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An Iconoclast for Evolution? |
| Section: BOOK WORLD / REVIEWS |
| Author: Larry D. Martin |
| Publication:
The World & I Online |
| Issue Date: 2/1/2001 |
| Size: 3,131 Words, 18,381 Characters |
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ICONS OF EVOLUTION
Science or Myth? Why Much of What We Teach About
Evolution Is Wrong?
Jonathan Wells
Washington, D.C.: Regenery Publishing, 2000
292 pp., $27.95
When I first picked up Icons of Evolution by Jonathan Wells, my mind formed an image of a lonely priest of science trudging to the cathedral door with a few reforms and a hammer. His mission is iconoclastic. He intends to smash the holiest relics of evolutionary theory, the examples used in textbooks or the popular press to such a degree that they have become "icons." He attacks in turn the origin of life's building blocks, the evolutionary tree, homology of vertebrate limbs, Haeckel's embryos, origin of birds, peppered moths, Darwin's finches, mutation, horse evolution, and apes to humans. He concludes that science in general is no better than mythology, and our biology textbooks are so flawed that they should carry a warning label like cheap cigarettes. The Lord may be subtle, but Wells is not! He is crusading to take the teaching of evolution out of schools, although he might be willing to settle for just not teaching it very seriously.
Wells, who has a Ph.D. in religious studies from Yale and another in molecular and cell biology from Berkeley, is presently a senior fellow at Discovery Institute's Center for Renewal of Science and Culture. He represents the viewpoint that living creatures may have changed through time but only according to a preconceived plan (intelligent design). This is a flexible position, permitting its adherents to accept most of the evidence for evolution but still deny the importance of natural selection.
Politics aside, Wells is a good writer who lays out his arguments clearly and is factually accurate. As a practicing scientist, I was fascinated by his descriptions of scientific shenanigans....
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... as an attack on evolution but actually fails on that account, leaving the careful reader with the impression that the author has accepted all the basic features of descent with modification and is now only seeking direction. If that is the case, then the call to arms in the last chapter seems out of place, except to placate what Wells may have thought was the book's natural constituency. vbcrlf
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Publication Details
(The World & I Online) |
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The World & I Online is a
comprehensive academic resource that encompasses a broad range of
articles by scholars and experts in the areas of Global Studies,
Liberal Arts, Fine & Applied Arts, General Science, and Spanish.
Originally published monthly in print as The World & I, our site
includes the complete contents since 1986 and continues to publish
a new issue online each month. |
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