Over 500 Scientists Sign Statement Skeptical of Evolution

WND Staff/Teresa Neumann Reporting : Feb 21, 2006
WorldNetDaily

The statement, says the report -- which includes endorsements by members of the prestigious U.S. National Academy of Sciences and Russian Academy of Sciences -- was first published by the Seattle-based Discovery Institute in 2001 to challenge statements made in PBS's "Evolution" series which claimed "virtually every scientist in the world believes the theory [evolution] to be true."

"Darwinists continue to claim that no serious scientists doubt the theory and yet here are 500 scientists who are willing to make public their skepticism about the theory," said John G. West, associate director of Discovery Institute's Center for Science and Culture (DICSS).

West said Darwinist "efforts to use the courts, the media and academic tenure committees to suppress dissent and stifle discussion are in fact fueling even more dissent and inspiring more scientists to ask to be added to the list." As a matter of fact, due to the growing number of scientific "dissenters," West said the Institute was encouraged to launch a website for the list.

"Darwin's theory of evolution is the great white elephant of contemporary thought," said David Berlinski, a signatory and mathematician and philosopher of science with DICSS. "It is large, almost completely useless, and the object of superstitious awe."

Other prominent signatories, according to the report, include U.S. National Academy of Sciences member Philip Skell, American Association for the Advancement of Science Fellow Lyle Jensen, evolutionary biologist and textbook author Stanley Salthe; Smithsonian Institution evolutionary biologist and researcher at the National Institutes of Health's National Center for Biotechnology Information Richard von Sternberg, editor of Rivista di Biologia/Biology Forum - the oldest still published biology journal in the world - Giuseppe Sermonti and Russian Academy of Natural Sciences embryologist Lev Beloussov.