I have been writing quite a lot recently on the subject of animism, that everything in the universe is in some sense alive, which implies perhaps that the universe itself is a living organism.

    A friend of mine has just brought to my attention a Youtube video by James Tour on the subject of the origin of life. My friend says: “I agree with every word he is saying in this talk, it’s all as I thought”, and he is a University of Cambridge Professor (albeit of physics), so his opinion is worth something.

    James Tour is a synthetic organic chemist, and he insists that the origin of life is a problem not for biologists, but for chemists (and don’t let any biologist tell you otherwise).

    He concludes that the origin of life is an unfathomable mystery (my words, not his) for science, and he doesn’t know of any other trained organic chemist who disagrees with his arguments. I invite anyone interested in this topic to check out the video; it’s worth twenty minutes of your time. Of course, the origin of life is only a problem for those who believe that life emerged from non-life, i.e. materialist scientists. If the universe is actually alive, then there is no problem at all.

    Click here for the link to the video on Youtube. This post can also be found on Medium.com, click here.

    In the modern debate between science and religion it is often said that religion believes in miracles, thus demonstrating that it is false, while science doesn’t. ‘Enlightenment’ science only believes in natural, by which it means materialist, physicalist laws, rejecting supernatural explanations.

    Such a stance is becoming increasingly hard to maintain, as we move to a new paradigm in science, a reunification with spiritual thinking. I recently came across these two quotes from Bishop George Berkeley, the 18th century philosopher, which seem to me to describe how outdated this materialist approach is:

    “Nothing can be more evident to anyone that is capable of the least reflection, than the existence of God, or a spirit who is intimately present to our minds… on whom we have an absolute and entire dependence, in short, in whom we live, and move, and have our being”.

    “That the discovery of this great truth which lies so near and obvious to the mind, should be attained to by the reason of so very few, is a sad instance of the stupidity and inattention of men, who, though they are surrounded with such clear manifestations of the Deity, are yet so little affected by them, that they seem as it were blinded with excess of light”¹.

  One apparent miracle is the transformation of an apparently lifeless egg into a chicken, and another is the fact that the fertilisation of a human egg by a single sperm can eventually lead to a being capable of composing symphonies and producing artistic works of genius. As Lawrence LeShan puts it: “This (Darwinian) theory must be stretched to its limits to account for such things as eggs, and even this intellectual stretching is very unconvincing. Science is reluctant to admit this fact, since it smacks of what has come to be known as ‘intelligent design’ ”².

    Perhaps the greatest miracle of all is the process of metamorphosis. How a caterpillar is transformed into a butterfly, and why ‘nature’ deems this necessary, appears to be completely beyond comprehension. Michael Denton describes it thus: “…the complete dissolution of all the organ systems of the larva and their reconstitution de novo from small masses of undifferentiated embryonic cells called the imaginal discs. In other words, one type of fully functional organism is broken down into what amounts to a nutrient broth from which an utterly different type of organism emerges”³.

    Paul Nelson and Ann Gauger give more detail: “It hatches out of the egg as a worm-like creature whose sole purpose is to eat as much as possible and to grow as rapidly as it can. When it has grown large enough, it tucks itself into bed (we know it as the chrysalis or pupa), and over the course of several days, while it sleeps, so to speak, its body is built anew. Caterpillar (larval) tissues are dissolved or remodeled, and new wings, legs, eyes, antennae, nerve connections, muscles, epidermis, and reproductive organs develop. Even the brain itself undergoes a substantial transformation. The adult butterfly finally emerges as a beautiful, free-flying animal, completely unlike what came before”⁴.

    Denton goes on to say (writing in 1986) that “not even the vaguest attempts have been made to provide hypothetical scenarios”. So it is reasonable to ask how on earth this could have come about by a process of neo-Darwinian evolution, natural selection acting upon random genetic mutations, without any intelligence, creative intent, or sense of purpose. Evolutionary biologists will presumably assure us that this is indeed the case, even if no explanation is offered. I would suggest, on the contrary, that anyone who believes this should take a serious look at themselves or, as Berkeley said, is “blinded with excess of light”. Atheistic scientists might not like the idea, but isn’t a more likely explanation for a caterpillar’s metamorphosis divine creativity or imagination?

================================================================================================

Update.

Since I wrote the above a few days ago, I’ve come across a relevant article. This points out an obvious further miracle in relation to chickens and eggs, which is the old conundrum of which came first. “To get A we need B, but to get B we first need A. We can’t have one without the other” (quote from first link below). This fact is an obvious problem for Darwinian evolutionary theory, and naturalistic explanations. Something very strange is going on.

Check out: 

Marcos Eberlin: Chicken-and-Egg Questions Suffuse Life, Pointing to Intelligent Design

and

The Chicken-and-Egg Problem is Everywhere in Biology

================================================================================================

Footnotes:

1. quoted by Peter Wilberg, The Science Delusion, New Gnosis Publications, p27

2. A New Science of the Paranormal, Quest Books, 2009, p9

3. Evolution: a Theory in Crisis, Adler & Adler, 1986, p220

4. e-book, Metamorphosis: The Case for Intelligent Design in a Chrysalis, David Klinghoffer (ed.), p24

    I’ve written frequently about objections to the Darwinian theory of evolution. One of the important points to appreciate is that this is not simply a debate between science and religion, especially biblical Creationists, which science should therefore win. There are many scientists who also express doubts.

    It is rewarding therefore to note that “over 1,000 doctoral scientists from around the world have signed a statement publicly expressing their skepticism about the contemporary theory of Darwinian evolution” (1). The list can be found at https://dissentfromdarwin.org/

Footnote:

(1) https://evolutionnews.org/2019/02/skepticism-about-darwinian-evolution-grows-as-1000-scientists-share-their-doubts/

    A temple to Darwinism is what I prefer to call it, even though it is meant to be a science museum, and seemingly once was. Here I am going to describe its transformation, and hopefully explain my reasons for calling it that. This should interest anyone following the debate between Darwinian evolutionary theory and theistic alternatives, including Intelligent Design, although they will not be discussed here.

    In my opinion the Darwinian theory of evolution has become equivalent to a religion. Its believers do not think that, obviously, because they have convinced themselves that it is science. It perhaps takes an outsider to see what is going on, hence the philosopher Mary Midgley’s book Evolution as a Religion (1). Words like dogma, creeds, heresy, Inquisition have become relevant, as I hope to show.

    In 2009 there was a special Darwin exhibition there, timed to coincide with the bicentenary of his birth. My wife and I decided to visit it, and naïvely assumed that we would be able to just turn up and get in; after all, it wasn’t going to be a sell-out, or so we thought. To our surprise, it was fully pre-booked and we couldn’t get in. We therefore spent the time looking at the exhibits in the rest of the Museum. As a sceptic, I found the experience an oppressive attempt at indoctrination, and would probably have felt the same if I had managed to get into the exhibition, since one review described it as having “an unambiguous militant tone” (2).

    The Museum was founded in 1881. Richard Owen was the person primarily responsible and its first director. He was an outstanding naturalist, comparative anatomist, and a lifelong opponent of Darwin’s theory. He was apparently a devout Christian, which may have influenced his views; it is also possible that his religious views were inspired by his observations. Owen agreed with Darwin that evolution occurred, but saw nature as a series of experiments by a Creator. (Divine Imagination! You don’t have to be a conventional Christian to believe that.) For at least part of his career Owen believed that living matter had an “organising energy”, a life-force that directed the growth of tissues, a viewpoint that is called vitalism. In case anyone thinks this is an antiquated idea, smacking of mysticism and the supernatural, let me assure you that the debate continues. As recently as 1989, physicist Paul Davies, not someone likely to indulge in fanciful speculation, while not himself endorsing vitalism or animism, nevertheless outlined in The Cosmic Blueprint (3) the difficulties encountered when trying to explain life, specifically morphogenesis, by ordinary physical laws, and included vitalism and animism as part of the discussion.

    I am not saying that this science museum began under the influence of Christianity, but I do think that it was a genuine science museum, i.e. open-minded and objective, showing exhibits, not promoting one particular line of thought. In what follows, I’ll relate some of the moments which were significant in its transformation into a Temple of Darwinism.

    1981 was a significant year in my story for two reasons. Firstly, this was the centenary of the Museum, which celebrated by opening an exhibition on Darwinism. Upon entering the hall, the first thing the visitor saw was a notice:

    “Have you ever wondered why there are so many different kinds of living things? One idea is that all the living things we see today have EVOLVED from a distant ancestor by a process of gradual change. How could evolution have occurred? How could one species change into another? The exhibition in this hall looks at one possible explanation — the explanation first thought of by Charles Darwin”.

Later in the exhibition a poster said: “Another view is that God created all living things perfect and unchanging”.

    It would seem, therefore, that the exhibition was an example of what all science should be, open-minded and objective, on this occasion, with its reference to religion, possibly beyond the call of duty. Was this a hint that it was articulating the split between the co-founders of the theory of evolution by natural selection, Darwin and Alfred Wallace, the latter going on to believe in God and Intelligent Design (although he did also believe in evolution)? (4)

    1981 was also important because it was the year when Colin Patterson, a senior paleontologist at the Museum, caused something of a stir when he read a paper at the American Museum of Natural History, New York (5). Here are some significant quotes:

• “Last year I had a sudden realization. For over twenty years I had thought that I was working on evolution in some way. One morning I woke up, and something had happened in the night, and it struck me that I had been working on this stuff for twenty years, and there was not one thing I knew about it. That was quite a shock, to learn that one can be so misled for so long”.
• “I woke up and I realized that all my life I had been duped into taking evolutionism as revealed truth in some way”.
• Following this revelation, for several weeks he “tried putting a simple question to various people and groups of people. The question is this: Can you tell me anything you know about evolution, any one thing, any one thing that you think is true?” “I tried that question on the geology staff at the Field Museum of Natural History, and the only answer I got was silence. I tried it on the members of the Evolutionary Morphology Seminar in the University of Chicago, a very prestigious body of evolutionists, and all I got there was silence for a long time”. “The absence of an answer seems to suggest that it is true, evolution does not convey any knowledge, or if so, I haven’t yet heard it.”
• “Now I think many people in this room would acknowledge that during the last few years, if you had thought about it at all, you’ve experienced a shift from evolution as knowledge to evolution as faith. I know that’s true of me, and I think it’s true of a good many of you in here.”

    I’m not aware to what extent, if any, Patterson was involved in the preparations for the 1981 exhibition. As he did not retire until 1993, it is reasonable to assume that he was involved in some way.

    Colin Patterson became involved, presumably following his eureka moment, in a new approach to evolution, specifically to classification, called cladistics. Put simply, this is an attempt to classify living things strictly on the basis of evidence, thus observable biological facts. Cladists think that the classification scheme of living things found in textbooks has been established on the assumption that Darwinian theory is correct, whereas facts should take precedence over any theory. We see patterns in the fossil record, but cannot say with certainty how they arose; “we cannot deduce a process from a pattern” (6).

    The founding father of cladistics was Willi Hennig. One of his most important observations was that many groups are defined by an absence of characteristics, and are therefore not proper groups. An example would be invertebrates; this covers any creature without a backbone, and that is not a distinct group in its own right, rather an amalgamation of groups.

    Patterson, developing this insight, went on to claim that “all the well-known ancestral groups of evolutionary biology are of this type — they are all defined by an absence of characteristics. And statements claiming to identify such groups as ancestral to other groups are disguised tautologies” (7). For example, to say that vertebrates evolved from invertebrates is another way of saying that the ancestor of the first vertebrate was not a vertebrate, thus a truism.

    The thinking of the cladists at the Museum was not especially controversial; they were not making any exaggerated claims, merely saying that Darwinism was an unproved theory which might be true — there was circumstantial evidence in favour of it — but could be false. This is surely how true science is meant to be conducted, and the Museum responded appropriately. As Alan Hayward explains: “At the Natural History Museum it was thought that this made sense, and the Museum began to reclassify its collection on cladistic lines. Sometimes the Museum’s new scheme supported the accepted wisdom, and sometimes it conflicted with it”. He then quotes Patterson: “Cladistics calls into question much of conventional evolutionary history”. “Is stability worth more than a century of conflict with evidence?” (8).

    I suggest that up to this point the Museum was doing science as it should be done — objectively, without preconceptions, open to all possibilities. So what happened next? The Darwinian Establishment reacted furiously. The prestigious scientific journal Nature published an editorial entitled ‘Darwin’s death in South Kensington’ (9). (The editor at the time was John Maddox. He will be the subject of a later article.) An earlier Museum brochure (which was written by Patterson, according to Tom Bethell) had included the phrase “If the theory of evolution is true…”. This “set off weeks of agitation and a flurry of letters to Nature” (10), which then cited this as evidence of “the rot at the museum”, and went on to say: “The new exhibition policy, the museum’s chief interaction with the outside world, is being developed in some degree of isolation from the museum’s staff of distinguished biologists, most of whom would rather lose their right hands than begin a sentence with the phrase, ‘If the theory of evolution is true…’ ”.

    Nature was therefore suggesting that the management of the Museum was beginning to operate a strategy independent of the scientists there. This prompted a response signed by twenty-two of these ‘distinguished biologists’, which said that they were astonished to read this editorial. They continued: “How is it that a journal such as yours that is devoted to science and its practice can advocate that theory be presented as fact? This is the stuff of prejudice, not science, and as scientists our basic concern is to keep an open mind on the unknowable. …

    “You suggest that most of us would rather lose our right hands than begin a sentence with the phrase ‘If the theory of evolution is true…’ Are we to take it that evolution is a fact, proven to the limits of scientific rigour? If that is the inference then we must disagree most strongly. We have no absolute proof of the theory of evolution. What we do have is overwhelming circumstantial evidence in favour of it and as yet no better alternative. But the theory of evolution would be abandoned tomorrow if a better theory appeared…”

    This was not controversial, actually quite mild. The cladists were not saying that Darwinian theory was false, merely that at that time the theory seemed to be true, but had not been proved beyond doubt. However, they were strongly refuting Nature‘s insinuation that the scientists did not support the Museum’s official line. This clearly demonstrates, however, that Nature thought that the Museum should be a temple to Darwinism, and were reacting strongly, in true Inquisition fashion, to this heresy. Darwinian theory had become a dogma which, just like any Christian creed, all true believers had to recite and sign up to. 

    This conflict between the Museum and the Darwinian Establishment took place in the 1980s. I’m not sure exactly what transpired in the intervening period, but it is clear now that the Museum lost the battle, and that normal service has been resumed, as my visit in 2009 demonstrated.

    The current director is Michael Dixon, a devoted Darwinian, who took up his post in June 2004. His attitude was clearly revealed in an article he wrote in the Guardian newspaper (11), in which he criticised the decision to remove the teaching of evolution from the curriculum in Israel and Turkey. The reasons stated by these countries were not on grounds of religion, although it is possible that there may have been a hidden agenda along those lines. Dixon’s objections would then be understandable. However, his scientific claims in defense of Darwinism might be considered somewhat exaggerated:

• The heading of the article claims that Darwinism is the “only evidence-based explanation of life”.
• “The fantastic diversity of life and the molecular composition of life past and present in our collection is clear, concrete, accumulated evidence of evolution”. He then complains that “evolution is still questioned”.
• “Since its inception in the late 19th century, evolutionary theory has been thoroughly challenged and rigorously tested across a range of scientific disciplines by tens of thousands of scientists around the world. It is considered irrefutable scientific law”.
• “Darwin’s theory of evolution not only underpins all biological science, it has an immense predictive power. From understanding the emergence of antibiotic-resistant organisms, to the ways in which different species might respond to global warming — emerging as new pests or sustainable sources of food — human health and prosperity will depend on decisions informed by evolutionary evidence”.

    So human health and prosperity, even the survival of the planet, are at stake! Wouldn’t it be terrible, then, if the theory turned out to be false?

    Readers will not be surprised to discover Dixon’s education policy: “So how should we respond to overt or insidious attempts to undermine this vital scientific concept? We must — of course — teach it in schools as the core part of any science curriculum. And we must speak up to defend scientific evidence and rational debate”. I’m sure we can all agree with that last sentence. However, two relevant questions are:

• Has Darwinian theory passed these tests?

• Is Dixon a good example of someone putting this into practice, or is he rather dogmatic and blinkered? (His tone is close to that of a Fundamentalist preacher.) Were the cladists not better examples of this?

    He eventually concludes: “As the top science attraction in the UK, the Natural History Museum will always be a refuge for those who want to discover more about the natural world. We will continue to defend Darwin’s legacy, the theory of evolution — the only evidence-based explanation for the epic, wonderful diversity of life on Earth”.

    A refuge from what? Presumably from open-minded, unbiased debate.

    In two previous articles I have listed at length the many reputable scientists, and others, who have rejected Darwinism (12). Is it fair to claim then that it is established science? Even Darwinians themselves sometimes express reservations about the limits of the theory (13).

    My starting point is a reference from the book by Foster/Clark/ York, mentioned in the introduction to this series (1). They mention a court case in 1987 about a dispute about the teaching of evolution, Edwards v. Aguillard, during which “a group of scientists, including Nobel laureates, submitted a brief… (which) pointed out that science is devoted to investigating natural phenomena and providing naturalistic explanations. In other words, a commitment to materialism is at the foundation of science” (p12).

    The authors seem to take some delight in this. It should be blindingly obvious, however, that the only thing that science should be devoted to is the search for truth, not a philosophical worldview.

    It is easy to understand, from a scientific viewpoint, why materialism is desirable. In order to conduct experiments, scientists have to assume that they are in control of all the variables; how could they proceed if some uncontrollable supernatural or paranormal elements were involved? Science has therefore to assume that these ingredients do not exist. Because this viewpoint is desirable, however, does not mean that it is true. If science is committed to a false worldview, then that is a serious problem for science to consider, not something that should be inflicted upon society.

    The ludicrous extent to which this train of thought can lead has been provided by Richard Lewontin, a Harvard professor no less: “We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs… in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just-so stories, because we have a prior commitment, a commitment to materialism… Moreover, that materialism is absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door” (2). How can an intelligent person say this and expect others to take him seriously?

    It is presumably statements like this which led the U. C. Berkeley philosopher John Searle to write: “There is a sense in which materialism is the religion of our time, at least among most of the professional experts in the fields of philosophy, psychology, cognitive science, and other disciplines that study the mind. Like more traditional religions, it is accepted without question and it provides the framework within which other questions can be posed, addressed and answered” (3).

    We can argue therefore, in the language of Richard Dawkins, that the meme of materialism, which is a thin disguise for atheism, has infected the minds of many modern-day academics. An unpleasant mental illness is trying to take over society and culture.

    Now, if you are committed in principle to materialist explanations, then it is obvious that this is what you will find, whether or not they are credible. Charles Darwin was a dedicated materialist, as revealed in some of his notebooks. There had been earlier theories of evolution “softened by a reliance of vital forces, organic striving, teleology and the like”. However, “Darwin’s theory was distinguished from all the others by its unremitting materialism”. He was a forerunner of modern neuroscientists and materialists, arguing “that the mind was nothing but a special configuration of matter” (4).

And he has been honoured with a statue at the Natural History Museum, where he can indoctrinate young children. What a sad state of affairs!

    As Tom Bethell points out, “if full-blown materialism is true, then Darwin’s theory of common descent must also be true”. Since complex organisms exist, “atoms and molecules in motion must have somehow whirled themselves into the far more complex structures that we see around us” with all the intermediate stages. Even natural selection is therefore unnecessary. Once this is taken as a given, “the true-believing materialist no longer needs to study evolution in any detail”. Any inconvenient anomalies can therefore be swept under the carpet; “Darwinism becomes little more than a deduction from a philosophy. The science is redundant” (5). It is obviously for reasons like this that philosopher Mary Midgley wrote a book called Evolution as a Religion (6).

    Darwinian evolution is one of the cornerstones of the religion of atheism. As Richard Dawkins, with refreshing honesty, has said: “Darwin made it possible to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist” (7). The relevant question, which Dawkins failed to notice, is, why is he so determined to commit himself to a philosophical position which might be a lie? Perhaps it would be a better use of his time to try to understand why he is so desperate to be an atheist. I would recommend a course of psychoanalysis, rather than trying to convert others to his problems.

    A form of Christian Fundamentalism, with a belief in the literal truth of the Bible, was the dominant worldview in Victorian Britain. A well-known laughable example is the calculation, made by James Ussher, of the age of the Earth, based upon the ages of the patriarchs in the Old Testament, that creation happened on October 23, 4004 BC. Since this is something easily refuted by geology, this was an occasion when science had to win. It is reasonable to claim, therefore, that at that time Darwinism, as part of a developing scientific worldview, was necessary in order to move forward and make progress. It is important, however, not to throw out the baby with the bathwater. We have now reached the point when a new revolution is necessary in order to overthrow Darwinism.

Bibliography:

Tom Bethell: Darwin’s House of Cards, Discovery Institute, 2017, chapter 14, Darwin and the Philosophy of Materialism

Footnotes:

(1) John Bellamy Foster, Brett Clark, and Richard York, Critique of Intelligent Design: Materialism versus Creationism From Antiquity to the Present, Monthly Review Press, 2008

(2) Billions and Billions of Demons, New York Review of Books, 1997

(3) Naturalism, Stewart Goetz and Charles Taliaferro, Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2008, p9, quoted in Bethell, p167

(4) Bethell, p163

(5) ibid. p167

(6) Routledge, 2002, as mentioned in the Introduction to this series

(7) The Blind Watchmaker, Penguin, 1988, p6

    This is the first in a series of posts on this theme, following on from the introduction. They will be fairly random, whatever comes to mind at the time, based upon a reading of the five books mentioned there. Before I launch into that, however, here are a few preliminary observations:

• The three options in the title are not the only ones available. Creationism and Intelligent Design are usually associated with Christianity. There are also spiritual perspectives from other traditions to consider — Hinduism, Buddhism, Qabalah, and various esoteric systems.
• Creationism and Intelligent Design are not the same thing (the most obvious evidence is that advocates of ID criticise Creationists). Do not let atheist scientists tell you otherwise. They lump them together, saying that ID is Creationism in disguise. This is because both schools of thought believe in a supernatural intelligence, an idea that materialists want to discredit. However, Creationism is a theological worldview based upon a literal reading of the Bible, whereas the best quality Intelligent Design arguments are scientifically based, even if their advocates may be Christians or come from other spiritual traditions. They do not speculate about the nature of the designer, which remains an open question.
• The word evolution is often misused. It should mean merely change over time, perhaps with the implication of progress towards higher, more complex forms. However, it is often used when Darwinian evolution is what is meant. This enables materialist scientists to call those who oppose Darwinism evolution-deniers. Even worse, the outrageous Richard Dawkins has called them history-deniers, trying to insist that Darwinian evolution theory is a historical fact. At the same time he is quite deliberately, disgracefully, and mistakenly, trying to establish a connection in the reader’s mind between critics of Darwinian evolution and holocaust-deniers, the real history-deniers (1). It is quite possible to believe in evolution, while rejecting Darwinism. Thus Stephen Talbott, a biologist I especially admire, is critical of both Darwinian theory and Intelligent Design (2).

• Regarding Intelligent Design, to state the obvious, it consists of two words. So the emphasis can fall on either. Its advocates stress the design element. That’s fine up to a point, but the problem is that this conjures up a picture of a specific supernatural deity, usually the Christian one, coming up with a plan, in the manner of a human creative artist, or scientific experimenter. Many people, for obvious reasons, find this idea hard to accept. I therefore think that it makes more sense to emphasise the intelligent element, which leaves the understanding of the process much more open. It is even possible to combine the two ideas, an initial idea (design) which grows and develops over time, an ongoing process of creative, intelligent evolution. This does not rule out some limited acceptance of Darwinian ideas as part of the total process, since some spiritually minded scientists , far more qualified than me, have found no reason to doubt it, e.g. Sir Alister Hardy, former Professor of Zoology at Oxford (3). I do find his position difficult to understand, however.

• Darwinism is atheism thinly disguised as science. That will be the subject of my next post. In advance of that, I’ll just point out that its later manifestation neo-Darwinism stresses the blind process of natural selection, random genetic mutation, and lack of purpose (teleology), in order to support a materialist, therefore atheistic, explanation for the universe.

======================================================================================================

    I have written in the past about the many scientists and philosophers critical of Darwinism. If interested, please click here and here.

Footnotes:

(1) In The Greatest Show On Earth: The Evidence for Evolution, he says “The evidence for evolution is at least as strong as the evidence for the Holocaust, even allowing for eye witnesses to the Holocaust.” This, quite rightly, provoked a strong response: “Is that some sort of cruel joke? The evidence for Darwin’s account of evolution and, more so, its controversial mechanism of natural selection is a matter of inference, no matter how strong you think the inference is. The evidence for the Holocaust includes countless eye-witness accounts — a very different and superior order of evidence”. https://evolutionnews.org/2009/09/richard_dawkinss_jewish_proble/

(2) You can check him out at http://www.thethirdwayofevolution.com/people/view/stephen-talbott

(3) See, for example, Darwin and the Spirit of Man, Collins, 1984