Respected Yale Professor Renounces Evolution

In 2018, David Gelernter, a famous computer scientist at Yale University, renounced his belief in the theory of evolution, causing dismay in the scientific community.

In a carefully written essay in the Spring 2019 issue of The Claremont Review of Books titled “Giving Up Darwin” (posted online May 1), Dr. Gelernter gave his reasons for forsaking a beloved idea due to the evidence pointing another way.

He states: “There’s no reason to doubt that Darwin successfully explained the small adjustments by which an organism adapts to local circumstances: changes to fur density or wing style or beak shape. Yet there are many reasons to doubt whether he can answer the hard questions and explain the big picture—not the fine-tuning of existing species but the emergence of new ones. The origin of species is exactly what Darwin cannot explain.

“[Cambridge scholar and intelligent design pioneer] Stephen Meyer’s thoughtful and meticulous Darwin’s Doubt (2013) convinced me that Darwin has failed. He cannot answer the big question. Two other books are also essential: The Deniable Darwin and Other Essays (2009), by David Berlinski, and Debating Darwin’s Doubt (2015), an anthology edited by David Klinghoffer, which collects some of the arguments Meyer’s book stirred up. These three form a fateful battle group that most people would rather ignore. Bringing to bear the work of many dozen scientists over many decades, Meyer . . . disassembles the theory of evolution piece by piece. Darwin’s Doubt is one of the most important books in a generation. Few open-minded people will finish it with their faith in Darwin intact” (p. 104).

Professor Gelernter agrees with Berlinski that, in contrast to Darwin’s predictions about the fossil record, “in general, ‘most species enter the evolutionary order fully formed and then depart unchanged.’ The incremental development of new species is largely not there” (p. 105).