In his book Icons of Evolution, Jonathan Wells explores many of the teachings of current evolutionary theory, and shows how preconceived notions and dogmatism are being substituted for science. The book explains that many of our “icons of evolution”—breakthrough discoveries—are not nearly as conclusive evidence as their proponents would have you believe. Peppered moths, for example, don’t normally rest on tree trunks, and the extra wings on four-winged fruit flies aren’t really working wings at all. Those are just two examples of evolutionary evidence that I remember from college biology, which Wells discredits in his book.
Are his accusations true? I don’t know enough about the science behind these things to say one way or another, but if Wells is even partly right, then evolutionary theory is resting on a house of sloppy science, half-truths, lies, and fabrications. He doesn’t say that there is no evidence for evolution—quite to the contrary. There are obvious examples of evolution in action within species. He points out, though, that we’ve yet to see concrete evidence of speciation—a new species emerging due to morphological change in an existing species. It does give one pause to think. Is it true that much of what high schools and colleges are teaching about Darwinian evolution is wrong? Do we really know so little about the origins of different species? Wells makes a very good case to show that we know a lot less than the Darwinists claim. I wouldn’t go quite so far, but you can bet that I’ll be looking a little more critically at the evidence from now on.