"A self-styled form of Darwinian fundamentalism has risen to some prominence in a variety of fields, from the English biological heartland of John Maynard Smith to the uncompromising ideology (albeit in graceful prose) of his compatriot Richard Dawkins, to the equally narrow and more ponderous writing of the American philosopher Daniel Dennett . . . . - Stephen Jay Gould, "Darwinian Fundamentalism," The New York Review of Books.
If Greek philosophy can be banned in a California high school, we should ask again if 500 million year old fossils can be unconstitutional. I recently updated my My Favorite Posts post to include Unconstitutional Fossils, in which I discuss a Washington Post editorial. This post also happened to get a lot of comments.
posted by Lawrence Selden @ 10:41 AM
1 comments
I am a macroevolution agnostic. I used to accept evolutionary theory. Then I looked at the evidence. It became clear to me that macroevolutionary theory is built more on a priori philosophical assumptions than on evidence. Microevolution, on the other hand, is supported by the evidence. The distinction between the two is critical and is largely ignored, or not understood, by the mainstream media and general public.
1 Comments:
You mention the Cambrian fossils (Walcott) as an example of ignored paleontology, but there's a better one: Hans Reck's OH1. Louis Leakey, Richard's father, initially verified its authenticity, but he had to recant after almost 20 years of being treated as a pariah by evolutionary dogmatists.
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