Søren Løvtrup

We're all Homo here Evolution

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A Gradual Science

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Plain Monkey Business

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Søren Løvtrup (February 11th, 1922–November 11th, 2002) was a Danish biologist who taught in Sweden and an embryologist known for his evolutionary theory of macromutation in opposition to neo-Darwinism.

Biography

Løvtrup was born in Copenhagen and finished his master's in biochemstry there in 1945.

After obtaining his doctorate in embryology, he taught at the University of Göteborg, Sweden, and in 1965 became professor of embryology at the Department of Animal Physiology, University of Umea, also in Sweden. He headed the organisation of Swedish Developmental Biologists, SDB, from 1979 to 1987, and served as its first chair.

Evolution

He is the author of the controversial book Darwinism: The Refutation of a Myth (1987) which sets out to show that Darwin was not the founder of evolution and that the micromutation theory of neo-Darwinism is false. The book endorses non-Darwinian evolution and Løvtrup supports an alternative theory of evolution by macromutations for the origin of major taxonomic groups of organisms.

His book has received mixed reviews from the scientific community, but the main criticism is that he provided no real empirical evidence for his alternative theory of evolution driven by macromutations.

Creationist quote mine

Religious creationists are known for quote mining Løvtrup's book, usually the following single line:

“”I believe that one day the Darwinian myth will be ranked the greatest deceit in the history of science.

The quote is taken out of context. Whilst it is true Løvtrup was a non-Darwinian and a critic of the neo-Darwinian synthesis, he was not rejecting the fact of evolution. His book Darwinism: The Refutation of a Myth (1987) is a discussion on the mechanisms on evolution, not denying or questioning the fact of evolution like the creationists claim. Unfortunately creationists are known for setting up a straw man definition of evolution and erroneously equating evolution with "Darwinism".

There are many creationist articles and books which distort the views of Løvtrup on evolution. Løvtrup has been quote mined by Jerry Bergman and Ray Comfort and has been cited in hundreds of other creationist publications. Løvtrup was not anti-evolution and did not dispute the fact of evolution, but no matter how many times this is stated, the creationists still continue to quote mine his book.

Selected publications

• Darwinism: The Refutation of a Myth (1987)
• The Phylogeny of Vertebrata (1977)
• Epigenetics: A Treatise on Theoretical Biology (1974)