Icons of Evolution

"Science is the search for the truth," wrote chemist Linus Pauling, winner of two Nobel prizes. Like all scientific theories, Darwinian evolution must be continually compared with the evidence (the truth) found in the fossil record and elsewhere. If a theory does not fit the evidence, it must be reevaluated or abandoned--otherwise it is not science, but myth.

In the last post (Darwinian Frauds) I related some of the claims used by Darwinists to support their theory. It is regrettable that every case was a scientific fraud. On that subject, Israeli statesman Shimon Peres wrote: "You don't have a scientific lie, and you cannot lie scientifically. Science is basically the search of truth."

The frauds that have been perpetrated in the name of evolution are so numerous that one would need a book to describe them all. Indeed, several books have done just that and a good one is Icons of Evolution by Jonathan Wells (Regnery, 2000). Following are some excerpts.

When asked to list the evidence for Darwinian evolution, most people--including most biologists--give the same set of examples, because all of them learned biology from the same few textbooks. The most common examples are (The first two examples were discussed in my 12/25 post):

1. Pictures of similarities in early embryos showing that amphibians, reptiles, birds and human beings are all descended from a fish-like animal;

2. Archaeopteryx, a fossil bird with teeth in its jaws and claws on its wings, the missing link between ancient reptiles and modern birds;

3. A laboratory flask containing a simulation of the earth's primitive atmosphere, in which electric sparks produce the chemical building-blocks of living cells;

4. The evolutionary tree of life, reconstructed from a large and growing body of fossil and molecular evidence;

5. Similar bone structures in a bat's wing, a porpoise's flipper, a horse's leg, and a human hand that indicate their evolutionary origin in a common ancestor;

6. Peppered moths on tree trunks, showing how camouflage and predatory birds produced the most famous example of evolution by natural selection;

7. Darwin's finches on the Galapagos Islands, thirteen separate species that diverged from one when natural selection produced differences in their beaks, and that inspired Darwin to formulate his theory of evolution;

8. Fruit flies with an extra pair of wings, showing that genetic mutations can provide the raw materials for evolution;

9. A branching-tree pattern of horse fossils that refutes the old-fashioned idea that evolution was directed; and

10. Drawings of ape-like creatures evolving into humans, showing that we are just animals and that our existence is merely a by-product of purposeless natural causes.

These examples are so frequently used as evidence for Darwin's theory that most of them have been called "icons of evolution." Yet all of them, in one way or another, misrepresent the truth. Some of these icons of evolution present assumptions or hypotheses as though they were observed facts; in Stephen Jay Gould's words, they are "incarnations of concepts masquerading as neutral descriptions of nature." Others conceal raging controversies among biologists that have far-reaching implications for evolutionary theory. Worst of all, some are directly contrary to well-established scientific evidence.

A "science" supported by lies, half-truths and obfuscation that needs judicial protection from public scrutiny in the educational system is a myth. Evolutionary Biology really needs to clean up its act.