About

Unless I attribute something to another writer, everything in this blog is from my own keyboard.

It is not monetzed. I don't make a penny from it.

The blog is not intended to be a formal academic work, but an educational one. Links are provided to the relevant peer reviewed scientific literature for you to investigate further. Also go to the reference sections of any encyclopedia articles I link to. I do not plagiarise. It is clear in every case who is the author of any articles that I quote.

For a handy list of scientific papers, go to https://web.archive.org/web/20230531193743/http://www.evolutionarymodel.com/ervs.htm

My name is Barry Desborough. I'm English. I'm retired, an ex-school teacher and software engineer. I trained as a school teacher at Christchurch College, Canterbury, a Christian-founded college, situated a stone's throw from the offices of the Archbishop of Canterbury and Canterbury Cathedral, since incorporated with Kent University.

The college offers courses in 19th century thought, including that of Darwin. They organise visits to Down House, Darwin's home and centre for his scientific work.

Evolution has never been a problem for the Church of England. Why, Darwin is buried, with honours, in Westminster Abbey!

Until recently, Darwin appeared on the reverse of the British ten-pound note, which depicted on its front, the then 'Defender of the Faith and Supreme Governor of the Church of England', Lizzie II, the sequel.

Darwin's statue sits in pride of place in the central hall of the British Natural History Museum.

When I retired, I considered the question of what would be the best use of the time I had left to me. I decided on two things, 1) to create free educational content for the internet and 2) to study human nature. Studying human nature led me to the field of evolutionary psychology. It was only when I started discussing evolutionary psychology with American academics that I learned that a substantial proportion of the American population, plus a few other anglophones in other countries and some Jews and Muslims, are evolution skeptics and evolution deniers. I was astonished at this news. I thought that this had petered out in the 19th century. Astonished and dismayed, because what I learned about evolutionary psychology convinced me that it provided an essential perspective if we are ever going to have a chance of addressing our problems as a species.The continuing rising tide of irrationality in the world convinces me even more of this - that evolution denial is a menace.

Having spent considerable time researching the "controversy" and discussing it with creationists, I came to the conclusion that the evidence from endogenous retroviruses (ERVs) and other genetic markers constitutes an irrefutable case for common descent, and falsifies literal interpretations of the Biblical account of creation. Recommended book from a recognised expert - who happens to be a Christian. A lay preacher.


I am an atheist, which means that I do not believe in any gods. However, I have no quarrel with believers who also accept mainstream science, which shows that all life forms have evolved from earlier forms. Indeed, "theistic evolutionists" accept this. They believe that God created the world such that it could bring forth life, as Genesis 1 says, and life could and did evolve, and is still evolving.

Creationism is falsified by science, thus it is a false doctrine. False teaching. I don't believe that any good can come from that which is false. To think that God embedded false evidence in creation for the only purpose of deceiving us, strikes me as blasphemous. 

Regarding intelligent design, there are two forms of this. The first, conceived as a movement for trying to  deceptively get round the U.S. separation principle and overthrow evolutionary science, has been thoroughly debunked and discredited.

The second form of intelligent design is merely the opinion that the world was created according to God's plan. This strikes me as being indistinguishable from theistic evolutionism mentioned above.

I can't see any way of establishing either the existence or the non-existence of any gods. The question does not interest me.

More on the reasons why I think evolutionary science is important can be found here.