Richard Leakey: Evolution Debate Will End Soon

In a decade or two, it will be impossible to refute the science, he argues
By Newser Editors and Wire Services
Posted May 26, 2012 11:30 AM CDT
Richard Leakey: Evolution Debate Will End Soon
Dr. Richard Leakey in a 2008 file photo.   (Getty Images)

Richard Leakey predicts skepticism over evolution will soon be history. Not that the avowed atheist has any doubts himself. Sometime in the next 15 to 30 years, the Kenyan-born paleoanthropologist expects scientific discoveries will have accelerated to the point that even skeptics will be swayed. Two quotes from an interview with the 67-year-old Leakey, the son of the late Louis and Mary Leakey.

  • "If you get to the stage where you can persuade people on the evidence, that it's solid, that we are all African, that color is superficial, that stages of development of culture are all interactive, then I think we have a chance of a world that will respond better to global challenges."
  • "If you don't like the word evolution, I don't care what you call it, but life has changed. You can lay out all the fossils that have been collected and establish lineages that even a fool could work up. So the question is why, how does this happen? It's not covered by Genesis. There's no explanation for this change going back 500 million years in any book I've read from the lips of any god."
(More evolution stories.)

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