Leading evolutionist Richard Dawkins has a new book out this fall entitled The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution. Newsweek is running an excerpt from the book which reveals just how flawed are those evidences. Of course it is merely an excerpt and I will be sure to read the entire book in search of the strongest arguments for evolution. But isn't an excerpt supposed to be a highlight? If so, Dawkins' evidences for evolution must be as weak as those already presented by so many evolutionists. The piece is, however, a highlight of evolutionary thinking.
Dawkins spends much of the piece discussing the fossil evidence. It is true that many species appear abruptly in the fossil record but Dawkins argues that such abruptness is an illusion caused by gaps in the fossil record. For instance, perhaps soft-bodied creatures dominated the landscape during the gap periods. This argument goes back to Darwin and is of course a possibility, but it is not falsifiable. There is no way to disprove this evolution-motivated notion that the overwhelming message of rapid appearance is an illusion.
Dawkins makes several attempts to justify this move but predictably retreats to the evolutionary comfort zone of creation bashing. A Bogey Moment emerges as Dawkins suddenly castigates those “history-deniers” and explains that the failure to find fossils of today’s flatworms justifies the pattern of abruptness in the fossil record because “Creationists believe that flatworms were created in the same week as all other creatures.”
I'm well familiar with the evolution genre but I'm still amazed when I read this stuff. Could this be a spoof? No, the Newsweek piece appears genuine--genuine insanity that is. You cannot make this stuff up.
Evolution has always relied on religious arguments about the failure of creation but here Dawkins’ diatribe against creation takes the art form to new heights. The Cambrian Explosion is not a problem for evolution because otherwise creation would be inconsistent. This is the evidence for evolution.
