24 Evolution and the Fossil Record
No amount of evidence could ever turn him away from creationism? What kind of real sci-
entist talks like this? If Marshall Kay and the Oxford professor mentioned above could learn
from new evidence and reject their old beliefs (as good scientists are supposed to do), why
can’t Kurt Wise?
I have no problem with his belief system. He’s entitled to believe whatever he wants.
But when he completely rejects the data and methods of science in order to follow his rigid
belief system, he’s not acting as a scientist anymore—he’s just another preacher. If he labeled
his ideas as religiously inspired, that would be fine. But he continues to pretend that he is
following the rules of science; he wears the label of scientist and promotes his particular
brand of “science” to unsuspecting people who are impressed with his Harvard Ph.D. but
don’t realize that he admits that he stopped doing science a long time ago.
As Dawkins (2006:323) puts it,
I find that terribly sad; but whereas the Golgi apparatus moved me to tears of
admiration and exultation, the Kurt Wise story is just plain pathetic—pathetic and
contemptible. The wound, to his career and his life’s happiness, was self-inflicted,
so unnecessary, so easy to escape. . . . Poor Kurt Wise reminds me more of Winston
Smith in 1984—struggling desperately to believe that two plus two equals five if Big
Brother says it does. Winston, however, was being tortured.For Further Reading
Darwin, C., F. Darwin, and A. C. Seward. 1903. More Letters of Charles Darwin. London: John Murray.
Gardner, M. 1952. Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science. New York: Dover.
Gardner, M. 1981. Science: Good, Bad, and Bogus. Buffalo, N.Y.: Prometheus.
Popper, K. 1935. The Logic of Scientific Discovery. London: Routledge Classics.
Popper, K. 1963. Conjectures and Refutations: The Growth of Scientific Knowledge. London: Routledge
Classics.
Sagan, C. 1996. The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark. New York: Ballantine.
Shermer, M. 1997. Why People Believe Weird Things: Pseudoscience, Superstition, and Other Confusions of
Our Time. New York: Freeman.
Shermer, M. 2005. Science Friction: Where the Known Meets the Unknown. New York: Times Books.