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Nature’s Primal Patterns: Michael Denton’s “pre-Darwinian” View


Center for Science & Culture senior fellow Michael Denton came through Seattle and Josh Youngkin and I had the opportunity to chat with him about his anti-Darwinism, “a throwback to the typologists of the 19th century” to whom Stephen Jay Gould paid startling tribute in his magnum opus, The Structure of Evolutionary Theory. You’ve got to listen to this.
It’s Dr. Denton’s concise and superbly clear explanation of his challenge to Darwinian theory based on the observation of primal patterns in nature. He speaks about body plans and the way — as in, for example, insects — they persist precisely intact over hundreds of millions of years despite having no evident adaptive purpose. As one predecessor, he cites Louis Agassiz who “thought that these patterns were ideas in the mind of God, which is very Platonic.”

David Klinghoffer

Senior Fellow and Editor, Evolution News
David Klinghoffer is a Senior Fellow at Discovery Institute and the editor of Evolution News & Science Today, the daily voice of Discovery Institute’s Center for Science & Culture, reporting on intelligent design, evolution, and the intersection of science and culture. Klinghoffer is also the author of six books, a former senior editor and literary editor at National Review magazine, and has written for the Los Angeles Times, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Seattle Times, Commentary, and other publications. Born in Santa Monica, California, he graduated from Brown University in 1987 with an A.B. magna cum laude in comparative literature and religious studies. David lives near Seattle, Washington, with his wife and children.

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DarwinismMichael DentonNational Center for Science EducationncsePeter Gleick