Scientific Dissent from Darwinism (2001)

Science says it, so it must be so, right?  Well, here we have one of the most famous studies of all time coming under fire for presenting false data and conclusions.  Shocking (pun intended).  Sixty-plus years ago, Yale University professor Stanley Milgram used a fake shock-torture setup to show that people are frighteningly easy to manipulate into doing as they’re told. One researcher described the setup as designed discover whether “ordinary Americans would obey immoral orders, as many Germans had done during the Nazi period.” The answer Milgram gave that question was a disturbing yes. I recall this study well.  One of my jobs in grad school was taking films from the library to show in various classes on the Read More ›

A writer encountered this all-too-common type of behavior recently and was, well, surprised. To see why it feels normal to many of us, it is helpful to understand a bit about Darwinism as a social phenomenon. Faithful readers of various vintages will, of course, remember University of Toronto evolutionary biologist Larry Moran, best known publicly through his blog Sandwalk. At his blog Southern Prose, writer John Leonard happened to come across him the other day trashing well-known chemist James Tour. That was back in 2014 but the internet is forever. Tour signed the Discovery Institute statement, “A Scientific Dissent from Darwinism” (2001), calling for more openness on discussion of evolution: “We are skeptical of claims for the ability of random Read More ›