Darwin’s Dilemma

Pity the party that tries to Darwinize metamorphosis: to give an evolutionary explanation for the transformation from caterpillar to butterfly that resembles death and resurrection. One bold evolutionist has given it a try, but is his explanation an appeal to magic? In the documentary Metamorphosis from Illustra Media, biologist Richard Stringer explains why he was attracted to the study of butterflies. “That’s biology; it’s also magic.” Of course he intended the reference to magic as a metaphor, because he proceeded to investigate metamorphosis scientifically, examining the process in detail with MRI. Frank Ryan, however, writing for New Scientist, is weak on details and big on veritable magic, speaking of how metamorphosis arose or emerged with little more causation than casual Read More ›

A paper by Wilf and Ewens recently published online in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, titled “There’s plenty of time for evolution,” reads like a printed version of Groundhog Day — the classic movie where comedian Bill Murray keeps awakening to find it’s the same day again. The paper’s authors sniff at unnamed benighted folks who think there hasn’t been enough time for (Darwinian) evolution to build the complexity we see in life. Not so, they protest. Why, all one has to do to see the light is to use the right mathematical model: “After guessing each of the letters, we are told which (if any) of the guessed letters are correct, and then those letters are Read More ›

Everyone seems to remember that Alfred Russel Wallace co-discovered the engine of modern evolutionary theory, natural selection, with his famous Ternate letter sent to Charles Darwin in early March of 1858. The receipt of that letter prompted an astonished Darwin into action to finally unveil his own theory and the rest is history. Or is it? Forgotten in the glare of Darwin’s preeminence is that Wallace went on to craft his own theory, a theory imbued with intelligent design. First announced in April of 1869, Wallace would go on to develop a theory of directed, detectably designed, and purposeful common descent best described as intelligent evolution.