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Commentator Dinesh D’Souza on paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould’s directionless evolution

Denyse O'Leary
January 3, 2021
Atheism, Culture, Darwinism, Intelligent Design, theism
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Readers may remember Stephen Jay Gould (1941–2002), the “nice” atheist evolutionist (as opposed to Richard Dawkins). Dinesh D’Souza, is an American commentator, and not one to shrink from controversy:

Is there a conflict between evolution and theism? Here I refute Stephen Jay Gould’s argument that the pattern of evolution reveals no purpose or direction pic.twitter.com/n1lpZ7eUlm— Dinesh D’Souza (@DineshDSouza) December 29, 2020

Not clear how to embed the vid. You’ll have to go to Twitter. But the comments are classics.

Comments
There are a number of problems with D'Sousa's little video. First, the obvious, he was an English major and has no background in evolutionary biology. Second, the portion of video that he shows with SJG has to do with fitness (selection) not evolution per se and SJG makes that abundantly clear. Third, D'Sousa's reference to De Duve is misplaced. De Duve was an atheist and a strict evolutionist who was highly critical of intelligent design. So much so that he advocated repeal of the Louisiana Science Education Act of 2008. His view of life and mind did not deal with teleology or religion as D'Sousa suggests. He died by assisted suicide which is legal in Belgium after fighting cancer for a number of years. Finally, Morris is best characterized as what ID folks disparagingly call a "theistic evolutionist" and Morris is also highly critical of ID. His discussions on evolution and religion are pretty stock in trade, "well God used Darwinian evolution to create us."chuckdarwin
January 5, 2021
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I have to admit that I have always had a soft spot for Gould, not so much for Dawkins. I have just found that Dawkins is always angry about something.Steve Alten2
January 4, 2021
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When anyone tells you that the history of life on Earth reveals no plan or purpose, they are telling you all about their philosophy and nothing at all about science.Battman
January 4, 2021
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