As ENV pointed out earlier this morning, in the admitted understanding of the National Academy of Sciences, Darwinian evolution is not really a scientific conclusion so much as a premise, a framework, a paradigm for considering the evidence of nature. It provides scientists with a filter for screening out inadmissible answers to questions about life’s history. It thus creates a realm of forbidden science.
For a clear illustration of how this works you couldn’t do better than Charles Marshall’s review of Darwin’s Doubt in Science. As Stephen Meyer points out in a video conversation about the critical response to his book, Dr. Marshall was forced by the Darwinian framework to violate a key scientific tenet, namely that nature works today as it did in the past.
Back then, gene regulatory networks were easier to rewire. Nowadays, not so much. What evidence is there for such an assertion? None. Why think it at all? Because the paradigm compels it. Watch the whole thing.