David Klinghoffer

In a sparkling, concise and controversial new biography of the co-discoverer of evolutionary theory, historian Michael A. Flannery tells a largely unknown story that has been embarrassing Darwinians in the know for almost a century and a half.

This is not a blog about foreign affairs, but I came across a refreshing and illuminating piece on the New Republic website that, in the context of talking about Islam and terrorism, suggested to me a reason for hope in the Darwin debate. In the current culture of science, where the 19th-century materialist Church of Science rules and the congregation bows obediently, what’s needed is a modernizing reformation. Doubts about Darwinism are part of that. We can draw a parallel to past reformations in the religious sphere, and future ones. Most of us in the West agree, for example, that Islam urgently requires a reformation. Some observers see radical Islamism not as the leading edge in Muslim life — that Read More ›

Reading the prominent Darwin boosters puts me in mind of Señor Wences. He was the Spanish-born ventriloquist who won international affection for conducting conversations with his own hand. On his thumb and index finger, Wences used lipstick to paint a pair of lips, stuck on a couple of button eyes and a tiny wig and called the interlocutor, who spoke in a falsetto, “Johnny.” To the delight of audiences on the Ed Sullivan Show, Johnny could speak even as Wences drank a glass of water or smoked a cigarette.

In their books and blogs, the Dawkins-Myers crew acidly dismiss the scientific case against Darwin, all echoing the same putdowns about “creationists” and “IDiots” with no record of peer-reviewed research, desperately hawking a God who “poofs” things into existence.

If you were naíve, you could assume that the Darwin team must have made the effort to acquaint themselves with the arguments for intelligent design. The truth is almost all the professional evolution advocates have in common that they are in conversation with an imaginary opponent, as crudely constructed as Johnny but without the charm. It’s not the insults I mind but the shallowness they mask, the mulish refusal to genuinely confront the ideas you hate, that merits contempt.
The really sad part is that out in the real world, lots of otherwise thoughtful people don’t get the gag. They fail to realize that Johnny, the fanciful but useful “IDiot,” is being generated by that man with the Spanish accent and the magician’s tuxedo.
If you doubt me, let’s briefly review the excellent science reporting here just since Christmas or so by Casey Luskin and Jonathan M., noting recent peer-reviewed and other professional scientific publications. Some readers might be just returning from vacation and may have missed it. That would be a shame. Consider: