Darwin's Champions

Richard Dawkins is probably the world’s best known champion of Darwinism; not because he’s a fine scholar – although he is – but because he always has to defend Darwin against fundamentalist detractors. Most of these opponents refrain from attacking Darwin directly, but a few do. One of the worst web sites I’ve come across that makes a venomous attack upon both Dawkins and Darwin, is the Goodschools pages (see my links). This site calls both these men bad scientists and trashes Darwin on racist grounds, which is of course, completely irrelevant as far as Darwinism is concerned. Would a cure for cancer be rejected if discovered by a racist? Only a fool and perhaps the author of Goodschools would answer that question affirmatively. This man simply ignores the huge amount of evidence supporting Darwinian evolution, highlighting the fact that his knowledge of science or even what it is, amounts to zero.

The other day however, I was uplifted by the excellent Charlie Rose video interview that Google is currently showing for free. The program features two of the world’s most eminent scientists, Professor E. O. Wilson of Harvard and Dr. Jim Watson, co-discoverer (with Francis Crick) of the structure of DNA. The video was made about a year ago just after both men had published individual anthologies of Darwin.

At the start of the program Watson states his opinion that Darwin was the most important person who ever lived on Earth – Wilson agreed. Important not just because he was the first to get it right, but because he showed that no Creator was needed.

Watson’s statement that we are now able to see evolution at work within the DNA of persons living in different climatic conditions, is a crushing blow to the weak argument - often put forward by Creationists - that evolution cannot be seen.

Best of all however, was the attitude of Watson and Wilson towards anti-Darwinists, they behaved I thought, like kindly grandfathers mildly admonishing unruly children for talking nonsense through ignorance. If you’re not a closed-minded bigot then I highly recommend you watch this video, you’ll gain an insight in to the minds of real scientists who produce real results that benefit humankind in this world.