory after realizing the wonders of the genetic code and “its many most intelligent strategies to code, decode and protect its information, such as the U x T and ribose x deoxyribose exchanges for the DNA/RNA pair and the translation of its 4-base language to the 20AA language of life.”
He remarked that genetics “absolutely relies on a diversity of exquisite molecular machines made by the products of such translation forming a chicken-and-egg dilemma that evolution has no chance at all to answer.”
“Scientific journals now document many scientific problems and criticisms of evolutionary theory and students need to know about these as well,” also said Philip Skell, an emeritus Evan Pugh professor at Pennsylvania State University. “Many of the scientific criticisms of which I speak are well known by scientists in various disciplines, including the disciplines of chemistry and biochemistry, in which I have done my work.”
Other signers include Alan Linton, the emeritus professor of bacteriology at the University of Bristol in the United Kingdom; Michael Kavaya, the senior scientist of the NASA Langley Research Center; William Arion, the emeritus professor of biochemistry at Cornell University; Marvin Fritzler, a professor of biochemistry and molecular biology at the University of Calgary Medical School in Canada; George Wells, a professor of computer science at Rhodes University in South Africa; and Hsin-Yi Lin, an assistant professor in the department of chemical engineering and biotechnology at the National Taipei University of Technology in Taiwan.
Answers in Genesis, in commenting on the “Dissent from Darwinism” list, noted that a number of signees—while expressing skepticism about Darwin’s writings—haven’t rejected evolution in its totality, and some may simply believe that additional research is needed.
President Ken Ham stated that Christians need to do more than simply discount parts of evolutionary theory, but to stand for Scripture as a whole.
“We need to stand against all beliefs that are contrary to the Word of God, including other evolutionary ideas (evolutionary geology and cosmology, for example) that undermine the authority of the Word of God,” he wrote in a blog post. “So yes, we do applaud what these scientists are doing, but we challenge them to look to God’s Word for the answers to their questions about origins, as many other scientists are already doing.”
As previously reported, not all of those who accompanied Darwin on his journeys supported his theories. During the 1860 Oxford evolution debate, Admiral Robert FitzRoy, who had once served as the captain for Darwin’s voyage to the Galapagos Islands and played a significant role in the development of the Origin of Species, repented of his participation.
Reports state that FitzRoy walked to the front of the room during the debate, “lifting an immense Bible, first with both and afterwards with one hand over his head, [and] solemnly implored the audience to believe God rather than man.”
Colossians 1:15-16 declares, “[Jesus Christ] is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For by Him all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things were created through Him and for Him.”
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