Evolution: Ten Questions to Ask Biology Teacher from Jonathan Wells
Jonathan Wells from the Discovery Institute Gives Students 10 Questions to Ask Your Biology Teacher About Evolution
Evolution Question for Biology Teacher #1: Origin of life. Why do textbooks claim that the 1953 Miller-Urey experiment shows how life's building blocks may have formed on the early Earth - when conditions on the early Earth were probably nothing like those used in the experiment, and the origin of life remains a mystery?
Evolution Question for Biology Teacher #2: Darwin's tree of life. Why don't textbooks discuss the "Cambrian explosion," in which all major animal groups appear together in the fossil record fully formed, instead of branching from a common ancestor - thus contradicting the evolutionary tree of life?
Evolution Question for Biology Teacher #3: Homology. Why do textbooks define homology as similarity due to common ancestry, then claim that it is evidence or common ancestry - a circular argument masquerading as scientific evidence?
Evolution Question for Biology Teacher #4: Vertebrate embryos. Why do textbooks use drawings of similarities in vertebrate embryos as evidence for their common ancestry - even though biologists have known for over a century that vertebrate embryos are not most similar in their early stages, and the drawings are faked?
Evolution Question for Biology Teacher #5: Archaeopteryx. Why do textbooks portray this fossil as the missing link between dinosaurs and modern birds - even though modern birds are probably not descended from it, and its supposed ancestors do not appear until millions of years after it?
Evolution Question for Biology Teacher #6: Peppered moths. Why do textbooks use pictures of peppered moths camouflaged on tree trunks as evidence for natural selection - when biologists have known since the 1980s that the moths don't normally rest on tree trunks, and all the pictures have been staged?
Evolution Question for Biology Teacher #7: Darwin's finches. Why do textbooks claim that beak changes in Galapagos finches during a severe drought can explain the origin of species by natural selection - even though the changes were reversed after the drought ended, and no net evolution occurred?
Evolution Question for Biology Teacher #8: Mutant fruit flies. Why do textbooks use fruit flies with an extra pair of wings as evidence that DNA mutations can supply raw materials for evolution - even though the extra wings have no muscles and these disabled mutants cannot survive outside the laboratory?
Evolution Question for Biology Teacher #9: Human origins. Why are artists' drawings of ape-like humans used to justify materialistic claims that we are just animals and our existence is a mere accident - when fossil experts cannot even agree on who our supposed ancestors were or what they looked like?
Evolution Question for Biology Teacher #10: Evolution a fact? Why are we told that Darwin's theory of evolution is a scientific fact - even though many of its claims are based on misrepresentations of the facts?
Are Jonathan Wells' biology questions regarding evolution valid?
Granted, there are holes within the evolution theory. However, Wells is a proponent of intelligent design. Both theories on the origins of man have faults, making the entire discussion subject to various personal influences and political/religious factors.
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10 Comments
Post a CommentThe biggest problem with the evolution myth is that there is no plausible explanation for the mechanism of evolution. Natural selection and mutation couldn't possibly cause a less complex creature to develop into a more complex one. All mutations are necessarily degenerative. The extreme lack of integrity and Atheist dogmatism is one of the greatest obstacles to belief in this myth. Anyone interested should go to my article "Ten Questionsw No Evolutionist Can Answer".
How about some real facts instead of theories? Fact #1: The Great Ape's DNA is 98% the same as Human DNA. Fact #2: The Chimpanzee's DNA is 93% the same as Human DNA. The best answer Creationist can have for this one is science is the work of the Devil so ignore it.
There are 3 options here- you think these are questions that prove a point; you genuinely are interested in someone answering these questions for you, or perhaps helping you understand them; or you just wanted to get people going. I'm curious to know which.
20 year old science textbooks are all that the target audience has access to
You might want to hold this list against a modern biology textbook. many of those complaints are valid for textbooks twenty years old but not for the ones used today.
Question number 2 has a problem with it, though most textbooks don't call the Cambrian explosion by that name, the time period is clearly discussed in advanced biology texts. Question number 4 no longer applies unless students are using very old textbooks. Those I've seen lately contain photos - so are you saying the photos are faked as well? Also, why are Christian Fundamentalists such as Wells more likely to believe in Social Darwinism than regular Christians or non-Christians if they think the theory of evolution is both wrong and evil?
for q1 so you know what the conditions of early earth were? if you believe the biblical account then any conditions proposed, other than miraculous, are ruled out. the experiment was designed to show that life or its building blocks could arise randomly, which it did.
for q2 read punctuated equilibriam.
for q3 you are talking of 2 different terms here, no doubt you know this and are attempting to confuse people. organisms may have like features, yet not be closely related, neither worms, snakes nor burtons legless lizards have legs. the lack of legs in these is due to adaptions suiting their similar lifestyles not direct ancestry or inheritance. however organism groups such as primates may share features such as fingers with fingerprints, opposable thumbs, and a high percentage of our dna, chromosomes and this IS because of shared ancestry
for q4 funny, i watched slideshows of various embryos, including humans, dogsand fish, developing. they all started the same, divided the
Here are some answers to the questions:
http://www.millerandlevine.com/ten-answers.html
http://www.ncseweb.org/icons/
Evolution, like Creationism, is simply a theory. Whether you heed the word of the Bible or the works of Darwin, the mystery has yet to be and may never fully be solved in detail. Whatever your beliefs, people will always try to poke holes in them. Man's argumentative nature never ceases to amaze me.
Some good questions.