In 1999-2000, the Kansas State Board of Education was running their PR machine full-bore, trying to convince the public that the central organizing theory of modern biology and biotechnology was a dead idea. Creationist speaker after creationist speaker was flown into town to put on a dog and pony show. If you were a Young-Earth Creationist, you might have seen Duane Gish/Fred Whitehead nondebate. If you liked ID creationism, you might have seen Johnson or Wells. Back then, it was a very big tent.
Well, KCFS wasn't going to take things lying down, so we thought we'd prepare a few flyers to inform the audience to help them be ready for the creationists when they arrived. One of those flyers, "Jonathan Wells: Who is He, What is He Doing, and Why?" turned out to be pretty important.
Fast forward to Spring 2005, after the creationists had taken over the state board of education again and ran roughshod over the accepted processes of curricular review. They rejected the recommendations of the experts who developed very good standards and held a show trial, in which evolution would be dragged before them to answer the tough ID creationists' questions.
The details of the story are described elsewhere, but one of the "witnesses" was Jonathan Wells, who during his testimony claimed that he was not influenced by religion. Within the span of an hour, KCFS was able to print several copies of our Wells flyer to distribute to interested members of the press. The result was that in the following day's newspapers, Jonathan Wells testimony and his quotations were seen in juxtaposition to each other, making of his credibility to journalists what those in the know had deemed of it for years.
Find the flyer on the flipside. It's also available in
RTF format. Please note that the DI has since changed their name from the Center for the Renewal of Science and Culture to simply the Center for Science and Culture. So clearly it's no longer religious.
Jonathan Wells: Who Is He, What Is He Doing, and Why?
CRSC and the Wedge
Jonathan Wells is a Senior Fellow of the Center for Renewal of Science and Culture (CRSC), a branch of the Discovery Institute, a privately-funded, conservative think-tank in Seattle. The CRSC believes that science in general, and the theory of evolution in particular, are responsible for a materialistic, atheistic philosophy whose "destructive cultural consequences" in our society must be reversed.
The CRSC has a strategy called the Wedge for replacing science as it is currently practiced with "intelligent design", a theistic science which would allow supernatural causes.
The CRSC explicitly rejects the commonly-held view that God uses the evolutionary process to bring about His intended design. They also claim that science, by choosing to limit itself to natural explanations of the physical world, actively asserts that God does not exist. They reject the widely accepted belief that science investigates only part of the world, the physical, while our spiritual nature apprehends the moral, aesthetic, and religious aspects of the world.
By portraying evolution as "atheistic" and dismissing religious beliefs that acknowledge the limited role of natural science, the CRSC hopes to drive a wedge between those who acknowledge evolution and those who are religious. They insist that one must choose between being an atheistic supporter of evolution or a theistic opponent.
CRSC's long-term agenda is to extend "intelligent design" into all aspects of the culture - as their name indicates they hope to renew science and culture. They believe that science can, and should, investigate what constitutes "natural" ethics and morals, and that science can discover which behaviors transgress the intended purposes of human design. CRSC's long-range plan for achieving its Wedge Strategy can be found at
http://www.freethought-web.org/ctrl/archive/wedge_document.html.
Jonathan Wells
Jonathan Wells has been a member of the Discovery Institute since 1996. As early as the 1970's, as a member of the Reverend Sun Myung Moon's Unification Church, Wells became convinced that evolution was false because it conflicted with his church's belief that humankind was specifically designed by God. On the urging of Moon, Wells went to Yale to pursue a divinity degree, focusing his work on arguments against evolution. Later, in the early '90s, he went back to school at Berkeley to get a biology degree to bolster his credentials in fighting evolution. (See "In His Own Words" below). Soon after getting his degree, he began work at the Discovery Institute.
Wells' new book, "Icons of Evolution," is characteristic of the "debunking evolution" style common to anti-evolutionists. Like the young-earth creationists who claim scientific evidence for the flood or an eight-thousand year-old earth, Wells selectively looks at inconsistencies, disagreements, or errors in the scientific data. He ignores the vast body of knowledge that supports the topic he is attacking and fails to acknowledge that the scientific community itself has addressed the problems Wells is describing.
For instance, one of the "icons" that Wells mentions is Haeckle's embryos, an issue which has been thoroughly discussed in the scientific literature. Haeckel's main idea, that "ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny", has since been rejected. Wells' legitimate complaint that Haeckel's drawings continue to show up in textbooks reflects the fact that textbooks in all scientific fields are often some years behind current knowledge and often portray simplified popularizations that are necessarily incomplete. His use of these stories is a "straw man" tactic, using his incomplete version of the story to support his cause.
Conclusion
The purpose of Wells' book is drive the wedge a little deeper -- to open the door for his creationist "theory of intelligent design." Wells is using these "icon" stories to advance his anti-evolution beliefs -- beliefs that he has had for many years and are based not on science but on religious convictions. He selectively tells only part of the story about his "icons", and then jumps to the conclusion that evolution is unsubstantiated. Given his background, it is hard to consider this an objective, scientific approach. Wells' icons do not, as he claims, constitute a serious challenge to the theory of evolution.
In His Own Words
Information in this flier was gathered from a number of documents. Here is a sampling from the writings of Jonathan Wells.
In "Why I Went for a Second Ph.D.," by Jonathan Wells, (1996), Wells explains how he first decided on a lifelong goal of combating evolution.
He [Rev. Sun Myung Moon] frequently criticized Darwin's theory that living things originated without God's purposeful, creative activity...
Father's words, my studies, and my prayers convinced me that I should devote my life to destroying Darwinism, just as many of my fellow Unificationists had already devoted their lives to destroying Marxism. When Father chose me (along with about a dozen other seminary graduates) to enter a Ph.D. program in 1978, I welcomed the opportunity to prepare myself for battle."
http://www.tparents.org/library/unification/talks/wells/DARWIN.htm
This article on the Unification Church True Parents website, "Dr. Jonathan Wells Returns to UTS" [Unification Theological Seminary], (1997), tells more of the history of Well's fight against evolution.
The second Ph.D. in biology from the University of California at Berkeley has been invaluable in helping Dr. Wells to fulfill his goal. With his academic credentials, he is in a uniquely powerful position to attack Darwinian evolution and he has done so in many debates and discussions in recent years.
During his studies in biology, Dr. Wells' disagreement with Darwinism became even more fundamental.... [Wells explained], 'Darwin's theory excludes design and therefore logically excludes God. That's the source of its atheism.'
http://www.tparents.org/library/unification/publications/cornerst/cs970506/cst%5Fdr%2Djonathan.html
Members of the CRSC seldom describe their "theory" of how intelligent design creationism has happened. However, in the article "Evolution by Design," (1997), Wells describes his belief that the transitions between species have been designed by special creation and have not occurred by common descent, and that the ultimate purpose has been to build a suitable environment on Earth for the eventual creation of human beings.
[I] assume that the human species was planned before life began and that the history of life is the record of how this plan was implemented. ... Primitive organisms had to pave the way for the stable ecosystems we see today. A barren planet had to become a garden...
The first human baby presumably had to be nurtured by a creature very much like itself -- a humanlike primate. This creature, in turn, could only have been nurtured by a creature intermediate in some respects between it and a more primitive mammal. In other words, a plan for the emergence of human beings must have included something like the succession of prehistoric forms we find in the fossil record....
Although this process is superficially similar to the Darwinian notion of common descent, design theory differs from the latter in maintaining that predecessors need not be biological ancestors but only providers of essential nourishment and protection. ..."
http://www.tparents.org/Library/Unification/Talks/Wells/nat-select.htm
Kansas Citizens for Science is an organization of educators, parents, students, scientists and other Kansans who are concerned with raising the quality of science education in our state. To learn more about KCFS, or to join, see
http://www.kcfs.org.
26 Comments
Inoculated Mind · 31 March 2007
Very cool. I suggest that you add that recentlt, Wells has been trying to claim that he working on "ID Research," which refers to his failed Centromere "Turbine" idea. It is something that seems to often be brought up about him. When Philip Johnson came to Davis on December 1, 2006, he also referred to this research of Wells'.
However, Johnson did not refer to Wells by name. He said that one of the IDists, who has a PhD from Berkeley, was working on an ID "Theory of cancer." I kid you not! So we go from Wells' failed hypothesis that he never bothered to test with an experiment, and in the process of alluding to potential cancer implications, because both Centromeres and cancer have something to do with cell division, now we have claims of a scientific project to put together a theory of cancer based on Intelligent Design!
Wells may not try to claim he's doing cancer research, but it would be a good thing for people to know if he does.
David Stanton · 31 March 2007
Well I guess we all know what this means. We need to hire a top notch oncologist to go on a speaking tour telling everyone that ID is not used in treating cancer. In fact, there are no courses in ID in any medical school anywhere. That ought to prove once and for all that no one should believe in ID!
Torbjörn Larsson · 1 April 2007
Torbjörn Larsson · 1 April 2007
Oh, and I forgot. Isn't there now also a famous scene in "A Flock of Dodos", about creationists not finding these references that was supposedly 'in all textbooks'? Perhaps not Wells, but telling anyway, and good flyer material I would think.
Anton Mates · 1 April 2007
djlactin · 1 April 2007
QrazyQat · 1 April 2007
Another vote for changing the bit about the textbooks -- it's not accurate and in its inaccuracy gives support to Wells (and others') position. In fact it seems the only time that Haeckel's drawings do "show up in textbooks" is when they are used as an example of a failed hypothesis which has been refuted -- much as you might have a picture of the Piltdown remains in a textbook.
Ron Okimoto · 1 April 2007
Wells is also infamous in Ohio. He was part of the Discovery Institute's dog and pony show infront of the Ohio State board where both Meyer and Wells lied to the board about ID being science. Meyer ended up giving the Ohio board the "teach the controversy" scam instead of anything to teach about ID. The Ohio rubes blew the "teach the controversy" scam by using Wells' book Icons of Evolution as a source for the material in their first draft of the "Teach the Controversy" model lesson plan. They were unfortunate enough to take the Wellsian lie about "no moths on tree trunks" directly out of Icons and looked stupid doing it. Tree trunks and Wells' name and book were dropped out of later drafts, but the damage had already been done.
Wells' book needs stickers warning any rube that they have to carefully verify the junk in the book before using it for public school lesson plans. We pretty much have Wells to thank for linking the dishonesty of the Discovery Institute with teach the controversy and whatever they are calling the new scam now. When the new scam goes to court, I'm sure that that first draft of the Ohio model lesson plan will be going there too.
Steve Greene · 4 April 2007
Science Avenger · 4 April 2007
raven · 4 April 2007
Science Avenger · 4 April 2007
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Starving4Truth · 10 November 2007
For someone looking for a repudiation of Jonathan Wells' point of view, this site is empty. You have presented no arguments. His religious views? Try maybe some logical challenges to Intelligent Design and also his critiques of Darwinism + claims of shoddy science. You convince only the feeble-minded with this garbage. But whatever...
BCHort · 2 February 2009
I love it when scientists seeking "truth" and "answers" are so quick to attack any possiblilty that there is an emerging theory that attempts to explain some of the vast mysterious biological processes of our world. Intelligent design does nothing more than pose questions about the CHANCE that things in nature were created or designed for a purpose. Challenging the status quo has always been our civilizations way of advancing knowledge....
Stanton · 2 February 2009
Dave Luckett · 3 February 2009
There is no "emerging theory", you jackass. You are repeating a gross fraud.
A theory must be specific. It must have explaining power, and this must involve a chain of causation that can be further specified and observed. It must have predictive power, inductive and extrapolative. It must be substantiated by actual evidence obtained from the observation of nature. The (current synthesis of the) Theory of Evolution, first formally proposed by Charles Darwin and enormously reinforced and particularised by genetics and biochemistry over the last century, has these properties.
Intelligent design does not. It consists solely of an assertion: "some aspects of some living things were designed". That's it. That's all of it. The "evidence" it advances consists solely of objections to the Theory of Evolution like the ones above, all of which have been thoroughly refuted, as this one has been. It presents no evidence of its own, it has no predictive power, and it is missing causation, or any corroborative detail whatsoever.
In other words, it's not a theory, and absent these requirements, will never become one.
BCHort · 3 February 2009
Mr. Luckett if you are looking for a chain of causation I would direct you to some of the work being done in irreducible Complexity (IC) by Dr. Behe. The work being done on the bacterial flagellum using gene knock-out methods in an inductive and extrapolative method to show the limitations of genetic mutations. Explaining power is very important as you have noted and I would deduct from your determination that you have "explained" how life can originate under the Darwinian theory. Likewise the theory of evolution is far from being, as you call it, specific. There is nothing specific about how life began via evolutionary processes. All IDists are saying is that we believe nature is better explained by looking at from a design standpoint rather than a series of random chance and billions of years.
I sense the frustration in your tone, especially in calling me a jackass. I would let you know that in the future when you are trying to develop your...point, it would be wise to leave base and crude insults out of the argument. You only belittle yourself and those along with you.
Dave Luckett · 3 February 2009
I'll call a jackass a jackass, and you are a ripe one. Behe's blather was exploded years ago. He is doing no work whatsoever on any sort of research at all, nor has in over a decade. The bacterial flagellum has been shown to be a good example of exaption, is not "irreducibly complex", and its precursor structures are well-known. This is nothing more than Behe blowing smoke, and was exposed as such in elaborate detail on the stand in open court in Dover, PA. And before you pick the clotting cascade, that one is the same. Evolution explains these, and all other living structures and processes, very well indeed.
What "explanation" is trotted out by intelligent design? "Sometime, somehow, an unknown intelligent agent carried out an unknown operation for an unknown purpose by unknown means, a process for which there is no evidence whatsoever." Some explanation. And you complain about evolution not being specific! What hypocrisy!
Not satisfied with this, you then pull out the usual creotard farrago of falsehood. The origin of life is not understood, so therefore there's no truth to evolution. Evolution is "random chance". Ignorant, foolish and illogical, long ago exposed for the nonsense it is. Get an education, or at least find some new lines. These are ancient, but more importantly, they are palpably false.
fnxtr · 3 February 2009
go dave.
BCHort · 3 February 2009
First off I am not saying that evolution is a complete falsehood, I am not refuting common ancestory or the fact that organisms change over time. I am, however, saying that natural selection alone is not sufficient enough to explain higher intelligence. I understand Behe was refuted in court, however, his work in irreducible complexity is a theory to explain intelligence and complexity in life.
I know that ID cannot prove the origin of life... but neither can you Mr. Luckett. You say in reference to ID, “Sometime, somehow, an unknown intelligent agent carried out an unknown operation for an unknown purpose by unknown means, a process for which there is no evidence whatsoever.” Well I propose to you "Sometime, somehow, somewhere, a series of highly improbable biological processes occured to create the order, complexity, and intelligence we find in nature today". Evolution uses time and chance to explain life and IDists say chance is not apart of the equation.
If you do not mind I have a personal question to ask. Why do you become enraged that people like myself share a different idea about science and life?
GuyeFaux · 3 February 2009
mrg (iml8) · 3 February 2009
Richard Simons · 3 February 2009
mrg (iml8) · 3 February 2009
mrg (iml8) · 3 February 2009