Even though adherents of this idea seem to be the main “science consultants” of the Trump Administration, but does anti-Darwinism have a scientific basis?
By; Ringo Bones
They say climate change / global warming is a hoax and the
entire Universe is only 6,000 years old – which, unfortunately forms the
salient theme of every anti-Darwinian bunch of scientists now in tenure as scientific
consultants in the Trump Administration. Given the evidence at hand – or lack
thereof – does anti-Darwinism have enough of a scientific basis to serve as an “alternative
theory” to Charles Darwin’s Theory of Evolution through the basis of natural
selection?
The term anti-Darwinism refers to the position or belief
that Darwinism – which holds that the scientific theory of evolution by means
of natural selection is the best explanation for the available evidence – is in
error and is held by a number of religious groups, primarily far-right leaning White
Anglo Saxon Christian Protestantism, who seek to supplant the teaching of
evolution by natural selection in schools with Biblically-based doctrine of
Creationism – often in one disguise or another. Darwinism has been under attack
by these groups since it was first elaborated and the attacks have become
especially focused since approximately the early 1980s mainly in the United
States.
Evolution by means of natural selection has mountains of peer-reviewed
scientific evidence in its support and reflects the overwhelming scientific
consensus on the question of species origin and hence is entirely appropriate
for a science class. Creationism – especially the Biblical Abrahamic Theology
based one often extolled by far-right conservatives – has little or no peer-reviewed
scientific evidence in its support and is in complete disagreement with the
scientific consensus and hence is completely inappropriate for a science class.
When early attempts to introduce Creationism into American
science classes by packaging it - or rebranding it – as “Creation Science”
failed in the 1980s due to the clearly religious nature of the teachings and
the American legal separation of church and state – i.e. Separation - which
forbids the teaching of religion in public schools, the anti-Darwinists next
mounted a two-sided strategy by both attacking the validity of Separation while
also stripping the overt religious references out of creationist doctrine and
thereby creating “Intelligent Design”.
The George Dubya Bush era Intelligent Design attack failed
spectacularly in a 2006 court decision in Dover, Pennsylvania. Since then, the
anti-Darwinists have continued their attacks on Separation while also promoting
efforts to “teach the controversy” in science classes. They have also been
trying, often via blatant propaganda, such as the 2008 film Expelled: No
Intelligence Allowed, to spread the idea that the scientific establishment is
unfairly “expelling” and suppressing any alternative theories without a fair
hearing, rather than simply finding the alternatives so far proposed – i.e.
Creationism and Intelligent Design – ridiculous and nonsensical as is the case.
In general, anti-Darwinists do not seem to have any qualms about making up
convenient details or even blatantly lying in order to advance their cause,
which seems to be the universal rule of a particular brand of Christianity
whose details are slowly coming to light – possibly Dominion-ism or something
like it.
