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Darwinism Simply Can't Answer These Questions

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By R. GEOFFREY WEIHE Special to the Tribune

The Tampa Tribune

Published: June 1, 2008

If you placed an infinite number of chimpanzees at an infinite number of typewriters, would they eventually write all the great books?

That was a silly experiment proposed by Bob Newhart on his 1960 hit comedy album. The joke reminds me of today's debate over the teaching of intelligent design along with Neo Darwinistic scientific naturalism.

The Tribune has published several columns that have misinformed readers about both science and creationism.

Intelligent design did not begin in some Baptist Church strategy session. It grew out of the mind-numbing frustration felt by serious scientists concerning the increasing number of questions that Neo Darwinism just can't answer.

The Darwinian account of evolution is imploding, and no amount of sarcasm or misinformation can save it. Those who hang their philosophical hopes on scientific naturalism are in defense mode.

Let me share just three of the many problems unsolved by the theory of natural selection.

1. Random mutation, the heart of Darwin's theory, has been shown to be severely limited in evolving new functional genes. There is no known example of the formation of a new species.

2. The slow steps of evolution through selection cannot explain the irreducible complexity of the 40-piece rotary motor in the bacterial flagellum. If just one part of the motor is not in place, the motor won't work. No Darwinian apologist has an answer for this.

3. Neo Darwinists have yet to propose a solid theory for the beginning of life. Dr. Dean Kenyon, a professor of biology at San Francisco University, wrote the leading and accepted textbook on the biochemical origin of life. For years "Biochemical Predestination" was used in universities as the best text on the origin of the first living cells. However, Kenyon finally abandoned his theory because he began to strongly doubt that amino acids, which are protein's building blocks, could self-assemble without the assembly instructions that RNA and DNA provide. In the final analysis, there is no answer for the origin of DNA.

Over 150 years ago, Darwin said, "If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down."

I ask that anyone commenting on this issue please not play the religion card. And I urge parents and students to seek the truth, wherever the evidence leads.

Charles Darwin was a serious scientist who postulated a theory over 150 years ago. Let's welcome vigorous scientific scrutiny and not treat Darwinian evolution as a god.

And let's check on what Newhart's chimps have written so far: "To be, or not to be, that is the gizorninplat."

R. Geoffrey Weihe, D.D.S., of Tampa is past president of the Hillsborough County Dental Association.

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