Getting the Facts Straight

Getting the Facts Straight A Viewer’s Guide to PBS’s Evolution Seattle Discovery Institute Press 2001 This Viewer’s Guide is a response to the television documentary Evolution that first aired on the PBS network September 24–27, 2001. That series was co-produced by the WGBH/NOVA Science Unit and Clear Blue Sky Productions. This response was developed by the Discovery Institute of Seattle, Washington and is based on videotapes distributed in advance by the producers of the series. This book evaluates each of the seven programs in that series from a historical and scientific perspective. It points out areas where the series presents inaccurate history or flawed reasoning. It illustrates how the series takes issues that are vigorously debated within the scientific community and presents them as established facts. It also comments on the religious stereotyping engaged in by the producers. © Copyright 2001, Discovery Institute, All Rights Reserved. In the interest of stimulating debate on the issues discussed in this book, the Discovery Institute gives permission for copies of this guide to be freely downloaded from the Internet, distributed in electronic form to others, and printed out and distributed to others for non-commercial purposes as long as full credit is given to Discovery Institute and the text is not altered. Distribution, copying and printing for educational use is particularly encouraged. Library Cataloging Data Getting the Facts Straight: A Viewer’s Guide to PBS’s “Evolution” 155 p. 23 cm. Includes 2 illustrations, 8 teaching activities, and endnotes ISBN: 0-9638654-5-5 LC: 2001095464 Keywords: Evolution; Intelligent Design; Science; Religion; Darwinism Published in the United States of America on acid-free paper. First Edition: September 2001 Internet: http://www.pbsevolution.org and www.discovery.org Table of Contents Discovery Institute . .7 Executive Summary. .9 Introduction . .17 Episodes Episode One: “Darwin’s Dangerous Idea” (2 hours) . .21 Dramatizations of Darwin’s life, interspersed with commentaries by philosopher Daniel Dennett, biologist Stephen Jay Gould, and historian James Moore. Dar- win’s theory that all living things evolved from a common ancestor in one “great tree of life.” Drug resistance in HIV. Biologist Kenneth Miller on the vertebrate eye and the role of God. Similarities between humans and apes. Episode Two: “Great Transformations” . .39 Fossil whales. Similarities in limb bones. The transition from water to land animals. A “genetic toolkit” common to all animals. The transition from apes to humans. Episode Three: “Extinction!” . .51 Mass extinctions. Dinosaurs and the first mammals. Saving an unspoiled forest near Bangkok. Biological invaders in the Hawaiian Islands. Using a beneficial insect to control weeds in North Dakota. Episode Four: “The Evolutionary Arms Race” . .61 Multi-drug resistant tuberculosis in Russia. Lessons from a cholera epidemic. Feline immunodeficiency virus. Leaf-cutter ants and symbiosis. Allergies and the importance of interactions among species. Episode Five: “Why Sex?” . .71 Genetic variability as a reason for sexual reproduction. Sexual selection and pea- cocks’ tails. Lessons from chimpanzees and bonobos. Evolutionary psychology on the role of sex in brain evolution. Episode Six: “The Mind’s Big Bang” . .85 The emergence of art, technology, and society about 50,000 years ago. Hominid evolution and Neanderthals. Early human migrations. Language. Memes and how they now counteract biological evolution. Episode Seven: “What About God?” . .97 The creation-evolution controversy and U.S. science education. Biblical literalist Ken Ham. Students at Wheaton College struggle with their faith. A school board denies a petition to teach special creation alongside evolution. Conclusion . .111 Activities Activity One: Who Were Darwin’s Critics?. .119 Accompanies Episode One, “Darwin’s Dangerous Idea” Activity Two: Darwin and His Finches . .123 Accompanies Episode One, “Darwin’s Dangerous Idea” Activity Three: Tracking Biology’s Big Bang . .127 Accompanies Episode Two, “Great Transformations” Activity Four: The Centrality of Evolution . .137 Accompanies the Conclusion, Section D, “Is Evolution Indispensable to Medi- cine, Agriculture and Choice of Mate?” Activity Five: How Do You Know? . .141 Accompanies Episode Four, “The Evolutionary Arms Race” Activity Six: The Scopes Trial in Fact and Fiction. .145 Accompanies Episode Seven, “What About God?” Activity Seven: Who Are Darwin’s Critics Now?. .147 Accompanies Episode Seven “What About God?” Activity Eight: Teaching the Controversy: What’s Legal? . .151 Accompanies Episode Seven, “What About God?” Discovery Institute Discovery Institute is a non-profit, non-partisan public policy center for national and international affairs. The Institute’s mission is to make a positive vision of the future practical. The Institute discovers and promotes ideas in the common sense tradition of representative government, the free market and indi- vidual liberty. Its mission is promoted through books, reports, legislative testi- mony, articles, public conferences and debates, plus media coverage and the Institute’s own publications and website. Current projects explore the fields of technology, science and culture, reform of the law, national defense, the environment and the economy, the future of dem- ocratic institutions, transportation, religion and public life, government entitle- ment spending, foreign affairs and cooperation within the bi-national region of “Cascadia.” Contact Information Discovery Institute 1402 Third Ave Suite 400 Seattle, WA 98101 (206) 292-0401 fax (206) 682-5320 http://www.discovery.org E XECUTIVE SUMMARY PBS’s Evolution Spikes Contrary Scientific Evidence, Promotes Its Own Brand of Religion This executive summary introduces the more extensive Viewer’s Guide. It is intended for those who are unable to read the entire guide, but it should not be considered a complete summary. Accuracy and objectivity are what we should be able to expect in a television documentary—especially in a science documentary on a publicly-funded network. But the PBS series Evolution distorts the scientific evidence and promotes a biased religious agenda, thereby betraying our expectations and violating PBS’s own official policies. There are many problems with the Evolution series. Although some segments are interesting, others just drag, and many are strangely irrelevant to the educational case they purport to be making. The series almost totally ignores the growing body of scientists who contend that Darwinism is in trouble with the evidence, and it repeatedly dismisses all critics of Darwinism as biblical literalists. This is not an objective documentary, but a one-sided piece of advocacy, unworthy of a publicly funded broadcast network. Major shortcomings of Evolution include: • Its failure to present accurately and fairly the scientific problems with the evidence for Darwinian evolution. • Its systematic omission of disagreements among evolutionary biologists themselves about central claims in the series, and its complete failure to report the views of scientists who dispute Darwinism at its roots. • Its excessive and biased focus on religion, despite its insistence to be about science rather than “the religious realm.” • Its inappropriate use by PBS, a government-funded agency, to organize and promote a controversial political action agenda. 10 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY A. Scientific Inaccuracy The failure to present accurately and fairly the scientific problems with the evidence for Darwinian evolution. “Evolution affects almost every aspect of human life,” claim the series producers, “from medicine to agriculture to a person’s choice of mate.” The seven episodes supposedly present “the underlying evidence” for this contention, yet some of the evidence presented in the series is known to be false, and the remaining evidence provides surprisingly little support for Darwin’s theory. We are told that “powerful evidence” for the common ancestry of all living things is the universality of the genetic code. The genetic code is the way DNA specifies the sequence of proteins in living cells, and Evolution tells us that the code is the same in all living things. But the series is badly out of date. Biologists have been finding exceptions to the universality of the genetic code since 1979, and more exceptions are turning up all the time. In its eagerness to present the “underlying evidence” for Darwin’s theory, Evolution ignores this awkward—and potentially falsifying—fact. Evolution also claims that all animals inherited the same set of body-forming genes from their common ancestor, and that this “tiny handful of powerful genes” is now known to be the “engine of evolution.” The principal evidence we are shown for this is a mutant fruit fly with legs growing out of its head. But the fly is obviously a hopeless cripple—not the forerunner of a new and better race of insects. And embryologists have known for years that the basic form of an ani- mal’s body is established before these genes do anything at all. In fact, the simi- larity of these genes in all types of animals is a problem for Darwinian theory: If flies and humans have the very same set of body-forming genes, why don’t flies give birth to humans? The Evolution series doesn’t breathe a word about this well- known paradox. Most of the remaining evidence in Evolution shows minor changes in existing species—such as the development of antibiotic resistance in bacteria. Antibiotic resistance

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