Yale Professor Challenges Evolution: "Even Darwin Would Admit It’s Not Possible"

David Gelernter, a professor of computer science at Yale University, has declared in recent years on more than a few public platforms that it is simply time to give up the theory of evolution. He first wrote about it in the respected Claremont magazine. Among other things, this is what he wrote there: "Evolution is a brilliant and beautiful scientific theory. It was once a bold guess; today it is a core part of the 'creed' that defines the modern worldview. There is almost no debate about whether to accept the theory. But what if Darwin was wrong after all?

"Like many others, I grew up on this theory and always believed it was true. But in recent years, material I have read and discussions I have been exposed to have closed off that path for me. It is impossible for me to believe in it today.

"Darwin’s explanation seems plausible for the small adaptations through which an organism adjusts itself to local circumstances — changes in the thickness of fur, or the shape of a beak. Even so, there are many reasons to doubt whether it can answer the hard questions and explain the big picture: the appearance of new species. The origin of species — that is precisely what Darwin cannot explain.

"Stephen Meyer’s 2008 book convinced me that Darwin failed; he cannot answer the big question... He shows that this is simply the classic case of the emperor’s new clothes. He says out loud things that every biologist must agree with. Meyer and his colleagues show us just how Darwinism is no longer only a scientific theory, but fundamental to a worldview, and an emergency substitute religion for many souls who need it."

What Gelernter is arguing is essentially the well-known claim that, as far as we are able to reconstruct the history of species, they do not develop slowly — they simply appear. At every stage in which it is possible to trace new species in the world, they arrive all at once. In the past, people tried to offer all kinds of solutions, but Gelernter, as a professor of computer science, shows that these proposals do not stand up to simple mathematical tests. There is no acceptable mathematical formula that allows for this story of species coming into being through an error in replication. This is not even superstition; it is a physically impossible reality, period.

And Gelernter concludes: "Even Darwin, if he were alive today, would admit it plainly: it’s not possible. The theory was certainly brilliant, a great idea of humanity, but once it becomes clear that the idea is wrong, it is time to move on."

Gelernter is not a religious man, so he does not know where to move on from here. He only knows how to say that the time has come to put an X over this attempt, and to try to think honestly and objectively about whether another explanation may be possible.

What do you say? Do you know of another explanation?