Cornelius Hunter

I once debated an evolutionist who listed a dozen or so major areas of evidence he said proved evolution. The problem was each of the areas of evidence was problematic for evolution. True, one could find within those areas, as he did, supportive evidences. But the story was not so simple. In fact the areas of scientific evidence, when carefully examined from a theory-neutral perspective, reveal all kinds of problems for evolution. Is evolution false? Is it true? The answer is there are no easy answers. There certainly are substantial scientific problems with Darwin’s idea—that much we do know. If evolution is true then there is much we have to learn about science. But the scientific evidence can tell us Read More ›

What is evolution? Is it natural selection acting on random biological variation? Is it gradualism or punctuated equilibrium? Is it the slow accumulation of neutral changes that eventually become useful? No, these are all sub hypotheses of evolution. Evolution is the theory that naturalistic causes are sufficient to explain the origin of species.   Read more

In his article on human evolution Graeme Finlay states that duplicated DNA segments prove evolution. Finlay’s proof is straightforward. These duplications of DNA segments arise randomly and yet identical duplications are found in cousin species, such as humans and chimpanzees. Finlay uses as his example opsin genes which produce proteins that are light sensitive. Different opsin genes produce proteins that are sensitive to different colors of light. The proteins are found in the hundreds of millions of photocells in our retina and they allow us to sense the different colors of light that we see. By combining the signals from these different photocells, our brain can assemble a full color image.   Read more

Dr. Karl Giberson President, BioLogos Foundation Dear Dr. Giberson: As a professor, author and President of the BioLogos Foundation, you have powerful communication tools at your disposal. You have access to major media outlets and you speak with scientific authority. In short, you are a teacher with a very large audience. This is an enormous teaching responsibility which I am sure you take seriously. For this reason I want to alert you to a fundamental mistake which you and the BioLogos Foundation have made. Given the magnitude of your teaching responsibility I hope that you will carefully consider this situation and take the appropriate corrective measures.   Read more

It is interesting to see how evolutionists respond to failures of their theory. For all their talk of following the evidence and adjusting to new data, evolutionists find all kinds of ways to resist learning from their failures. Consider one of the major failures of evolution, its view of the very nature of biological change. Twentieth century evolutionary theory held that biological change is a rather simple process that is blind to the needs of the organism. As Julian Huxley, grandson of Darwin confidant T. H. Huxley, put it, mutations “occur without reference to their possible consequences or biological uses.”   Read more

Computers are becoming faster and more powerful all the time and those improvements have been mainly due to better hardware. Future improvements, however, may well rely increasingly on better architecture and software. One reason why this seems likely is that the human brain, with its very different architecture, dramatically out performs computers in performing various tasks (such as perceiving an object in a complex visual scene). If computers are to match the brain’s performance, they likely will need to exploit features of the brain’s design.   Read more

Pulitzer Prize-winning author and professor Jonathan Weiner will be giving the second lecture of the Darwin Celebratory Lectures on the topic of variation. Weiner’s award winning book, The Beak of the Finch, documents the adaptive variations observed in the finches on the Galapagos islands. Such adaptive change is both rapid and intelligent. For instance, the beaks of the finches adapted to changes brought about by drought years. It is another piece of evidence that species have incredible adaptive abilities, not that reptiles changed into birds.   Read more

The fossil record reveals a history of life characterized by the abrupt appearance of new species followed by no change and eventual extinction in most cases. Needless to say, abrupt appearances and no change is not exactly what evolution expected. Much of this was known in Darwin’s time and he figured that the fossil record was incomplete. Today such speculation doesn’t work anymore. The evidence reveals even more clearly this pattern of abrupt appearances followed by stasis. As one recent paper explained:   Read more

Thousands of DNA segments have been found to be nearly identical across a wide range of species including human, mouse, rat, dog, chicken and fish. Evolutionary theory expected no such high similarity for species that are supposed to have been evolving independently for hundreds of millions of years. The only explanation could be a super strong functional constraint requiring the very unusual similarities, but none was found. Now new research is adding a twist to the story.   Read more

Last week’s review of Richard Dawkins’ new book in the Economist hit all the usual chords. Dawkins’ purpose is to demonstrate that evolution is a fact–as incontrovertible a fact as any in science, and the Economist is only too happy to propagate the absurdity. First, there are the usual silly evidential arguments that only work with the uninformed, of which there are apparently many. True, species appear abruptly in the fossil record but, explains the Economist, “That any traces at all remain from so long ago is astounding, and anyway it is not the completeness of the fossil record but its consistency that matters.” After all, there are no fossil rabbits in the ancient strata. That’s right, no rabbits before Read More ›

Jerry Coyne visited the University of Alabama last week to explain why evolution is true. Of course the “truth” of evolution comes from religious conviction. With religion one can say that evolution is as much a fact as is gravity. The claim makes no sense from a scientific perspective. It is not that evolutionists have made an error. They did not make a mistake in their calculations or misread a scientific observation. Their claim that evolution is as obvious as gravity is not really a mistake at all. It isn’t even wrong–it simply is not scientific. Evolution is as obvious as gravity just like astrology is as obvious as gravity. These people clearly are playing by a different set of Read More ›

As an old proverb has it, first they’ll reject the truth and then they’ll appropriate it and say they knew it all along. Enter Paul Kammerer, the Austrian biologist who almost a century ago was assailed as a fraud for his anti Darwinian findings. His crime: he found evidence for Lamarckism–the idea that organisms can pass on traits they have acquired to their offspring. Kammerer ended up committing suicide and now, almost a century later, evolutionists are figuring out that he was right. Guess what they’re calling him now? That’s right, Kammerer has now been crowned an “evolutionist.” Today’s Orwellian headline reads:   Read more

The DNA code is both nearly universal and nearly optimal. With the exception of minor deviations occasionally discovered, the same DNA code is found in all species. And that code is so efficient it is sometimes labeled as “optimal.” This is yet another simple example revealing the absurdity of evolutionary theory. Let’s see why.  Read more

Evolutionists have relied heavily on preadaptation to explain biology’s complexities. The latest example is a new paper that uses preadaptation to explain a machine that transports proteins across the mitochondria inner membrane.  Read more

In the 1954 movie The Caine Mutiny, Humphrey Bogart plays the compulsive-paranoid Captain Queeg who is relieved of duty when unable to deal with a dangerous storm at sea. Upon return to port two officers face a court-martial for mutiny. The trial goes badly for them and they appear to be destined for prison until the final testimony of Captain Queeg where his underlying paranoia is suddenly revealed. In the courtroom sideways looks and wide eyes reveal a collective revelation: “Ohh, noooowwww I understand.” Read more