Science According to Bryan

Last week the scientific community welcomed with enthusiasm the realization that a 47 million year old fossil, Ida, likely represents another puzzle piece in the evolutionary chain linking modern primates to our distant relatives.

As he is prone to do when evidence contradicts his Genesis-based view of Earth's history, Bryan has whipped himself into a frenzy over this latest find. He declares that the fossil is 'hardly a missing link' while characterizing the scientists behind the claim as dishonest, 'slobbering,' and 'ga-ga.'

He concludes by stating, 'We'll be happy to let obtuse Darwinist [sic] cling to their fairy tales, their bedtime stories, and their dreams. We'll stick with hard science, thank you very much.'

Um, Bryan? You're not a scientist. You're a defrocked minister with a qualification in Bible studies. And it's a bit rich that a man who believes in a literal account of Genesis is lecturing the scientific community about fairy tales, bedtime stories, and hard science.

Bryan offers a weak rebuttal by recycling the tired, inaccurate, and, in any event, non sequitur claim that there exist no transitional fossils to support evolution.

The reality is that scientists have discovered a number of transitional fossils; this is exceptional given that conditions, ranging from the location of the animal’s death to the type of soil at that site, were rarely ideal for the fossilization process to occur. This combined with the rate at which organisms decay after death suggests that it’s truly extraordinary we have any fossils at all.

But even if transitional fossils didn’t exist, this wouldn’t disprove the theory of evolution, which is overwhelmingly supported by examining DNA and comparing the geographic distribution of animal and plant species on Earth.

We won’t delve further into the minutiae of the transitional fossil record, but readers can view an expert scientific deconstruction of Bryan’s ill-informed views here.