Over 500 Scientists Proclaim Their
Doubts About Darwin’s Theory of
Evolution
Robert L. Crowther, II | @RLCrowther
February 20, 2006, 7:28 AM
Over 500 doctoral scientists have now signed a statement
publicly E×ρréššing their skepticism about the contemporary
theory of Darwinian evolution.
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.
Discovery Institute first published its Scientific Dissent From
Darwinism list in 2001 to challenge false statements about
Darwinian evolution made in promoting PBS’s “Evolution”
series. At the time it was claimed that “virtually every scientist
in the world believes the theory to be true.”
“Darwinists continue to claim that no serious scientists doubt
the theory and yet here are 500 scientists who are willing to
make public their skepticism about the theory,” said Dr. John
G. West, associate director of Discovery Institute’s Center for
Science & Culture. “Darwinist efforts to use the courts, the
media and academic tenure committees to suppress dissent
and stifle discussion are in fact fueling even more dissent and
inspiring more scientists to ask to be added to the list.”
According to West, it was the fast growing number of
scientific dissenters which encouraged the Institute to launch
a website —
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Log in or register now. — to give the list a
permanent home. The website is the Institute’s response to
the demand for information and access to the list both by the
public, and by scientists who want to add their name to list.
“Darwin’s theory of evolution is the great white elephant of
contemporary thought,” said Dr. David Berlinski, one of the
original signers, a mathematician and philosopher of science
with Discovery Institute’s Center for Science and Culture
(CSC). “It is large, almost completely useless, and the object
of superstitious awe.”
Other prominent signatories include U.S. National Academy of
Sciences member Philip Skell; American Association for the
Advancement of Science Fellow Lyle Jensen; evolutionary
biologist and textbook author Stanley Salthe; Smithsonian
Institution evolutionary biologist and a researcher at the
National Institutes of Health’s National Center for
Biotechnology Information Richard von Sternberg; Editor of
Rivista di Biologia / Biology Forum –the oldest still published
biology journal in the world — Giuseppe Sermonti; and Russian
Academy of Natural Sciences embryologist Lev Beloussov.
If you have a Ph.D. in engineering, mathematics, computer
science, biology, chemistry, or one of the other natural
sciences, and you agree with the following statement, “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,” then please contact us at
cscinfo@discovery.org