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Darwin surprisingly enough manifested enough humility to admit that if credible evidence of reproducing transitional forms didn’t exist, his whole premise was toast. Remarkably, it’s his philosophical inheritors like yourself who have hitched your self-worth to this failed premise, and who can’t seem able to let go in face of all the failure, because to do so upends your whole identity.

So true: Darwin did say that about the [paleontologically still missing] "transitional forms"; e.g., in the pre-Cambrian....

What I don't understand is how and why a person would want to derive his entire sense of self-identity and self-worth from a scientific theory that rests on shaky evidentiary grounds. It's as if such folks absolutely refuse to let Darwin's theory be wrong. But if it is "false," so is the psyche constructed on it....

Or so it seems to me, FWIW.

Dear Agamemnon, you wrote:

I never use the term “micro-evolution,” because it tends to confuse people just like you. The correct concept is that of “adaptation,” because the organism is merely calling upon information with which it has been programmed by its Creator to adapt and to cope with its environment.

Absolutely outstanding observation Agamemnon!

Kudos to you for this simply outstanding essay/post!

So when a novel antibiotic targeting ribosomes is introduced to a naive population and wipes out over 90% of it, and the surviving population is seen to have mutational DNA variations in the gene for its ribosomes so that the antibiotic doesn't bind to and inhibit as well - why and how did those survivors ‘call upon information with which it was programed by its creator’ - while the majority that died did not?

Are you suggesting that every member of the population HAD the information to make the mutated non-susceptible ribosomes - but that only SOME chose to express it? How and why?

[ What I don't understand is how and why a person would want to derive his entire sense of self-identity and self-worth from a scientific theory that rests on shaky evidentiary grounds. It's as if such folks absolutely refuse to let Darwin's theory be wrong. But if it is "false," so is the psyche constructed on it.... ]

Exactly.. its a matter if INDENTITY..

Are you a temporal flesh-suit housing an eternal spirit waiting for a freedom event..
-OR-
Are you a Suit of Flesh waiting to be made road-kill by an unforeseen event..
You know..... death.. (by some vehicle)

This drama is palpable.. attended by many prop-comics..
Who are you?.. is the identifying phrase..

Are you a would-be Carrot-top or one more serious in "tone and demeanor"..
The whole planet is indeed "a stage".. and we all are merely actors..

"Evolutionists" metaphorically wearing a monocle and smoking a pipe speaking in serious tones..
Do not fool me a bit... even with good dialog wearing a tie using the pipe as a pointer at a blackboard......

I think, and few of them would ever publicly admit this, the reason is because they have complete and pathological hatred for the Judeo-Christian tradition.

From the Garden forward, Satan's temptations of man have all boiled down to the simple notion that man could play god at least within his own sphere. In Darwinism, Satan took this temptation to an even greater level, he showed man a way to replace God with science and that God doesn't exist.

Darwinism is Satan's masterpiece because it marks the only time that he has been able to tempt the masses by convincing them that God isn't real. It is this that Darwinists have staked their lives on and it is the terror of being wrong that keeps them from even considering being wrong. It goes back to the adage that if you live as if God exists and at the end of your life you find out you were wrong, you haven't really lost anything,\; but if you live as if there is no God, you will be in a lot of trouble when you find out He does exist.

What I don't understand is how and why a person would want to derive his entire sense of self-identity and self-worth from a scientific theory that rests on shaky evidentiary grounds. It's as if such folks absolutely refuse to let Darwin's theory be wrong. But if it is "false," so is the psyche constructed on it....

I know of no scientist who derives his/her identity or self-worth from a theory. If you have an example of such a scientist, could you post it here? If you have any credible evidence that scientists, in general, base their sense of self-worth or identity in scientific theories, could you present it, please?

There is no issue of "refusing to let Darwin's theory be wrong" here. The theory of evolution, as Darwin first formulated it, and as it has been refined in the ~170 years since, works very well as a framework for biological investigation. If it didn't, we (scientists) would have ditched it... just like we abandon every theory that turns out to be incorrect.

Of course, the (doomed) efforts to discredit the theory of evolution really have nothing to do with science. I think they exist because, as a document of the beginning of Earth, life, and human life, the book of Genesis doesn't match much of what we know about the world at all, and it has too many internal inconsistencies. That upsets (some) people, for whom faith is somehow invalid if they must accept that Genesis is not a literal account. For me, it's no big deal. Faith is one thing, science another, and I'm fine with that.