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Salvo Magazine: Are Neo-Darwinists “Barking up the Wrong Tree”?

In the recent Intelligent Design issue of Salvo Magazine, Logan Gage and I co-authored a piece titled, “Barking up the Wrong Tree,” which assesses popular arguments for universal common ancestry. From the outset, it should be stated that neither Logan Gage nor I feel that universal common ancestry is necessarily incompatible with theism. In a twist of poor logic, however, that fact is apparently sufficient for some theists to think that they should therefore accept common ancestry. Logan Gage and I observe that “when discussing science and faith, it is vital to ask the right questions. Queries beginning with the words ‘Could God have…?’ tend to be unenlightening. The much more revealing question is ‘What does the evidence say?'” Thus the “right question” is not whether God could have used common ancestry in the history of life (of course He could have, that’s why we call Him God!). The “right question” is: What does the scientific evidence say about universal common ancestry? On that point, we find that the scientific data is increasingly challenging universal common ancestry on multiple fronts ranging from paleontology to molecular biology. To see the whole article, click here to read Barking up the Wrong Tree.

Casey Luskin

Associate Director and Senior Fellow, Center for Science and Culture
Casey Luskin is a geologist and an attorney with graduate degrees in science and law, giving him expertise in both the scientific and legal dimensions of the debate over evolution. He earned his PhD in Geology from the University of Johannesburg, and BS and MS degrees in Earth Sciences from the University of California, San Diego, where he studied evolution extensively at both the graduate and undergraduate levels. His law degree is from the University of San Diego, where he focused his studies on First Amendment law, education law, and environmental law.

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