Matti Leisola

Dr. Leisola is the former dean of Chemistry and Material Sciences at Helsinki University of Technology, and the author of 140 peer-reviewed science publications on enzymes and rare sugars. Among other distinctions, he is a winner of the Latsis Prize of the ETH Zürich.

Archives

The Modern-Day Phlogiston: Darwinism Explains Everything and Nothing

Matti Leisola
September 9, 2019
On this episode of ID the Future, Andrew McDiarmid reads an excerpt from Heretic: One Scientist’s Journey from Darwin to Design by Finnish bioengineer Matti Leisola and Jonathan Witt. It makes the case that modern neo-Darwinism is today’s “phlogiston,” a theory that explains everything but nothing, faces mounting contrary evidence, and survives only with ever more ancillary hypotheses. In the excerpt Leisola and Witt also discuss the well-documented pattern of scientists defending an existing scientific paradigm even after fresh discoveries have turned against it, with the obsolete dominant paradigm dying only very slowly. An especially dramatic and tragic example gave the name to this all-too-human tendency — the Semmelweis reflex. Listen in to learn more. …

Heretic Scientist on Making Waves in Darwin’s Warm Little Pond

Matti Leisola
March 26, 2018
Matti Leisola, the Finnish biochemist whose story is told in his new book Heretic: One Scientist’s Journey from Darwin to Design, spoke by Skype with a crowd in Dallas recently. He describes that journey, including his research, some of the reasons he made the turn to belief in design, and other scientists’ sometimes irrational reactions to his conclusions. …

Heretic

One Scientist's Journey from Darwin to Design
Matti Leisola and Jonathan Witt
January 15, 2018
What happens when an up-and-coming European bioscientist flips from Darwin disciple to Darwin defector? Sparks fly. Just ask biotechnologist Matti Leisola. It all started when a student loaned the Finnish scientist a book criticizing evolutionary theory. Leisola reacted angrily, and set out to defend evolution, but found his efforts raised more questions than they answered. He soon morphed into a full-on Darwin skeptic, even as he was on his way to becoming a leading bio-engineer. Heretic is the story of Leisola’s adventures making waves — and many friends and enemies — at major research labs and universities across Europe. Tracing his investigative path, the book draws on Leisola’s expertise in molecular biology to show how the evidence …

Lignin Is and Remains Enigmatic

Matti Leisola
July 27, 2012
Our paper in BIO-Complexity has sparked some discussion with its claim "that no living organism is able to use it [lignin] as a sole carbon and energy source."