Some Recent Debates About Evolution

The details of evolutionary theory are hotly debated. But it has developed from Darwin’s original proposal into a theory of enormous explanatory power - it fits to a very marked degree Barbour’s criteria for a successful scientific theory: agreement with data, coherence, scope and fertility.Barbour I,  Religion and Science (London: SCM Press,1998), 113It is for this reason that we do not consider here schemes which seek an outline some alternative science in order to defend a literalist reading of Scripture.See Burke, DC, in Science Meets Faith ed. F Watts (London: SPCK, 1998) pp51-54 for some discussion of ‘creation science’ - also Barbour, 1998:83-84 and notes thereon.

However, there are vigorous debates within Darwinism - see from Darwinism to neo-Darwinism, punctuated equilibrium and radical contingency, and self-organisation and the development of complexity.For a detailed technical discussion see the two books edited by Depew, DJ, and Weber, BH - Evolution at a Crossroads (1985) and Darwinism Evolving (1995) - both published by MIT Press at Cambridge, Ma....

Email link | Feedback | Contributed by: Dr. Christopher Southgate and Dr. Michael Robert Negus
Source: God, Humanity and the Cosmos  (T&T Clark, 1999)