ON SCIENCE OR MYTH? Whymuch of what we teach about evolution is wrong Icons ofEvolution About the Author Jonathan Wells is no stranger to controversy. After spending two years in the U.S. Ar my from 1964 to 1966, he entered the University of California at Berkeley to become a science teacher. When the Army called him back from reser ve status in 1968, he chose to go to prison rather than continue to serve during the Vietnam War. He subsequently earned a Ph.D. in religious studies at Yale University, where he wrote a book about the nineteenth­ century Darwinian controversies. In 1989 he returned to Berkeley to earn a second Ph.D., this time in molecular and cell biology. He is now a senior fellow at Discovery Institute's Center for the Renewal of Science and Culture (www.discovery.org/ crsc) in Seattle, where he lives with his wife, two children, and mother. He still hopes to become a science teacher. Icons ofEvolution Science or Myth? Why Much oJWhat We TeachAbout Evolution Is Wrong JONATHAN WELLS ILLUSTRATED BY JODY F. SJOGREN IIIIDIDIREGNERY 11MPUBLISHING, INC. An EaglePublishing Company • Washington, IX Copyright © 2000 by Jonathan Wells All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or trans­ mitted in any form or by any means electronic or mechanical, including pho­ tocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system now known or to be invented, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who wishes to quote brief passages in connection with a review written for inclusion in a magazine, newspaper, or broadcast. First paperback edition 2002 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Wells, Jonathan. Icons of evolution: science or myth?: why much of what we teach about evolution is wrong/by Jonathan Wells. p. em. ISBN 0-895 26-200-2 1. Evolution (Biology) I. Title QH366.2.W4 5 2000 576.8-dc21 00-062544 Published in the United States by Regnery Publishing, Inc. An Eagle Publishing Company One Massachusetts Avenue, NW Washington, DC 20001 Visit us at www.regnery.com Distributed to the trade by National Book Network 4720-A Boston Way Lanham, MD 20706 Books are available in quantity for promotional or premium use. Write to Director of Special Sales, Regnery Publishing, Inc., One Massachusetts Avenue, NW, Washington, DC 20001, for information on discounts and terms or call (202) 216-0600. For Josie and Peter ---------------------- Theiconography <ifpersuasion strikes even closer than words to the core <ifour being. Every demagogue, every humorist, every advertising executive, has known and exploited the evocative power <if a well-chosen picture.... But many <ifour pictures are incarnations <if concepts masquerading as neutral descriptions <ifnature. These are the most potent sources <if conformity, since ideas passing as descriptions lead us to equate the tentative with the unambiguously factual. -Stephen Jay Gould, Ttondeiful Life (New York: W W Norton, 1989, p. 28) Contents Preface Xl Chapter 1 Introduction 1 Chapter 2 The Miller-Urey Experiment 9 Chapter 3 Darwin's Tree ofLife 29 Chapter 4 Homology in Vertebrate Limbs 59 Chapter 5 Haeckel's Embryos 81 Chapter 6 Archaeopteryx: The Missing Link 111 Chapter 7 Peppered Moths 137 Chapter 8 Darwin's Finches 159 Chapter 9 Four-Winged Fruit Flies 177 Chapter 10 Fossil Horses and Directed Evolution 195 Chapter 11 From Ape to Human: The Ultimate Icon 209 Chapter 12 Science or Myth? 229 Appendix I An Evaluation of Ten Recent Biology Textbooks 249 Appendix II Suggested WarningLabels for Biology Textbooks 259 Research �otes 261 Index 333 Preface uring my years as a physical science undergraduate and biol­ D ogy graduate student at the University of California, Berke­ ley, I believed almost everything I read in my textbooks. I knew that the books contained a few misprints and minor factual errors, and I was skeptical of philosophical claims that went beyond the evidence, but I thought that most of what I was being taught was substantially true. As I was finishing my Ph.D. in cell and developmental biology, however, I noticed that all of my textbooks dealing with evolu­ tionary biology contained a blatant misrepresentation: Drawings of vertebrate embryos showing similarities that were supposed to be evidence for descent from a common ancestor. But as an embry­ ologist I knew the drawings were false. Not only did they distort the embryos they purported to show, but they also omitted earlier stages in which the embryos look very different from each other. My assessment of the embryo drawings was confirmed in 1997, when British embryologist Michael Richardson and his colleagues published an article in the journal Anatomy and Embryology, com­ paring the textbook drawings with actual embryos. Richardson was subsequently quoted in the leading American journal Science as saying: "It looks like it's turning out to be one of the most famous fakes in biology." Xl xii • Preface Yet most people remain unaware of the truth, and even biol­ ogy textbooks published after 1997 continue to carry the faked drawings. Since then, I have discovered that many other textbook illustrations distort the evidence for evolution, too. At first, I found this hard to believe. How could so many textbooks contain so many misrepresentations for so long? Why hadn't they been noticed before? Then I discovered that other biologists have noticed most of them, and have even criticized them in print. But their criticisms have been ignored. The pattern is consistent, and suggests more than simple er ror. At the very least, it suggests that Darwinism encourages distortions of the truth. How many of these distortions are unconscious and how many are deliberate remains to be seen. But the result is clear: Students and the public are being systematically misinformed about the evidence for evolution. This book is about that evidence. To document it, I quote from the peer-reviewed work of hundreds of scientists, most of whom believe in Darwinian evolution. When I quote them, it is not because I want to make it sound as though they reject Darwin's theory; most of them do not. I quote them because they are experts on the evidence. Wherever possible, I have avoided technical language. For those who want more details, I include extensive notes at the end of the book referring to the scientific literature. The notes are not intended to be exhaustive (except where they list sources of quo­ tations), but to aid readers who want to pursue matters further. The chapters are followed by two appendices. The first critically evaluates ten widely-used biology textbooks, from the high school to the graduate level. The second suggests warning labels, like those used on packs of cigarettes, that schools might want to place in their teaching materials to alert students to the misrepresentations. Priface • xm Many people were kind enough to review and comment on the manuscript. Those who assisted me with technical details in the indicated sections or chapters include: Lydia McGrew (Intro­ duction); Dean Kenyon and Royal Tr uman (The Miller-Urey Experiment); John Wiester (the Cambrian explosion, in The Tr ee ofLife); W Ford Doolittle (molecular phylogeny, in The Tr ee of Life); Brian K. Hall (Homology); Ashby Camp and Alan Feduccia (Archaeopteryx); Theodore D. Sargent (Peppered Moths); To ny Jelsma (Darwin's Finches); Edward B. Lewis (genetics of triple mutants, in Four-winged Fruit Flies); and James Graham (human origins, in The Ultimate Icon).Listing these people here does not imply that they endorse my views. On the contrary, many of them will disagree with my conclusions and recommen­ dations. But for these fine people, science is the search for truth, and I am indebted to them for helping me get the facts straight. Of course, any errors that remain are my fault, not theirs. People who patiently read and commented on major portions of the manuscript include (in alphabetical order) To m Bethell, Roberta T. Bidinger, Bruce Chapman, William A. Dembski, David K. DeWolf, Mark Hartwig, Phillip E. Johnson, Paul A. Nelson, Martin Poenie, Jay Wesley Richards, Erica Rogers, Jody F. Sjogren (who also did most of the illustrations), Lucy P. Wells, and John G. West, Jr. Some of these readers helped me with scientific content, but all of them helped me to make the book readable. If there are still errors or rough spots, it is because I failed to follow all of their excellent advice. I am grateful for research assistance from many people, espe­ cially Winslow G. Gerrish and William Kvasnikoff, and from staff members of the Natural Sciences and Health SciencesLibraries at the University of Washington, Seattle. Research funding for the book was generously provided by the Center for the Renewal of xtv • Priface Science and Culture (www.crsc.org), a project of the Discovery Institute in Seattle. In addition to the people named above, other scientists at uni­ versities in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom helped with various parts of the manuscript, but prefer to remain anonymous. In several cases, they chose anonymity because their careers might suffer at the hands of people who strongly disagree with the conclusions of this book. For those scientists, public acknowledgment will have to wait. Seattle, Washington July 2000 CHAPTER I Introduction " cience is the search for the truth," wrote chemist Linus Paul- S ing, winner of two Nobel prizes. Bruce Alberts, current president of the U. S. National Academy of Sciences, agrees. "Science and lies cannot coexist," said Alberts in May 2000, quoting Israeli statesman Shimon Peres. "You don't have a scientific lie, and you cannot lie scientifically. Science is basi­ cally the search of truth." For most people, the opposite of science is myth.