
From Sarah Chaffee and Granville Sewell at The Spectator:
Whether the standard neo-Darwinian mechanism fully explains the origins of biological novelties is a question that scientists themselves increasingly contest. Yet for the media, evolution is the holy Kaaba of science. Resistance verging on hysteria greets attempts to allow teachers to introduce mainstream controversies found in peer-reviewed scientific literature.
Just look at media coverage about Arizona’s state science standards, currently being revised, where minor changes were decried as a wholesale “attack” on evolution. Louisiana passed its academic freedom law, the Louisiana Science Education Act, in 2008 and critics have been denouncing it ever since, dishonestly, for sneaking in instruction about “intelligent design” or “creationism.” Tennessee passed a similar law in 2012, likewise prompting accusations about a “loophole… through which creationism would creep in.”
Chaffee and Sewell trace the “more certan than gravity” claim back to a 19th-century geologist Joseph Le Conte, who wrote,
[T]he law of evolution is as certain as the law of gravitation. Nay, it is far more certain. The nexus between successive events in time (causation) is far more certain than the nexus between coexistent objects in space (gravitation). The former is a necessary truth, the latter is usually classed as a contingent truth. More.
Chaffee and Sewell respond, “Finally, we understand. The law of gravity is a “contingent” truth. We believe it only as long as the evidence supports it. The theory of evolution is a “necessary” truth. It is not contingent on supporting evidence.”
No, the “theory of evolution” is not contingent on supporting evidence. Failing mainstream media, for example, cannot even report seriously on the slow crumbling of Darwinism. To them, Darwinism IS evolution, a necessary truth, like their other beliefs.
Hat tip: Philip Cunningham
See also: “Sincere and heartfelt apologies” to Granville Sewell from the math journal that dumped his article due to Darwinist pressure (2011)
Mathematician Granville Sewell denied right to respond to rebuttals in journal (2012)
Breaking, breaking: ID friendly math prof gets apology and damages from journal
My Controversial Tautology (Sewell)
Retraction Watch has noted the math journal’s retraction of its treatment of Granville Sewell
More on the withdrawn article (Sewell)
and
Granville Sewell’s vindication latest in string of defeats for Darwin lobby … straw in the wind?