Advocacy against Materialism and Neo-Darwinism: 2024 (part 1)

Brief article “Fossil Discontinuities: Refutation of Darwinism & Confirmation of Intelligent Design – Dr. Günter Bechly sprak voor Forum of Christian Leaders (FOCL)" at the Dutch site Fundamentum (January 4, 2024).

Photo: Hesperornis skeleton, Ghedoghedo via Wikimedia, CC BY-SA 4.0
Photo: Hesperornis skeleton, Ghedoghedo via Wikimedia, CC BY-SA 4.0

 

Article "Fossil Friday: New Evidence Against Dinosaur Ancestry of Birds" at Discovery Institute's site Evolution News (January 5, 2024).


 

Article "Fossil Friday: Update on Cambrian Bryozoans" at Discovery Institute's site Evolution News (January 12, 2024).

Photo credit: Killamator, CC BY-SA 4.0 , via Wikimedia Commons
Photo credit: Killamator, CC BY-SA 4.0 , via Wikimedia Commons

Photo: Homo habilis remains, by Sailko, CC BY 3.0 , via Wikimedia Commons
Photo: Homo habilis remains, by Sailko, CC BY 3.0 , via Wikimedia Commons

 

Article "Fossil Friday: New Research Questions the Human Nature of Homo habilis" at Discovery Institute's site Evolution News (January 19, 2024).


 

Article "Fossil Friday: The Abrupt Origin of Insectivore Mammals" at Discovery Institute's site Evolution News (January 26, 2024), finally continues my series on placental mammal origins.

Photo: Pholidocercus, Oilshale via Wikimedia, CC BY-SA 4.0 DEED
Photo: Pholidocercus, Oilshale via Wikimedia, CC BY-SA 4.0 DEED

Photo credit: AquilaGib, CC BY-SA 3.0 , via Wikimedia Commons
Photo credit: AquilaGib, CC BY-SA 3.0 , via Wikimedia Commons

 

Article "Fossil Friday: New Evidence for the Human Nature of Neanderthals" at Discovery Institute's site Evolution News (February 2, 2024).


 

Interview with me by Andrew McDiarmid titled "How The Caterpillar Got Its Legs ... Or Not" for episode 1860 of the ID the Future podcast (February 7, 2024).


Photo: Thalassocnus natans, by FunkMonk, CC BY-SA 3.0 , via Wikimedia Commons
Photo: Thalassocnus natans, by FunkMonk, CC BY-SA 3.0 , via Wikimedia Commons

 

Article "Fossil Friday: Chronospecies, a Sinking Ship" at Discovery Institute's site Evolution News (February 9, 2024), with more evidence against Darwinian gradualism.


Article "Fossil Friday: The Vindhyan Controversy and Debunking Alleged Ediacaran and Cambrian Fossils" at Discovery Institute's site Evolution News (February 16, 2024) on yet another controversy about the dating and identification of ancient fossils.

Photo: Alleged Vindhyan worm burrows, from Seilacher et al. 1998 fig. 2, fair use
Photo: Alleged Vindhyan worm burrows, from Seilacher et al. 1998 fig. 2, fair use

Photo; Haplochromis, CC BY-SA 3.0 , via Wikimedia Commons
Photo; Haplochromis, CC BY-SA 3.0 , via Wikimedia Commons

 

Article "Fossil Friday: The Big Bang of Tertiary Birds and a Phylogenetic Mess" at Discovery Institute's site Evolution News (February 23, 2024).


 

Article "Fossil Friday: Piltdown Lizard Was Too Good to Check" at Discovery Institute's site Evolution News (March 1, 2024).

Photo: Tridentinosaurus, by Dr. Valentina Rossi, no usage restrictions; https://www.eurekalert.org/multimedia/1015121
Photo: Tridentinosaurus, by Dr. Valentina Rossi, no usage restrictions; https://www.eurekalert.org/multimedia/1015121

Photo: Canis etruscus, Mariomassone via Wikimedia, CC BY-SA 4.0 DEED
Photo: Canis etruscus, Mariomassone via Wikimedia, CC BY-SA 4.0 DEED

 

Article "Fossil Friday: Direct Fossil Ancestors of Living Species?" at Discovery Institute's site Evolution News (March 8, 2024).


 

Article "Fossil Friday: Hagfish and Lampreys Overturn Scenarios of Vertebrate Phylogeny and Evolution" at Discovery Institute's site Evolution News (March 15, 2024).

Photo: Mesomyzon mengae, via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0 DEED
Photo: Mesomyzon mengae, Tiouraren via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0 DEED

 

Interview titled "A Palaeontologist's View on Darwinism and Intelligent Design" with me on Lenny Esposito's YouTube channel Come Reason (March 18, 2024).


Photo credit: Noel Feans, CC BY 2.0 , via Wikimedia Commons
Photo credit: Noel Feans, CC BY 2.0 , via Wikimedia Commons

 

Article "Fossil Friday: Stone Huts, Homo habilis, and Gutsick Gibbon" at Discovery Institute's site Evolution News (March 22, 2024) about two atheist YouTubers with an embarrassing combination of arrogance and ignorance.


This article was met with a remarkable response by two YouTube videos of totally 3 hours, one by Gutsick Gibbon and one on Aron Ra's channel. A rebuttal of these two videos is currently still in preparation and will be published soon at Evolution News.

 

Article "Fossil Friday: New Dating of Pleistocene Fossils Rewrites the Story of Human Evolution" at Discovery Institute's site Evolution News (March 29, 2024)

Photo source: Wikimedia Commons
Photo source: Wikimedia Commons

Photo: Berlin Archaeopteryx, by Emily Willoughby (emily.a.willoughby@gmail.com), CC BY-SA 4.0 , via Wikimedia Commons
Photo: Berlin Archaeopteryx, by Emily Willoughby (emily.a.willoughby@gmail.com), CC BY-SA 4.0 , via Wikimedia Commons

 

Article "Fossil Friday: New Study Confirms “Feathered Dinosaurs” Were Secondarily Flightless Birds" at Discovery Institute's site Evolution News (April 5, 2024)


 

Article "Fossil Friday: Hemichordate Body Plan and Lifecycle Goes Back to the Cambrian Explosion" at Discovery Institute's site Evolution News (April 12, 2024)

Photo: Holotype of Mesobalanoglossus buergeri, by G. Bechly
Photo: Holotype of Mesobalanoglossus buergeri, by G. Bechly

Photo credit: hairymuseummatt, CC BY-SA 2.0 DEED, via Wikimedia Commons
Photo credit: hairymuseummatt, CC BY-SA 2.0 DEED, via Wikimedia Commons

 

Article "Fossil Friday: Suppressed Dissent About Neanderthal DNA in Modern Humans" at Discovery Institute's site Evolution News (April 19, 2024)


This article provoked another lunatic rant titled "Bechly Whining 'Bout THE MAN!!” by my obsessive fan Bill Needle at his Marmotism blog (April 27, 2024).

Interview with me by Andrew McDiarmid titled "Unraveling the Mess of Arachnid Phylogeny" for episode 1893 of the ID the Future podcast (April 24, 2024), also addressing issues of common descent and biological classification.


 

Article "Fossil Friday: Three Dubious New Fossil Insect Orders from Cretaceous Burmese Amber" at Discovery Institute's site Evolution News (April 26, 2024)

Photo credit: George Poinar, Jr., CC BY-SA 2.0 , via Wikimedia Commons
Photo credit: George Poinar, Jr., CC BY-SA 2.0 , via Wikimedia Commons

Photo: Eokinorhynchus rarus, SEM, Dinghua Yang in Zhang et al. 2015, fair use
Photo: Eokinorhynchus rarus, SEM, Dinghua Yang in Zhang et al. 2015, fair use

 

Article "Fossil Friday: Kinorhyncha, Yet Another Animal Body Plan from the Cambrian Explosion" at Discovery Institute's site Evolution News (May 3, 2024).


 

Article "Fossil Friday: Discontinuities in the Fossil Record — A Problem for Neo-Darwinism" at Discovery Institute's site Evolution News (May 10, 2024). An expanded version of my lecture with sources.

Photo credit: Wanneria sp., Daderot, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons
Photo credit: Wanneria sp., Daderot, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons

My psychopathic hater Bill Needle reacted with yet another hit-piece titled “Pulses of Infusion of Bechly Bullshit (No Intelligence Required)!” at his Marmotism blog (June 9), showing again his lack of reading comprehension and stupid incompetence combined with boorish profanity. This angry kiddo definitely needs therapeutic help, but I have to admit he is doing a remarkable job in giving ID-critics a bad name, which is why even Darwinists and atheists avoid his blog like the plague.

Photo: Pakicetus, Ghedoghedo, CC BY-SA 3.0 , via Wikimedia Commons
Photo: Pakicetus, Ghedoghedo, CC BY-SA 3.0 , via Wikimedia Commons

Article "Fossil Friday: Three Modern Scientific Challenges to the Causal Adequacy of Darwinian Explanations" at Discovery Institute's site Evolution News (May 17, 2024). An expanded version of my lecture with sources.


 

 

Article "Fossil Friday: Did Giant Dinosaurs Swim Across Oceans?" at Discovery Institute's site Evolution News (May 24, 2024).

Photo credit: Edmontosaurus, MCDinosaurhunter, CC BY-SA 3.0 , via Wikimedia Commons
Photo credit: Edmontosaurus, MCDinosaurhunter, CC BY-SA 3.0 , via Wikimedia Commons

Photo credit: Gaëlle Doitteau, CC BY 4.0 , via Wikimedia Commons
Photo credit: Gaëlle Doitteau, CC BY 4.0 , via Wikimedia Commons

 

 

Article "Fossil Friday: Zygaenid Moths — Molecular Clock vs Fossil Record" at Discovery Institute's site Evolution News (May 31, 2024).


 

 

Article "Fossil Friday: No, Magnetic Field Collapse Did Not Trigger the Emergence of Animals" at Discovery Institute's site Evolution News (June 7, 2024).

Image credit: Daderot, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons
Image credit: Daderot, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons

Photo credit: Falconaumanni, CC BY-SA 3.0 , via Wikimedia Commons
Photo credit: Falconaumanni, CC BY-SA 3.0 , via Wikimedia Commons

 

Article "Fossil Friday: Darwin’s Abominable Mystery Corroborated Once Again" at Discovery Institute's site Evolution News (June 14, 2024), about the new Nature paper by Zuntini et al. (2024) on angiosperms origins.


 

 

Article "Fossil Friday: Ediacaran Animal Embryos Put to Test and Put to Rest" at Discovery Institute's site Evolution News (June 21, 2024), debunking another case of alleged Precambrian animals.

Photo credit: Cunningham et al., CC BY 3.0 , via Wikimedia Commons
Photo credit: Cunningham et al., CC BY 3.0 , via Wikimedia Commons

Photo credit: Najash, Paleoninja, CC BY-SA 4.0 , via Wikimedia Commons
Photo credit: Najash, Paleoninja, CC BY-SA 4.0 , via Wikimedia Commons

 

 

Article "Fossil Friday: Snake Origins – Yet Another Biological Big Bang" at Discovery Institute's site Evolution News (June 28, 2024).


Speaking engagements and other scheduled events for 2024:

  • February 5: recording of podcast “How the Caterpillar Got Its Legs…Or Not” or ID the Future with Andrew McDiarmid.
  • March 14: recording of podcast “A Paleontologist's View of Darwinism and Intelligent Design” for Come Reason! with Lenny Esposito.
  • April 17: recording of podcast “Unraveling the Mess of Arachnid Phylogeny” for ID the Future with Andrew McDiarmid.
  • May 26-30: Presentation on May 29 about “Four Challenges to the Causal Adequacy of Neo-Darwinism” at a private interdisciplinary conference titled Modern Alchemy in Florence / Italy (43 participants).
  • August 4-7: Two lectures on August 6 about “Fossil Explosions in the History of Life” and “The Waiting Times Problem and Other Challenges to Neo-Darwinism” for the summer colloquium Cosmos & Creator: Reason, Faith and the Academic Disciplines (Jul. 31 - Aug. 17, 2024) in Cambridge / UK (55 people in the audience).
  • August 21: Lecture about “Explosions in the History of Life” for the twentieth annual Discovery Society Insiders Briefing God & Science in Cambridge (Aug. 17-23) in Cambridge / UK.
  • October 25-28: Lecture on October 26 about “Scientific Challenges to Neo-Darwinism” at the Centro Italiano Intelligent Design / CIID conference Cosmos, Life, Intelligence, Information in Venice / Italy (about 60 participants).