ReligionCreationism
ReligionCreationism
March, 2003
As one with virtually the same education as Rev. Wells' it is only fitting that I should examine his book "Icons of Evolution."
No biologist worth her or his salt would deny that the fossil record is incomplete. At best, we have a sketchy idea. However, stating that an inaccuracy in general biology textbooks is proof that the modern theory of evolution must be wrong is beyond ludicrous. Yet this seems to be the reasoning of Rev. Jonathan Wells' book "Icons of Evolution: Science or Myth."
The real myth is that this book contains any real science, rather than the latest in a very long line of creationist propaganda disguised as real hard science. Call it creationism, intelligent design theory, whatever - it does not detract from the facts that modern science, especially that of the life sciences (biology; ecology) have hard evidential support. Those who would denounce evolution seem to consider these simple gaps in hard fact as if they had found a smoking gun..in the hands of God.
Rev. Wells is a member of "The Center for the Renewal of Science and Culture": a group always pushing the creationist agenda, despite years, even centuries of proof to the contrary. He touts the idea that "scientists support his book"; however, they are also creationists, and hardly real scientists.
As one might expect this book is filled cover to cover with faulty reasoning. There are so many flaws that I do not have space to list them here. However, I will touch upon the most obvious ones in this short review.
For one, true science simply doesn't work the way Rev. Wells apparently conceives it. Science starts with an idea, then moves forward in attempts to either a. show that it works, or b. find that it does not work, and adjust itself accordingly. Creationism begins with a belief i.e.: God is at the center of all things, and then works backward in an attempt to persuade the gullible of its truth. It does not change its ideology, nor it's outcome-that has already been decided.
As one who claims to have earned a second Doctorate in order to better destroy Darwinism, at least that his claim. Let us not forget that his undergraduate training was in theology from Rev. Moon and the Unification church. Rev. Wells believes that real scientists are not being truthful about evolutionary theory, and has spent many years trying to fight and destroy science fact. He claims to be objective, however, in the preface he states "During my years as a physical science undergraduate and biology graduate student at the University of California, Berkeley, I believed almost everything I read in my textbooks".
Although one might suggest that many science popularizing books, from folks like Carl Sagan, Martin Rees and Michio Kaku are written to provide scientific explanations to "lay readers." Rev. Well's book seems to be popular with fundamentalist Creationist groups, however, this should hardly be surprising: the best selling book in history is the Bible. It does not mean it is an accurate depiction of history. But are Rev. Wells comments accurate? At least the old time Creationists offered some sort of Biblical creation scenario---but Wells, unable to ignore 3 billion-year-old bacteria, cannot make the claim that the world was created 7,000 years ago. Nor can he state that what we see in the fossil record is the result of a global flood.
All that is offered in "Icons of Evolution" is an attack on evolution; no alternative hypothesis mentioned (other than of course we humans being created with a purpose by an Intelligent Designer) is even considered until the last few pages.
"Icons" shows quite clearly that Wells believes in some sort of Intelligent Designer theory, and is nothing more than an attempt to bring back the Biblical view of the purposeful creation of life by an Intelligent Designer. The ultimate agenda of course being the teaching of mythology (Intelligent Design) in the public schools. This amounts to no more than the teaching of creationism, as if it were a real science.
Anyone who can slough their way through this obviously heavily biased book will come to one of two conclusions: