Author: Daniel Witt

^{Type
post

Author
Daniel Witt

Date
August 12, 2025

Categories
Evolution
Faith & Science
Intelligent Design
Tagged
, __recommended, ACLU, American Association for the Advancement of Science, Arthur Holly Compton, Charles Whitney Gilkey, Edward B. Davis, Edwin Brant Frost, Edwin Grant Conklin, Harry Emerson Fosdick, Henri Bergson, intelligent design, John D. Rockefeller Jr., Kirtley Fletcher Mather, Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District, materialism, Michael Idvorsky Pupin, modernists, pamphlets, Protestant Modernist Pamphlets, Robert Andrews Millikan, Samuel Christian Schmucker, schools, Shailer Mathews, University of Chicago, University of Chicago Divinity School}

Scopes: Same Debate, Different World

_{Daniel Witt
August 12, 2025

Evolution, Faith & Science, Intelligent Design

17}

Understandably, the Scopes trial is often viewed through the lens of current debates surrounding evolution, creationism, and intelligent design. Read More ›

^{Type
post

Author
Daniel Witt

Date
July 25, 2025

Categories
Evolution
Intelligent Design
Scientific Reasoning
Tagged
, Alfred Adler, Andreas Wagner, biology, bird beaks, Charles Darwin, circular reasoning, Darwinism, ENCODE project, evidence, evolution, explanatory power, François Jacob, frogs, genome, homologous features, inferiority complex, irrefutable belief systems, Karl Marx, Karl Popper, philosophy of science, psychologists, Richard Dawkins, Sigmund Freud, Theodore Dobzhansky}

Why Evolution Is Undeniable

_{Daniel Witt
July 25, 2025

Evolution, Intelligent Design, Scientific Reasoning

8}

The challenges continue to pile up, but the pile never gets any bigger because each piece of contrary evidence is reinterpreted for “general reasons.” Read More ›

^{Type
post

Author
Daniel Witt

Date
July 14, 2025

Categories
Evolution
Intelligent Design
Philosophy of Science
Tagged
, Amazon, astronomer, beavers, biochemists, biology, chance, Easter Island, elements, evolution, gods, helium, Herbert Spencer, intelligent design, iron picks, Laurence Moran, life, necessity, New York City, Norman Lockyer, Occam’s razor, On the Origin of Species, parsimony, skyscraper, smartphones, special creation, specified complexity, Stephen Meyer, stone hammers, Stonehenge, will}

How Did the Designer Do It?

_{Daniel Witt
July 14, 2025

Evolution, Intelligent Design, Philosophy of Science

11}

It seems the debate has not progressed much in a century and a half. Clearly, these evolutionary theorists think they have an unanswerable line of attack here. Read More ›

^{Type
post

Author
Daniel Witt

Date
July 10, 2025

Categories
Intelligent Design
Philosophy of Science
Scientific Reasoning
Tagged
, analogy, anthropologists, biology, compartmentalization, defenestration, defining science, diggers, Forensics, geologists, geology, gravity, hypotheticals, integration, intelligent creatures, intelligent design, intelligent designer, methodological pluralism, methodology, natural laws, naturalistic explanations, open-mindedness, patterns, physical world, predictions, psychologists, psychology, real world, science, sociology, tractors, unscientific}

Are Scientists Allowed to Consider Unscientific Explanations?

_{Daniel Witt
July 10, 2025

Intelligent Design, Philosophy of Science, Scientific Reasoning

7}

Let’s consider a narrower field. Geology, as everyone knows, is concerned with the natural processes that act upon the earth. Read More ›

^{Type
post

Author
Daniel Witt

Date
June 25, 2025

Categories
Evolution
Intelligent Design
Tagged
, Australian Aboriginals, brain, Charles Darwin, common ancestor, compartmentalization, creationism, Darwinism, digestive system, dualism, evolution, false dilemma, hereditarianism, human lineages, humans, intelligence, intelligent design, IQ gap, J. B. S. Haldane, lungs, men, Native Americans, natural selection, Nicobar Islands, Personality and Individual Differences, Racism, random variation, retconning, savages, skin, sub-Saharan Africans, tails, women}

21st-Century Darwinism’s Impossible Situation

_{Daniel Witt
June 25, 2025

Evolution, Intelligent Design

9}

The nasty racial implications of Darwin’s theory should not just be tastefully ignored. Read More ›

^{Type
post

Author
Daniel Witt

Date
June 24, 2025

Categories
Bioethics
Evolution
Human Origins and Anthropology
Tagged
, apes, C.S. Lewis, Charles Darwin, chemistry, Christianity, Dante Alighieri, Darwinism, Erasmus Darwin, intelligence, intelligence tests, J. B. S. Haldane, J. R. R. Tolkien, John Milton, Lord Monboddo, Mars, Naomi Mitchison, Possible Worlds and Other Essays, race, science fiction, scientific racism, scientists, The Descent of Man, Third Reich, UNESCO}

The End of Scientific Racism

_{Daniel Witt
June 24, 2025

Bioethics, Evolution, Human Origins and Anthropology

10}

J. B. S. Haldane initially subscribed to some of the racism of the era — but, to his credit, his views shifted over time as more evidence came to light. Read More ›

^{Type
post

Author
Daniel Witt

Date
June 20, 2025

Categories
Bioethics
Biology
Evolution
Tagged
, aborigines, Africans, Alfred Russel Wallace, apes, Asia, Australia, Charles Darwin, Fuegians, HMS Beagle, Indonesia, Isaac Newton, Lord Monboddo, Malays, man, non-Europeans, Papuans, Racism, scientific racism, The Descent of Man, Tierra del Fuego, Wallace line, William Shakespeare}

How Darwin Recruited Racism to His Theory

_{Daniel Witt
June 20, 2025

Bioethics, Biology, Evolution

7}

Charles Darwin formulated his theory at a time when it was commonly assumed that different races of humans had different natural levels of intelligence. Read More ›

^{Type
post

Author
Daniel Witt

Date
June 19, 2025

Categories
Evolution
Human Exceptionalism
Human Origins and Anthropology
Tagged
, Africa, apes, Charles Darwin, common ancestry, East India Company, Erasmus Darwin, evolutionary theory, females, human races, humans, Java, Lord Monboddo, monkeys, orangutans, race science, racial disparities, Racism, special creation, species, speech, tails, The Descent of Man, travelers, women}

Monkey Men: The Fables That Inspired Evolutionary Theory

_{Daniel Witt
June 19, 2025

Evolution, Human Exceptionalism, Human Origins and Anthropology

7}

“For, that there are men with tails,” wrote Lord Monboddo, “…is a fact so well attested that I think it cannot be doubted.” Read More ›

^{Type
post

Author
Daniel Witt

Date
June 6, 2025

Categories
Evolution
Intelligent Design
Philosophy
Scientific Reasoning
Tagged
, academia, animals, biological complexity, biology, biopsychism, chemistry, Communicative & Integrative Biology, Evolution and the Fate of Humankind, Evolution News, Günter Bechly, intelligent design, Manuel DeLanda, Marco Masi, materialism, metaphysical vitalism, methodology, Michael Levin, min, nest-building, nurturing, Peter Corning, physical vitalism, physics, Plato's Revenge, Platonic forms, Platonism, protection, Richard Sternberg, synergy, teleonomy, Tufts University, University of Zurich, vital force, vitalism}

Peter Corning and the Taint of Vitalism

_{Daniel Witt
June 6, 2025

Evolution, Intelligent Design, Philosophy, Scientific Reasoning

11}

As the insightful work of Corning and others has shown, the vitalist/mechanist debate in biology is nowhere near over. If anything, it’s just getting started. Read More ›

^{Type
post

Author
Daniel Witt

Date
June 5, 2025

Categories
Evolution
History of Science
Life Sciences
Tagged
, Adolf Hitler, Alan Rayner, Albert Einstein, Antón Barba-Kay, Bertrand Russell, Charles Darwin, China, cooperation, COVID-19, Cultural Revolution, Denis Noble, Erasmus Darwin, eugenics, evolution, Jean-Baptiste Lamarck, Joana Xavier, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, John Dewey, Karl Marx, Marxism, mutationism, N. S. Lyons, Neo-Darwinism, On the Origin of Species, orthogenesis, Peter Corning, Stuart Kauffman, Synergism Hypothesis, UNESCO, world government, Zeitgeist}

Nature in the Image of Man: Introducing the New Social Darwinism

_{Daniel Witt
June 5, 2025

Evolution, History of Science, Life Sciences

16}

Always, the initial social/intellectual change has come first, and the scientific paradigm shift has followed after. Read More ›