Curiously, it was the same skills that led him to discover extinction that made evolution appear to him preposterous, an affair as unlikely as alchemy.
A preposterous thing happened two days ago.
Jared, a "businessman" who was born on third base and began sprinting for second, has seemed to leverage his preposterous role as international affairs adviser to seek foreign financing to salvage his disastrous overpayment for a Manhattan office tower.
In hindsight, the whole affair seems so preposterous it is hard to imagine anyone could have gotten away with it.
"This is untrue, and the insinuation that Jill was involved in an extramarital affair is as preposterous as it is hurtful to our family," Jill and Scott Kelley wrote.
To place Jeremy Corbyn's plea for key industries such as railways being progressively publicly owned on a par with Theresa May's regressive love affair with grammar schools is preposterous.
However, the official spokesperson for Egypt's foreign affairs ministry, Ahmed Abu Zeid, branded the claims "preposterous".
The charges are preposterous, the conditions of detention have been hideous, the whole affair is a piece of Libyan political blackmail.
At least that preposterous but addictive entertainment, in which Kerry Washington plays an inside-the-Beltway crisis manager who has an affair with the president, is juicy, trashy fun.
