Jonathan Wells' "Icons of Evolution" has been criticized repeatedly and
recommended a few times on this list. J.A. Coyne's rabid criticism,
"Creationism by stealth", Nature 410 (12 April 2001), 745-746, has also
been mentioned.
In Reasons to Believe's Facts for Faith issue 5 (1/2001), pp. 60-61,
Fazale R. Rana provides a very much more sympathetic discussion of
"Icons". He states that "...Wells convincingly demonstrates that the
evidence and examples of Darwinian evolution commonly found in biology
textbooks are either misleading or, in some cases, false... Wells
carefully documents... that the 'icons' of evolution - considered to be
the best evidence for evolution - are nothing more than scientific
myths, in most cases."
He lists the following "icons" addressed by Wells: 1) the Miller-Urey
experiment; 2) the evolutionary "Tree of Life"; 3) the homology of
vertebrate limbs; 4) Haeckel's drawings of vertebrate embryos; 5)
Archaeopterix as the missing link connecting birds to reptiles; 6) the
peppered moth story; 7) beak evolution and speciation among Darwin's
finches; 8) the laboratory-directed evolution of four-winged fruit
flies; 9) equine evolution; and 10) human evolution.
Rana emphasizes that "Wells does not take a strong anti-evolutionary
position - he simply refutes the textbook evidence for evolution...
Wells makes it clear that not all evolutionists are to blame..." Yet
Rana chides Wells for painting "evolutionists, in general, as
conspirators and ideologues."
Although I believe, for theological and Bible-exegetical reasons, that
evolution is one of God's tools of creation (cf. my paper with A. Held,
"Genesis Reconsidered", PSCF 51 (4/1999), 231-243), and although I am
severely skeptical about Wells' theology if Coyne's accusations are
correct, I basically agree with Wells' criticism of the "icons"
mentioned:
1) The Miller-Urey experiment: those in origin-of-life research agree
that Miller's reaction conditions were much too reducing to
realistically simulate conditions on the primitive Earth, and the few
resulting amino acids are a very far cry from what is needed for even
the first steps of generating life.
2) The evolutionary "Tree of Life": showing a connected "tree of life"
is misleading because it suggests connections documented by fossils,
whereas the model of punctuated equilibria leads one to expect that very
few, if any, of the "links" will be found. The tree shown at the Golden
State Park Museum, San Francisco, in the 1990's by the California
Academy of Sciences was a bad example of doctoring fossil dates, in
order to be able to draw an impressive tree from corals to vertebrates.
3) The homology of vertebrate limbs: the main problem with all
similarities between functional features is that they may need to be
similar in order to function: thus, they cannot be evidence for common
descent. Genuine evidence for homology may require functionless features
(cf. my "How has life and its diversity been produced", PSCF 44
(2/1992), 80-94).
4) Haeckel's drawings of vertebrate embryos: as Haeckel's falsifications
have been known for a long time, his drawings have no business appearing
in textbooks, except for the purpose of exposing the fraud.
5) Archaeopterix as the missing link connecting birds to reptiles:
Archaeopterix was basically a full-blown bird. It may have been part of
the reptile-bird transition field, but as an individual species it does
not provide much of an evidence for such a transition.
6) The peppered moth story: as black and white moths have the required
molecular biology for producing white or black coloring, and the
transition between them is a regulatory feature, they don't tell us
anything about evolution in the sense of generating novelty. The hard
part in evolution is not selection but generation of functional novelty.
7) Beak evolution and speciation among Darwin's finches: it is easy to
conceive of microevolutionary or even adaptational transitions between
the different Galapagos finch beaks, without any novel molecules
required.
8) The laboratory-directed evolution of four-winged fruit flies: the
normal, two-winged flies have halteres instead of the second wing pair.
Their developmental program evidently contains the functionality of
growing appendages in four places, of growing wings, and of growing
halteres, in addition to a switch function specifying the type of
appendages to be grown in each place. There is no evolution of halteres
to wings in the experiment. There is no indication as to what it should
have to do with evolution.
9) Equine evolution: if the fossil dates are taken into consideration,
there is rather little in the way of systematic change with time, and
microevolution seems to be all that was required. Also, the changes were
much too slow to model the entire tree of life.
10) Human evolution: beyond the common (and, I think, reasonable) belief
that the genus Homo descended from the genus Australopithecus, and that
H. sapiens descended from H. erectus, there appears to be insufficient
agreement among paleoanthropologists about the relationships on the
species level, and virtually nothing is known about the origin of the
Australopiths from the Anthropoid stock.
Although Wells is right (IMO) to criticize the use of these "icons" as
textbook evidence for evolution, evolution is not refuted by removing
these items as evidence, either. But textbook authors definitely should
concentrate on much more solid evidence, particularly evidence from
functionless features, and evidence for evolution of novel molecular
structures, both of which are extremely hard to find, not to speak of
documenting their relevance for evolution.
Peter
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Dr Peter Ruest Biochemistry
Wagerten Creation and evolution
CH-3148 Lanzenhaeusern Tel.: ++41 31 731 1055
Switzerland E-mail: <pruest@dplanet.ch
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In biology - there's no free lunch -
and no information without an adequate source.
In Christ - there is free and limitless grace -
for those of a contrite heart.
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