From Denyse O’Leary at Salvo, a look at Matti Leisola’s book, Heretic: One Scientist’s Journey from Darwin to Design
Matti Leisola, a gifted Finnish bioengineer, started out as a good Darwinist. But he could not avoid the massive pushback from the evidence of design he found in nature. A specialist in enzymes and rare sugars, he noticed that high-school students in his own country were being taught hoary Darwinian legends rather than a more nuanced view of biology that sees each individual cell as a complex city of life.
Over a long career, which included serving as dean (now emeritus) of Chemistry and Material Sciences at Helsinki University of Technology and as research director for Cultor, a global biotech company, Leisola faced off against nonsense from both science and religion. For an example of scientific nonsense, there was this claim from a Finnish university professor: “There is no qualitative difference between life and non-life.”
Tell that to your doorstop. More.
Also at Salvo, a review of Heretic by Terrell Clemmons:
A quintessential scientist’s memoir, Heretic: One Scientist’s Journey from Darwin to Design contains Leisola’s reflections on both developments in science (including biology, paleontology, genetics, information theory, and ID) and his “long and painstaking” voyage from the naturalistic evolutionary faith to dissent from Darwin. Heretic also details some of the evasions, hatred, suspicions, contempt, fears, power games, and persecutions that unfortunately mark the life of an open Darwin skeptic. And remarkably, it manages to do so with a subtle wit both sharp enough to poke fun at the contortions of materialism and shrewd enough to note the gravely consequential nature of what’s at stake.More.
See also: When a bioengineer cannot avoid evidence for design in nature…