Richard Leakey. Image courtesy of Ed Schipul, Flikr.com.
Joel Kontinen
Richard Leakey, of the famous Leakey family, predicts that criticism of Darwinian evolution will be silenced in 15-30 years.
He points out that life has changed and that evolution explains this:
"If you don't like the word 'evolution,' I don't care what you call it, but life has changed. You can lay out all the fossils that have been collected and establish lineages that even a fool could work up. So, the question is why, how does this happen? It's not covered by Genesis. There's no explanation for this change going back 500 million years in any book I've read from the lips of any God."
Few creationists would insist that life does not change. What they believe is that dogs just don’t turn into cats, and bacteria do not evolve into bats. There are limits to change.
While Richard Leakey has done a lot of research on fossils in Kenya, he has never obtained an academic degree. This has not dampened his enthusiasm for Darwinian evolution. He reminds us of Sir Julian Huxley, who in 1959 announced that creationism was essentially dead.
He was not exactly right. The 1960s saw the beginning of the modern creationist movement.
Incidentally, according to a fresh survey, 46 per cent of Americans believe in biblical creation and 32 per cent in theistic (or God-directed) evolution. Only 15 per cent believe in the kind of evolution in which God had no part.
These percentages have practically remained unchanged for 30 years. There are no signs that would lend support to Leakey’s prediction.
Source:
Evolution skeptics will soon be silenced by science: Richard Leakey. CBC News 28 May, 2012.
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