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Title: Icons of Evolution: Science or Myth? Why Much of What We Teach About Evolution is Wrong by Jonathan Wells, Jody F. Sjogren ISBN: 0-89526-200-2 Publisher: Regnery Publishing Pub. Date: January, 2002 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $18.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.07 (115 reviews)
Rating: 2
Summary: Well-played but misleading sneak attack on natural selection
Comment: This is a fascinating and frustrating book that makes a number of excellent points about evolutionary theory, and the evidence needed to address the concept of natural selecton. It also takes a number of historical events way out of context and presents them in a deliberately misleading way. Wells has the clear rhetorical purpose of debunking natural selection as a theory of origins, and does a convincing job of injecting doubt into the scarecrow version of evolutionary theory most of us take away from high school biology. Wells points out correctly that what is at stake is too important to leave to misrepresented evidence. The question is: which misrepresentations are worse, his or the ones in evolutionary texts ?
...The problem is that in the process of compiling impressive evidence against the "icons" that serve as evidence of evolution in old high school textbooks, the author ignores the actual arguments over evolutionary theory found in modern evolutionary biology. No, he didn't actually refute the neo-Darwinian synthesis, because he didn't even address it, and of course with two PhD's, the strategy was deliberate.
As an aside, if he were really serious about disputing natural selection as a theory of origins, instead of attacking "icons," Wells would have addressed a serious evolutionary biology text, such as Mark Ridley's _Evolution_, from Blackwell Science, and addressed its discussion of the evidence for evolution. And he would have offered some semblance of an alternate theory, unless he wants us to believe that scientists have nothing to say about natural history.
Wells should also have made more mention that there are several reasonable _scientific_ arguments against the usual or orthodox version of natural selection theory that also address its positive evidence, and offer alternatives, rather than simply discarding the overwhelming web of evidence for it based on weaknesses with its "icons" because that's all most people think evolutionary theory is based upon. These arguments can be found in particularly clear and cogent form in Sterelny and Griffith's "Sex and Death."
Wells does not spend any time on these lines of argument, presumably because scientific arguments against orthodox evolutionary theory are also arguments against all forms of creationism, which Wells clearly intends to try to sneak into science by the vacuum he attempts to make in evolutionary theory.
If we don't limit ourselves to orthodox science, there are also some interesting epistemological arguments that attack naturalism in general rather than knocking down straw man versions of evolutionary theory. For example, "Origins, Icons, and Illusions : Exploring the Science and Psychology of Creation and Evolution" by Harold R. Booher seems very sympathetic to "intelligent design" creationism, but by arguing against rigid interpretations of evidence rather than selectively evaluating the weaker evidence as Wells does.
The strangest thing about evolution is that everyone thinks they understand it, and yet none of us really does, as complexity theorist Stuart Kauffman points out. Kauffman, an outspoken opponent of creationism, is also a scientific heretic in some ways, who doesn't buy the argument that natural selection is sufficient to bring order to living things. He notes that order arises in nature more rapidly and under a wider variety of conditions than we would expect if the only non-random effect on evolution were natural selection. Yet rather than pretend to know the answer from spiritual traditions, or questioning whether we need to incorporate the supernatural into science as creationists do, Kauffman builds new testable scientific hypotheses. We don't know yet whether most of his ideas are right, but at least they are science !
It is reasonable to question scientific dogma, but to pretend that pseudoscience is science just because textbooks can't possibly present the whole story behind every observation is a dirty trick. And one that judging from most of the reviews here, is working perfectly as intended.
The difference between the scientific heresy of Kauffman and taht of Wells is that Kauffman and other scientific theorists address the full range of evidence and try to explain it, rather than simply ignoring or claiming that the evidence for evolution doesn't exist.
An apparently intelligent, orderly universe in some sense doesn't have to mean that science gives in to political pressure to redefine its boundaries and incorporate Biblical literalism, nor that theories need to be ammended to include the supernatural, as this book leads the reader to contemplate.
However, this book does make a strong argument for recognizing the limitations of science, especially the popular view of science we all learn in high school and as undergraduates. And I also think that as an object lesson, it supports a reasonable case that we need more in our lives than just a reasoned evidence-based scientific philosophy. But as an attack on natural selection and its role in the course of natural history, this is not much stronger really than most creationist texts that are widely considered pseudoscience. What good scientific arguments actually exist against the orthodox neo-Darwinist synthesis are given surprisingly short shrift in "Icons," because they are also arguments against the pseudoscience of creationism. All the more shame for the search for truth, and the desire by many to reconcile their scientific and spiritual lives. Creationism seems to do poor justice to either side of life.
Natural selection is almost certainly a major factor in the origin of specific forms of life, even if it is not the only factor. So I have to disagree with this book's conclusions, and find it a noble attempt at attacking a central modern dogma, persuasive in many ways, useful in others, yet in total completely unsuccessful as a scientific argument against natural selection as a factor in shaping adaptations in natural history.
Rating: 5
Summary: Students should be taught the truth about evolution.
Comment: Icons of Evolution relies on published scientific reports to show that biology textbooks systematically misrepresent the evidence for Darwinian evolution, substituting "icons" for facts. It also points out that many biology textbooks use Darwinism to promote an antireligious philosophy and argues that this has no legitimate place in publicly funded science education.
Some dogmatic Darwinists have attacked the book for bringing these textbook misrepresentations to public attention--accusing the author of being a dishonest scholar or a religious fundamentalist.
These criticisms do follow a pattern typical of many other Darwinists. Firstly, they ignore their profound distortions of the truth. Second, although Wells' book does not criticize evolution from a theological perspective, many critics rely on theological arguments to defend it. Third, Many Darwinists falsely accuses Wells of wanting to "take the teaching of evolution out of schools" and to "suppress philosophical viewpoints" that disagree with his own.
On the first point: Most biology textbooks ignore the Cambrian explosion, in which the fossil record shows the major types of animals (technically called phyla) appearing together, fully formed, rather than diverging gradually from a common ancestor as Darwin's theory requires. Some of the reviewers below change the topic to extinction, then glosses over the conflict between evolutionary theory (in which major differences are supposed to appear after minor ones) and the fossil evidence (which shows the opposite).
One reviewer briefly notes that Wells "attack . . . the embryological support for evolution." But he/she completely ignores the substance of his chapter on embryology. Charles Darwin believed that the "strongest single class of facts" supporting his theory was the supposed similarity of vertebrate embryos in their earliest stages, which (he thought) demonstrated their descent from a common ancestor. In making his claim, Darwin relied on drawings made by his German contemporary, Ernst Haeckel. But Haeckel faked his drawings and was accused of fraud by his colleagues.
Yet Haeckel's drawings (or some form of them) are still used in most modern biology textbooks as evidence for evolution. "We do, I think, have the right," Stephen Jay Gould wrote in 2000, "to be both astonished and ashamed by the century of mindless recycling that has led to the persistence of these drawings in a large number, if not a majority, of modern textbooks."
Then there's the story of peppered moths. Most current biology textbooks carry photos of these moths on tree trunks, claiming that experiments performed in the 1950s showed that natural selection (stemming from camouflage differences and predatory birds) made dark- colored moths more common during the Industrial Revolution. Critics of Wells omit the fact that this textbook story is now very much in doubt, because biologists discovered in the 1980s that peppered moths don't normally rest on tree trunks. All the textbook photos have been staged--some by gluing or pinning dead moths in place.
On the second point: Instead of dealing seriously with these and other misrepresentations, critics turn repeatedly to theological arguments to justify their belief in evolution. For example, One critic wrote: "Either there is a Creator who operates according to the old motto 'if at first you don't succeed, try again' or there is some mechanism, like evolution, to replace lost diversity." Again: "Our alternatives seem to consist of Plato, Aristotle, and the mind of God. As the latter is unknowable, it might encompass anything."
This mode of reasoning was also used by Darwin. The Origin of Species is full of arguments of the following form: God wouldn't have done it that way, so it must have been caused by evolution. But this is philosophy, not science.
Now, philosophy is fascinating. I think students should study it. But I do not think it should be propped up with distorted evidence and then presented as though it were science.
Ironically, if anyone is suppressing contrary viewpoints in the present situation, it is the Darwinists. Dogmatic defenders of Darwinian evolution rely on distorted evidence and theological arguments to promote an antireligious philosophy, yet they claim that theirs is the only viewpoint that can legitimately be taught--at taxpayer expense--in science classrooms. Criticism of Darwinian orthodoxy is discouraged or even prohibited in the public schools. This sure looks like suppression to me. If we want to resolve the growing controversy over Darwinism, we must acknowledge the difference between materialistic philosophy and empirical science and rid biology textbooks of their falsehoods.
Let's teach students the truth about evolution.
Encouraging inquisitive and scientific minded students to read this book would be a good start.
Rating: 1
Summary: C'mon ...
Comment: What a silly book this is. You simply cannot critisize a scientific theory only by judging high school texts about it. What is said here about evolutionary theory could just as well be said about astronomics or geology. Of course issues are simplified in high school text books, since understanding the theories thoroughly would require years of dedicated study.
In short: the purpose of this book eludes me. That errors and simplifications in public presentations of evolution theory would diminish it is nothing but a straw man argument... and a very transparant one too. Someone must already heavily dislike that theory already to fall for it (...)
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Title: DARWINS BLACK BOX: THE BIOCHEMICAL CHALLENGE TO EVOLUTION by Michael J. Behe ISBN: 0684834936 Publisher: Free Press Pub. Date: 20 March, 1998 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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Title: Intelligent Design: The Bridge Between Science & Theology by William A. Dembski, Michael J. Behe ISBN: 0830815813 Publisher: Intervarsity Press Pub. Date: November, 1999 List Price(USD): $22.00 |
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Title: Evolution: A Theory in Crisis by Michael Denton ISBN: 091756152X Publisher: Adler & Adler Pub Pub. Date: August, 2002 List Price(USD): $19.95 |
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Title: Darwin on Trial by Phillip E. Johnson ISBN: 0830813241 Publisher: Intervarsity Press Pub. Date: November, 1993 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
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Title: Science and Evidence for Design in the Universe by Ignatius Press, Michael Behe, William A. Dembski, Stephen C. Meyer ISBN: 0898708095 Publisher: Ignatius Press Pub. Date: 01 December, 2000 List Price(USD): $12.95 |
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