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“Convergent Evolution Is Even More Improbable than Evolution Itself”

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From Jerusalem, Ira Berkowitz for ID the Future continues a fascinating conversation with Lee Spetner, author of Not by Chance and The Evolution Revolution. Discussions of what ails evolutionary theory hardly come more lucid or crisp than this.

Download the episode here, or listen to it here.

What’s even more implausible than evolution? That would have to be convergent evolution, as Dr. Spetner, an MIT-trained physicist, points out. Darwinists pulled the concept out of thin air to describe how widely separated creatures on the phylogenetic tree independently “converge” on wondrous biological innovations, such as echolocation (in dolphins and bats, for example). That remarkable coincidence extends down to fine chemical details not found in other animals.

How did such things get there? If explaining the unguided evolution of echolocation in whales is tough enough, explaining how it popped up in bats, too, naturally multiplies the difficulty. In fact, Spetner says of convergent evolution that it explains nothing but is simply a case of “giving a name to our ignorance.”

As an alternative to Darwinian theory, Spetner proposes his Non-Random Evolutionary Hypothesis, evidently purposeful evolution as a response to environmental and other stresses.  He characterizes the idea neatly to Ira Berkowitz.

Photo credit: Pexels, via Pixabay.

David Klinghoffer

Senior Fellow and Editor, Science and Culture Today
David Klinghoffer is a Senior Fellow with Discovery Institute’s Center for Science and Culture. He is the author of seven books including Plato’s Revenge: The New Science of the Immaterial Genome and The Lord Will Gather Me In: My Journey to Jewish Orthodoxy. A former senior editor at National Review, he has contributed to the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and other publications. He received an A.B. magna cum laude from Brown University in 1987. Born in Santa Monica, CA, he lives on Mercer Island, WA.
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