Re: Jonathan Well's Icons of Evolution

From: Bert M (bert@massie-labs.com)
Date: Wed Apr 11 2001 - 18:30:07 EDT

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    Adrian,

    Quite familier with Wells book and it is a good one.

    I am curious what you meant by

     (applies to physics texts as well).

    Bert Massie

    Adrian Teo wrote:

    >
    >
    > Jonathan Wells, Senior Fellow of the Discovery Institute, presented at
    > Whitworth College on his new book, Icons of Evolution, last night. I
    > thought it was a polished presentation, and he did not go into the ID
    > argument at all. His point was that the majority of evolutionary
    > biology textbooks used discredited examples to support the Darwinian
    > claims of common descent and modification. For example, the widely
    > used peppered moths example to illustrate natural selection is based
    > on doctored photos and the mistaken understanding that those moths
    > actually rested on the tree trunks. The so-called Darwin's finches
    > used as examples of speciation was based on extrapolation of data, and
    > in actual fact, the data showed no net evolutionary changes, but
    > rather, minor variations. He also talked about the well-known (among
    > biologists but apparently still in textbooks) Haeckel drawings of
    > embryos in different stages of development. Archaeopteryx was another
    > example of misinformation. Wells made the claim that many professional
    > biologists are not even aware of these problems because they have been
    > trained with these textbook examples as well and never thought to
    > question them. I am wondering if these perceptions of Wells are
    > accurate, and if so, this is a major problem. Can ASA do something
    > about this? Should publishers be persuaded to be more careful with
    > what they put out?
    >
    > One parent asked a very good question of what she could do, given that
    > the school district spent thousands of dollars on these textbooks and
    > that some science teachers have been quite reluctant to admit nor see
    > the errors in these books (applies to physics texts as well). Wells
    > did not really have an answer for her.
    >
    > Adrian.



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