Douglas Dewar

Douglas Dewar (1875–1957) was a barrister, British civil servant in India and an ornithologist. He wrote widely in newspapers such as The Madras Mail, Pioneer, Times of India and periodicals such as the Civil and Military Gazette and Bird Notes.^[1]

Biography

He particularly advanced field studies of birds and he wrote in his Birds of the Plains:

"The ornithological world is peopled by two classes of human beings. There are those who study nature inside the museum with the microscope and scalpel and there are those who live to observe birds In the open and study their habits." He accuses the museum ornithologists of needlessly multiplying new species and altering names, too much attention being paid to local variations.^[2]

In his early education, he had been taught the ideas of evolution and was half-hearted in his acceptance of the principles. Although his early works on ornithology seemed to accept ideas of adaptation and selection, he later became a creationist and published a number of books and debates attacking evolution, and was the founding secretary-treasurer in the Evolution Protest Movement in 1932 along with Bernard Acworth. He leaned towards the idea of old earth creationism but questioned radiometric dating. His book, The Transformist Illusion published posthumously in 1957 attempted to show the failure of evolution using examples such as the infinitesimal probability of proteins arising out of random mixing, the fossil record, bird anatomy, blood group incompatibilities, and queried evolutionary claims in embryology and vestigial organs. Reviewers pointed out the problems in his objections.^[3][4]

Writings

He wrote several books; in his earlier career on the birds of India, and later, critical of evolution:

• Douglas Dewar, Frank Finn (1909) The making of species. London, New York, J. Lane Company.
• Dewar, Douglas (1916) A bird calendar for northern India. Scanned book
• Dewar, Douglas (1913) Glimpses of Indian birds. Scanned book
• Dewar, Douglas (1908) Birds of the plains. Scanned book
• Dewar, Douglas (1906) Bombay ducks; an account of some of the every-day birds and beasts found in a naturalist's Eldorado. Scanned book
• Dewar, Douglas (1923) Himalayan and Kashmiri birds, being a key to the birds commonly seen in summer in the Himalayas & Kashmir
• Dewar, Douglas (1931) Difficulties of the evolution theory. London : E. Arnold & co.
• Dewar, Douglas (1936) Man: a special creation. London: Thynne.
• Dewar, Douglas (1938) More Difficulties of the Evolution Theory. London: Thynne.
• Dewar, Douglas, H.S. Shelton and Arnold Lunn (1947) Is evolution proved? / a debate between Douglas Dewar and H.S. Shelton. With an introd. by the editor, Arnold Lunn. London: Hollis and Carter
• Dewar, Douglas (1949) Is evolution a myth? : a debate between Douglas Dewar, L. Merson Davies and J.B.S. Haldane, London: C.A. Watts/Paternoster Press.
• Dewar, Douglas (1957) The Transformist Illusion. Murfreesboro, Tennessee: Dehoff Publications

References

1. ^ Glimpses of India Birds, Foreword.
2. ^ New York Times review January 23, 1909, Saturday online
3. ^ Review by D.S. Robertson of The Transformist Illusion, by Douglas Dewar; Dehoff Publications, Tennessee; 1957; 306 pp. in the Journal of the American Scientific Affiliation 1960. online
4. ^ Numbers, RL (2006). The creationists: from scientific creationism to intelligent design. Harvard University Press. pp. 166–167. ISBN 0674023390. 

Persondata
Name	Dewar, Douglas
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Date of birth	1875
Place of birth
Date of death	1957
Place of death