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In a couple of weeks, The Politically Incorrect Guide to Darwinism and Intelligent Design will be released. I love the fact that the series is called the P.I.G. series, and they have a little pig on the cover. It should be good. Also interesting is the promo web page for the book, which includes the author’s pre-emptive defense againt ad hominem and other attacks he expects. Of course, he experienced the same when he released his somewhat scholarly Icons of Evolution a few years back.
Also of interest is his article Inherit the Spin, where he responds to the National Center for Science Education (NCSE), a liberal pro-evolution organization. He originally gave a list of 10 questions to ask your biology teacher about evolution, and after the NCSE responded to this list (negatively), he responded to their spin.
While there are evolutionary excuses responses to these problems, Wells is right to challenge the continued use in textbooks of
- The Miller-Urey Experiment – this attempt at biogenesis is interesting, but has many problems, including the the fact that most scientists no longer believe that the early environment matched the conditions simulated in this experiment. Of course, most of the other problems with this experiment, including the problem of the racemic mixture of proteins, and the fact that light/lightning is initially needed to form the proteins, then it must be eliminated for the reaction to proceed, etc.
- The Phylogenetic Trees – Not only are these full of gaps with no fossil evidence and laughable if not non-existent intermediates, they are mostly based on morphology, which of course, does not really show inheritance at all. Genetic studies are making some significant changes to these trees, and even then, are open to significant interpretation based on assumptions. While trees are not a bad idea, and are consistent with the creationist "kinds" (less technical post on kinds), when we parade these trees as fact rather than hypothetical speculation, we are doing science a disservice.
Ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny – How long will people believe such discredited nonsense, that human embryos "recapitulate their evolutionary history" during development? For example, it used to be thought that they go through a "fish stage" where they have gill-like structures. Even though science has dismissed this idea, it still appears in textbooks, along with the faked drawings of Ernst Haeckel. - Peppered Moths and Natural Selection – this "wonderful" example of natural selection turns out to have been staged for the photos – the moths don’t usually rest on trees.
- Darwin’s Finches – Evolution or Adaptation? – So they tell you that during a drought, the finches beaks changed. What they don’t tell you is that after the drought, the beaks reverted back. Why? Because they didn’t change into something more advanced (evolution), they merely adapted around a genetic norm – they reverted back to the mean after the abnormal circumstance, they did NOT permanently change. No new genetic information going on here, just selection.
- Artist’s Concepts of "Primitive Humans" – It is crazy how, based on a few bones (that are rarely actually seen by most paleontologists – rather, they are looking at casts, since the originals are squirreled away), an artist will draw some ape-like human, and then students are shown these hypothetical guesses, thinking the pictures are fact. One classic is the story of original drawings of "Lucy"
Man, just one more book on my amazon wish list.
