I accidentally snipped some previous context. So, I am reposting more of the
testimony with that context restored.
Q. I hand you what's been previously marked
5 as Defendant's Exhibit 210.
6 A. And in response to your question, sir, I
7 note under Section 30-2 on the second page of
8 the document you gave me, the complete sentence
9 reads, "As we do so it's important to keep this
10 concept in mind," and it is indeed in boldface,
11 "Evolution is random and undirected," that's
12 correct. So yes, sir, it does say that.
8 13 Q. Now, isn't it true when you write your
14 textbook, a boldfaced sentence is a way of
15 telling the students that this is a key idea?
16 A. Yes, sir, it is.
9 17 Q. Now, you testified previously that that's
18 not a scientific concept, correct?
19 A. I did indeed, sir.
10 20 Q. Why was it in your book?
21 A. It was in my book because as I'm sure
22 you've also looked at, that statement was not
23 in the first edition of the book, it was not in
24 the second edition, it was not in the fourth
25 edition, it was not in the fifth edition. It
6
1 was not --
Q. My question is why is it in this edition?
3 A. I'm trying to set the context so I can give
4 a full and complete answer to your question. So
5 the interesting thing is that this is the only
6 edition of any of the books that we have
7 published, and probably eleven different
8 editions, that contains that statement, and
9 the reason for that quite simply is that I work
10 with a co-author whose name is Joseph Levine,
11 and Joe and I work together on many of the
12 chapters in the book, but many of them we write
13 separately and individually, and this was a
14 statement that Joe inserted when we did a
15 rewrite of many sections of this book for the
16 third edition.
17 I have to say that I missed the statement
18 as I was going through Joe's chapters, and I
19 feel very badly about that. When this was first
20 pointed out to me, the third edition of this
21 book was in print, I immediately went to Joe, I
22 said Joe, I think this is a bad idea, I said I
23 think this is a non-scientific statement, I
24 think it will mislead students. Joe agreed.
25 We immediately took it out of the book, and
7
1 that's why I emphasized that it did not appear
2 in subsequent editions. So what you're looking
3 at, sir, is a mistake.
12 4 Q. Isn't it true that he put that in there
5 because he was influenced by the writings of
6 Steven J. Gould?
7 A. We had a conversation about that, and among
8 the reasons that Joe cited was that he had read
9 one of Steve Gould's books called "Wonderful
10 Life" in which Gould emphasized what Gould
11 regarded as the indeterminate character of
12 evolution, and from that I think Joe made what
13 I still think is a misinterpretation of Gould's
14 central idea in "Wonderful Life," which is to
15 say the indeterminate or the unpredictable
16 nature of evolution Joe misinterpreted to say
17 random and undirected, and I think Joe agreed
18 that he had made a mistake, and that's one of
19 the reasons why we changed it in the next
20 edition, sir.
Received on Fri Nov 11 12:45:42 2005
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