Famous Yale computer prof quits evolution belief

Charles Darwin's theory of evolution has gained widespread support in modern society despite its fundamental flaws.

Not the least of which is the failure of the fossil record to support the theory.

It also cannot explain the art, music and religion interests of humans when those traits offer no apparent survival advantage. There is a long history of inaccurate predictions, and natural selection, many scientists agree, is an extremely inefficient method of spreading traits.

But it's still news when someone with a high profile acknowledges such failures.

David Gelernter, a famed Yale University professor, has publicly renounced his belief in Darwin's theory, calling it a "beautiful idea" that has been effectively disproven," the College Fix reported.

The professor is famous for predicting the World Wide Web. Over the years he's has created multiple complex computing tools. Today he's a professor of computer science at Yale, chief scientist at Mirror Worlds Technologies and a member of the National Council of the Arts.

The College Fix reported Gelernter headlined a recent column "Giving Up Darwin" in which he explained how his readings and discussions of Darwinian evolution and its competing theories, including intelligent design, have convinced him Darwin had it wrong.

Gelernter cited "Darwin's Doubt" by Stephen Meyer in 2013 and others in a interview with the Hoover Institution's Peter Robinson for Robinson's "Uncommon Knowledge" program.

"Gelernter stops short of fully embracing intelligent design, both in his essay and during his interview. He said in his interview he sees intelligence in Earth's design, and has no quarrel with ID proponents, but notes the world a mess, its suffering far outweighs its goodness," the report said.

He said in the interview: "My argument is with people who dismiss intelligent design without considering, it seems to me – it's widely dismissed in my world of academia as some sort of theological put up job – it's an absolutely serious scientific argument."

"The origin of species is exactly what Darwin cannot explain."

He charged an "ideological bent" now controls the field of science. There are good scientists doing good work, he said, "but we have a cautionary tale in what happened to our English departments and our history departments could happen to us, God forbid."

The College Fix said he believes the problem is that "Darwinism has indeed passed beyond a scientific argument as far as they are concerned. You take your life in your hands to challenge it intellectually. They will destroy you if you challenge it."

Gelernter continued: "Now, I haven’t been destroyed, I am not a biologist, and I don’t claim to be an authority on this topic, but what I have seen in their behavior intellectually and at colleges across the West is nothing approaching free speech on this topic. It’s a bitter, fundamental, angry, outraged rejection [of intelligent design], which comes nowhere near scientific or intellectual discussion. I’ve seen that happen again and again."

He said believers in evolution treat it like a religion.

"Religion is imparted, more than anything else, by the parents to the children, and young people are brought up as little Darwinists," he said. "Kids I see running around New Haven are all Darwinists. … The students in my class, they’re all Darwinists. I am not hopeful."

Gelernter said the failures of Darwinism, however, are insurmountable.

Fossils show "a striking variety of new organisms — including the first-ever animals — pop up suddenly in the fossil record over a mere 70-odd million years," which contradicts Darwin's expectation that new life forms evolve gradually over long expanses of time.

And he said the odds of creating a new protein by chance are too high to calculate.

"It can't be done."