On today’s ID the Future, German paleontologist Günter Bechly unpacks what Charles Darwin referred to as an “abominable mystery,” the sudden appearance in the fossil record of a certain group of flowering plants. It was a mystery to Darwin because according to his theory, there should have been a long succession of precursors gradually evolving toward the flowering plants of the Cretaceous. Bechly and host Eric Anderson focus their conversation around a recent paper by Richard Buggs in the American Journal of Botany showing that the problem for evolutionary theory has actually grown more acute since Darwin’s time. What about a recent article claiming to have found evidence of flowering plants in the Jurassic? Bechly says that the “evidence” amounts to the authors theorizing that there must have been a common ancestor long before the Cretaceous. The fossil evidence for any such Jurassic plants remains absent. In other words, they posited ghost lineages based on what is required by modern evolutionary theory, specifically an assumption of common descent and Neo-Darwinism mechanism of gradual, unguided evolutionary change. Anderson and Bechly wrap up their conversation by considering the implications of all this for the evolution/intelligent design debate.
On this episode of ID the Future, Discovery Institute President Bruce Chapman asks David Berlinski how to address the problem of dissent in science....
On this episode of ID the Future, Casey Luskin interviews Discovery fellow Michael A. Flannery, author of Alfred Russel Wallace's Theory of Intelligent Evolution:...
As the world reacts to the depravity of Anders Breivik's cold-blooded killings, the mainstream media is quick to label the heinous crimes as an...