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^{Chapman’s News & Ideas} Detective Columbo of Chemistry: “I Don’t Understand Evolution”

_{Bruce Chapman
October 14, 2014
Faith & Culture, Science}

A renowned chemist says he doesn’t “understand” evolution. What he means, he subsequently makes clear, is that Darwin’s theory doesn’t make sense to him. His humility, like that of Lt. Columbo in the famous TV detective series, covers a tough, analytical mind.

Dr. Tour

Dr. James Tour of Rice University, regarded as one of America’s 50 top scientists, is quoted by Christian News about his innocent-sounding discussions with fellow scientists in private. “‘Let me tell you what goes on in the back rooms of science—with National Academy members, with Nobel Prize winners,’ Tour stated. ‘I have sat with them, and when I get them alone, not in public—because it’s a scary thing, if you say what I just said—I say, ‘Do you understand all of this, where all of this came from, and how this happens?’

“The answer he inevitably receives, Tour explained, is: ‘no.’

“’Every time that I have sat with people who are synthetic chemists, who understand this, they go, ‘Uh-uh. Nope.’ Tour said. ‘And if they’re afraid to say ‘yes,’ they say nothing. They just stare at me, because they can’t sincerely do it.”

Detective Columbo

Tour signed Discovery’s Dissent List on Darwinian theory years ago when the National Center for Science Education asserted that only a handful of scientists doubt Darwin’s theory. Our list of dissenters started at 100, then grew to 800. At that point we stopped inviting people to sign it because their names on the list were used by Darwinists to persecute them professionally. Some lost their jobs.

However, Tour doesn’t seem to have been hurt. Is that possibly because chemists are more open-minded than biologists? Or is the dirty little secret about Darwinism–that it has more public advocates in science than private believers–becoming more apparent?

James Tour photo: www.jmtour.com
Peter Falk as Columbo: Flickr/Ana Jenny