As Michael Ruse and others have pointed out the language evolutionists use can be telling, but what is not discussed is that the language evolutionists do not use is also telling. Anyone familiar with the evolution genre cannot help but notice the curious use of design language. Teleology abounds as natural selection is described as “solving” this or that “problem.” As Ernst Mayr pointed out in Toward a New Philosophy of Biology, “The use of terms like purposive or goal-directed seemed to imply the transfer of human qualities, such as intent, purpose, planning, deliberation, or consciousness, to organic structures and to subhuman forms of life.” Of course for Ruse, Mayr and the evolutionists these are merely interesting asides. The persistence of teleological language in the literature is Read More ›

In the early 20th century modern genetics was integrated into evolutionary theory and the resulting neo Darwinism, or New Synthesis, was hailed as a great advance. Darwin didn’t know the details of how biological variation arose but now that gap was filled in—from changing allele frequencies to genetic mutations, modern genetics provided the answer. Biological variation arose from gene sequence variations. But this version 2.0 of Darwin’s theory would go long without its own difficulties, as exemplified yet again by recent research on the origin of the domesticated chicken. Read more