Richard Dawkins and the Spectacle of Evolution

Richard Dawkins' new book about evolution is aptly titled The Greatest Show On Earth, for evolution is an incredible show. In fact it is a spectacle. Evolutionists routinely make false claims, commit logical fallacies, and contradict themselves, all with the air of absolute confidence. But this is not all. This spectacle has been on stage for centuries now, and the players have remained oblivious to their blunders. We may as well be watching a group of belligerent teenagers for some sign of intelligence. Here are some of the latest absurdities from this greatest show on earth.

Overwhelmingly powerful evidence

In a Reuters interview last week, Dawkins explained that the genetic differences and similarities between the different species are precisely as evolution would predict.

You can actually plot a picture of the pattern of resemblances and differences between every animal and plant and every other animal and plant, and you find out that it fits on a beautiful, hierarchical, branching tree, which can only sensibly be interpreted as a family tree. When you do the same thing with a different gene, you get the same tree. Do the same thing with a third gene, and you get the same tree. It’s overwhelmingly powerful evidence. And by the way, it also works for pseudogenes, which don’t do any work at all but which are still recognizably there and still readable. They too fall on the same hierarchical tree pattern.

This claim is typical but there is only one problem: it is false. From a scientific perspective it simply is not true. Evolutionists repeat this mantra so often one would think it would lose its shock value. But I still squint in disbelief as I read the words: "you find out that it fits on a beautiful, hierarchical, branching tree. When you do the same thing with a different gene, you get the same tree."

This is unequivocally, unquestionably, false. There's no nice way to put it. The scientific data are available for all to see, but evolutionists continue their march to the sea. The spectacle here is that, despite the obvious evidence, evolutionists continue to shout this absurdity ever louder, as though the problem is that their message is not being heard.

But now for the real problem. Evolutionists follow this scientifically false claim with a philosophically false claim. They misinterpret the scientific data and they then claim it proves evolution.

As Dawkins puts it, the pattern is "overwhelmingly powerful evidence." What is worse, false science or false philosophy? For even if the scientific data are as they claim, it would not be overwhelmingly powerful evidence for evolution. Yes, it certainly would be evidence, but it certainly would not be overwhelming. Not, that is, unless one brings religion into the picture. As Darwin put it, such patterns are "utterly inexplicable if species are independent creations."

Now the logic becomes clear. The failures in the pattern don't matter to evolutionists, for the species would never have been created with even a hint of a pattern. Today this remains a key argument for evolutionists.

The DNA code

At the University of Virginia this week, Dawkins issued another standard evolutionary blunder. As the university newspaper reported, Dawkins cited the fact that DNA code is universal among all living things as another obvious and compelling evidence for evolution.

But beyond vague cartoons evolutionists have little idea of how the code could have evolved. Indeed, what we do know is that the code is difficult to change--not a very good candidate for a narrative of gradual evolution.

Such scientific conundrums, however, are not part of the evolutionary reasoning. Once again, evolutionists know that if the species were independently created there would be no such consistency. There would be many codes, not a single universal code. As usual, it is religious reasoning that provides the certainty.

The fact of evolution

Also this week Dawkins was interviewed by Hugh Hewitt. Unlike most interviewers, Hewitt understands the importance of the claim that evolution is a fact. He asked Dawkins about his equating of evolution skeptics and Holocaust deniers. If informed people doubt evolution and yet Dawkins demonizes them as such extremists, then doesn't Dawkins' judgment come into question?

No, Dawkins assured that the evidence for evolution is airtight. Anyone doubting evolution really is an extremist. This overreach by evolutionists is a key to understanding the genre and Hewitt rapidly homed in the target.

It quickly became a Bogey Moment which reached its climax when Dawkins became aghast upon learning that Hewitt believes in miracles. "Do you realllllllyyyy believe that Jesus turned water into wine?" Dawkins incredulously asked. "Oh my god," exclaimed the evolutionist, "now I realize the type of person I've been dealing with."

Evolutionary thought is about as sophisticated as a pile of rocks and Dawkins' transparency revealed all. Hewitt unmasked Dawkins and the charade of Dawkins dispassionately evaluating scientific evidence for evolution was revealed.

In the first half of the eighteenth century a massive debate over miracles took place in England. Later in the century David Hume collected the arguments and for many made a persuasive case against miracles.

By Darwin's day miracles were increasingly viewed as myths and not becoming of advanced thinkers. It was one of several trends that formed the religious foundation of and mandate for evolutionary thought. Dawkins is squarely in this tradition and is astonished that anyone not in the backwoods could believe in miracles.

Of course Darwin must be right--one way or another the species must have evolved, regardless of the empirical evidence may say. Religion drives science and it matters.