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Thursday, February 23, 2006

514 Heretics

Over 500 scientists with Ph.Ds have signed a statement expressing their dissent from Darwinian evolutionary theory:

The Scientific Dissent From Darwinism statement reads: "We are skeptical of claims for the ability of random mutation and natural selection to account for the complexity of life. Careful examination of the evidence for Darwinian theory should be encouraged."

The list of 514 signatories includes member scientists from the prestigious US and Russian National Academy of Sciences. Signers include 154 biologists, the largest single scientific discipline represented on the list, as well as 76 chemists and 63 physicists. Signers hold doctorates in biological sciences, physics, chemistry, mathematics, medicine, computer science, and related disciplines. Many are professors or researchers at major universities and research institutions such as MIT, The Smithsonian, Cambridge University, UCLA, UC Berkeley, Princeton, the University of Pennsylvania, the Ohio State University, the University of Georgia, and the University of Washington.

And these are just the scientists who are willing to go public with their doubts. It may be that they are but the tip of the scientific iceberg. So much for the silly claim that all scientists accept the Darwinian paradigm and that there's no debate about it in the scientific community.

Jonathan Witt at Intelligent Design the Future chastises the New York Times for their clumsy attempts to pooh pooh the significance of the dissenters. See also this critique of the Times' report. Does anybody actually trust these people any more to be fair, accurate, and objective?