Cheap Darwin Was Wrong: A Study in Probabilities (Book) (I.L. Cohen) Price

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The probability of being struck by lightning is almost zero, right? Thus being struck by lightning more than once is *really* zero, and thus it *can't* happen, right? As ridiculous as this logic is, this is precisely the reasoning employed in Cohen's "Darwin Was Wrong": The chances of things happening *the way they did* is so remotely small that they couldn't have happened by chance, and so they must be the product of an intervening intelligence.

To his credit, Cohen does a nice job giving the reader primers on probability (basic conditional probability and combinatorial mathematics) and cell chemistry (less so regarding his rather simple understanding of DNA, even by 1984 standards). And to his credit, he is correct when he says that the cell and its functions are almost unimaginably complex. However, Mr. Cohen fails to appreciate the complexity of the selection process that led to our rich biology.

Throughout his self-proclaimed "objective" look at both sides of the issue, he not so subtly rails against the "established dogma" of the scientific community. It becomes very clear very quickly that Mr. Cohen has little scientific training, little familiarity with the scientific method or hypothesis testing, little understanding of the scientific community and how it operates, and no understanding of the peer-review process. If he had, I'm certain he would rethink his own claims about objectivity.

After arguing that Darwin's gradualism is wrong because there just hasn't been enough time (a notion that had been accepted for a decade at the time of Cohen's 1984 book), Cohen describes Gould and Eldrige's theory of punctuated equilibria (PE), which argues that evolution has occured in periodic, abrupt (relatively speaking) bursts. Cohen argues that this theory is merely ex post facto reasoning -- making the theory fit the data (much like Cohen himself did with his "probabilities" argument). There's no "math" to support this claim, just vitriol. Cohen demonstrates he really doesn't understand modern evolutionary theory (or PE) by his repeated use of the term "mutation." The key to understanding PE is the notion of genetic variation (not mutation) and selective isolation. In concert, these two things move evolution along at a rather brisk historical clip, and Cohen's "saying it ain't so" can't negate the literally thousands of pieces of published evidence in support of the theory, nor can it negate laboratory experiments which confirm it, nor can it negate the mathematical modeling that neatly fits the lab results to reality ...

In the final analysis, this book represents a kind of paranoia. Cohen, who knows "the real truth" (not only about Darwin, but about Stonehenge, too) is going up against the dogmatic Goliath of the scientific community, and his David complex gets in the way of his ability to think clearly. And sadly, this work *still* serves as ammunition for rigid creationists and other anti-intellectual fundamentalists. Read it, but only so that you know what you are up against.

Math speaks where faith fails
This mathematician demonstrates the mathematical immpossiblity of life arising by random processes. Its not his ideas, its pure math.

Darwin was wrong
The title sums it up best. Mr Cohen firmly demonstrates his case by showing how the complexity that makes up life refutes darwin's theory of common descent. Mr. Cohen supports his claims with unquestionable mathmatical formulas and scientific facts. Cohen presents his case wonderfully and truly shows how Darwin, who proclaimed the cell to be simple pile of gue, was wrong.