Jump to content

Jonathan Wells (intelligent design advocate): Difference between revisions

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Browse history interactively
← Previous editNext edit →
Content deleted Content added
VisualWikitext
FeloniousMonk (talk | contribs)
18,409 edits
rv CyberAnth's version has major, obvious NPOV issues. WP:BLP does not trump WP:NPOV, Make your case on talk
match description to what Wells actuall said
Line 9: Line 9:
critiqued the presentation of [[evolution in public education]] in American schools.<ref>"Several of them grossly exaggerate or distort the truth, while others are patently false. Yet they are found year after year in almost all textbooks dealing with evolutionary theory, and they invariably accompany other material promoting that theory. When someone points out that the textbook examples misrepresent the facts, Darwinists don’t rush to correct them. Instead, they rush to defend them." [http://www.discovery.org/scripts/viewDB/index.php?command=view&id=1180]</ref>
critiqued the presentation of [[evolution in public education]] in American schools.<ref>"Several of them grossly exaggerate or distort the truth, while others are patently false. Yet they are found year after year in almost all textbooks dealing with evolutionary theory, and they invariably accompany other material promoting that theory. When someone points out that the textbook examples misrepresent the facts, Darwinists don’t rush to correct them. Instead, they rush to defend them." [http://www.discovery.org/scripts/viewDB/index.php?command=view&id=1180]</ref>


Many of Wells views run counter to predominant scientific views. Wells rejects [[evolution]]:
Many of Wells views run counter to predominant scientific views. Wells rejects some common teachings about [[evolution]]:
{{quotation|"Biological evolution is the theory that all living things are modified descendants of a common ancestor that lived in the distant past. It claims that you and I are descendants of ape-like ancestors, and that they in turn came from still more primitive animals...much of what we teach about evolution is wrong. This fact raises troubling questions about the status of Darwinian evolution. If the icons of evolution are supposed to be our best evidence for Darwin's theory, and all of them are false or misleading, what does that tell us about the theory? Is it science, or myth?" --Jonathan Wells <cite>[[Icons of Evolution: Science or Myth?]]</cite><ref>http://www.iconsofevolution.org/intro/ Introduction, Icons of Evolution] Jonathan Wells.</ref>}}
{{quotation|"Biological evolution is the theory that all living things are modified descendants of a common ancestor that lived in the distant past. It claims that you and I are descendants of ape-like ancestors, and that they in turn came from still more primitive animals...much of what we teach about evolution is wrong. This fact raises troubling questions about the status of Darwinian evolution. If the icons of evolution are supposed to be our best evidence for Darwin's theory, and all of them are false or misleading, what does that tell us about the theory? Is it science, or myth?" --Jonathan Wells <cite>[[Icons of Evolution: Science or Myth?]]</cite><ref>http://www.iconsofevolution.org/intro/ Introduction, Icons of Evolution] Jonathan Wells.</ref>}}

⚫
He also rejects the prevailing view of the [[scientific community]] that the human immunodeficiency virus ([[HIV]]) is the sole cause of acquired immune deficiency syndrome ([[AIDS]]).<ref name=group>[http://www.virusmyth.net/aids/group.htm The Group for the Scientific Reappraisal of the HIV-AIDS Hypothesis]</ref><ref>[http://www.seattlest.com/archives/2006/09/08/undercover_at_the_discovery_institute.php|Seattlest.com on the DI "His personal peculiarities include membership in the Moonies and support for AIDS reappraisal - the theory that the HIV is not the primary cause of AIDS"]</ref><ref>[http://www.aidstruth.org/strange-bedfellows.php] "some leading lights of anti-evolution Intelligent Design theory, including ID godfather Phillip Johnson and Moonie Jonathan Wells, have joined the AIDS denialist camp." (originally from the Vancouver Sun - June 17, 2006 </ref><ref name="science_yet">[http://law.wustl.edu/WULQ/83-1/p%201%20Brauer%20Forrest%20Gey%20book%20pages.pdf Is It Science Yet?: Intelligent Design Creationsim And The Constitution] Matthew J. Brauer, Barbara Forrest, Steven G. Gey. Washington University Law Quarterly, Volume 83, Number 1, 2005. (PDF file)</ref> Both intelligent design and [[AIDS reappraisal]] are considered [[pseudoscience]] by the [[scientific community]].
He also proposed a thorough reappraisal of the existing evidence for and against the hypothesis
⚫
that [[HIV]] causes [[AIDS]].<ref name=group>[http://www.virusmyth.net/aids/group.htm The Group for the Scientific Reappraisal of the HIV-AIDS Hypothesis]</ref><ref>[http://www.seattlest.com/archives/2006/09/08/undercover_at_the_discovery_institute.php|Seattlest.com on the DI "His personal peculiarities include membership in the Moonies and support for AIDS reappraisal - the theory that the HIV is not the primary cause of AIDS"]</ref><ref>[http://www.aidstruth.org/strange-bedfellows.php] "some leading lights of anti-evolution Intelligent Design theory, including ID godfather Phillip Johnson and Moonie Jonathan Wells, have joined the AIDS denialist camp." (originally from the Vancouver Sun - June 17, 2006 </ref><ref name="science_yet">[http://law.wustl.edu/WULQ/83-1/p%201%20Brauer%20Forrest%20Gey%20book%20pages.pdf Is It Science Yet?: Intelligent Design Creationsim And The Constitution] Matthew J. Brauer, Barbara Forrest, Steven G. Gey. Washington University Law Quarterly, Volume 83, Number 1, 2005. (PDF file)</ref> Both intelligent design and [[AIDS reappraisal]] are considered controversial.
<ref name="science_yet"/>
<ref name="science_yet"/>
<ref>National Science Teachers Association, a professional association of 55,000 science teachers and administrators in a 2005 press release: "We stand with the nation's leading scientific organizations and scientists, including Dr. John Marburger, the president's top science advisor, in stating that intelligent design is not science.…It is simply not fair to present pseudoscience to students in the science classroom." [http://www.nsta.org/pressroom&news_story_ID=50794 National Science Teachers Association Disappointed About Intelligent Design Comments Made by President Bush] National Science Teachers Association Press Release [[August 3]] [[2005]]
<ref>National Science Teachers Association, a professional association of 55,000 science teachers and administrators in a 2005 press release: "We stand with the nation's leading scientific organizations and scientists, including Dr. John Marburger, the president's top science advisor, in stating that intelligent design is not science.…It is simply not fair to present pseudoscience to students in the science classroom." [http://www.nsta.org/pressroom&news_story_ID=50794 National Science Teachers Association Disappointed About Intelligent Design Comments Made by President Bush] National Science Teachers Association Press Release [[August 3]] [[2005]]

Revision as of 21:22, 3 February 2007

File:Jonwells.jpg
Jonathan Wells

John Corrigan "Jonathan" Wells, Ph.D., is an author, a prominent promoter of intelligent design and opponent of evolution, which Wells and intelligent design proponents often refer to as "Darwinism."[1][2][3]

Wells holds a PhD from University of California, Berkeley in Molecular and Cell Biology and a PhD in Religious Studies from Yale University. He is a Fellow of the Discovery Institute's Center for Science and Culture.[4].

In Icons of Evolution: Science or Myth?, argued that "Darwinian theory" conflicts with the evidence and critiqued the presentation of evolution in public education in American schools.[5]

Many of Wells views run counter to predominant scientific views. Wells rejects some common teachings about evolution:

"Biological evolution is the theory that all living things are modified descendants of a common ancestor that lived in the distant past. It claims that you and I are descendants of ape-like ancestors, and that they in turn came from still more primitive animals...much of what we teach about evolution is wrong. This fact raises troubling questions about the status of Darwinian evolution. If the icons of evolution are supposed to be our best evidence for Darwin's theory, and all of them are false or misleading, what does that tell us about the theory? Is it science, or myth?" --Jonathan Wells Icons of Evolution: Science or Myth?[6]

He also proposed a thorough reappraisal of the existing evidence for and against the hypothesis that HIV causes AIDS.[7][8][9][10] Both intelligent design and AIDS reappraisal are considered controversial. [10] [11]

Background

After dropping out of school and driving a taxi in New York City, Wells was drafted into the United States Army, serving from 1964 to 1966. He returned to college (UC Berkelely), but was ordered to reserve duty. By that time a critic of the Vietnam War, he refused to report for duty, and was incarcerated for 18 months in the United States Disciplinary Barracks in Leavenworth, Kansas.[12]

In the 1970s Wells joined the Unification Church, founded by Sun Myung Moon. Wells graduated from the church's Unification Theological Seminary in 1978 with a Masters in Religious Education.[13]

He has written extensively on Unification theology, and since 1981 has taught from time to time at the Unification Theological Seminary[14]. He then earned a PhD in Religious Studies at Yale University in 1986, and another PhD in Molecular and Cell Biology from the University of California at Berkeley in 1994.[13]

Wells has said that he was a developmental biology researcher as a post-doctorate candidate at UC Berkeley. His post-doctorate at Berkeley was an unpaid title arranged by former UC Berkeley law professor and father of the intelligent design movement, Phillip E. Johnson.[15] Shortly after receiving his doctorate Wells joined Johnson at the Discovery Institute.[16]

Wells now serves as a fellow at the Discovery Institute's Center for Science and Culture, hub of the intelligent design movement and at the International Society for Complexity, Information and Design.[17]

Opposition to Evolution

Wells has identified his religious doctoral studies at Yale as focusing on the "root of the conflict between Darwinian evolution and Christian doctrine". Wells described his study focus at Yale as encompassing the whole of Christian theology within a focus of Darwinian controversies. Wells has said of the time, "I learned (to my surprise) that biblical chronology played almost no role in the 19th-century controversies, since most theologians had already accepted geological evidence for the age of the earth and re-interpreted the days in Genesis as long periods of time. Instead, the central issue was design."[18]

Sun Myung Moon's Unification Church funded Wells' doctorate studies at University of California, Berkeley.[19] Wells, in an essay said learning how to "destroy Darwinism", the term he and design proponents use to mean evolution[1][2][3] which is opposed by Moon's Unification Church, was his motive for seeking his second Ph.D. at Berkeley:

"Father's [Sun Myung Moon'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." --Jonathan Wells, Darwinism: Why I Went for a Second Ph.D. [20]

Wells' statement and others like it are viewed by the scientific community as evidence that Wells lacks proper scientific objectivity and mischaracterizes evolution by ignoring and misrepresenting the evidence supporting it while pursuing an agenda promoting notions supporting his religious beliefs in its stead.[21][22][23][24][25] The Discovery Institute has stated in response that "Darwinists have resorted to attacks on Dr. Wells’s religion"[26].

Icons of Evolution

Main article: Icons of Evolution
Icons of Evolution

In 2000, Wells wrote the intelligent design book Icons of Evolution, in which Wells discusses ten examples which he says show that many of the most commonly accepted arguments supporting evolution are invalid. The book's title is a reference to the famous picture "March of Progress." This drawing, by Rudolph Zallinger, was published in the Time-Life book Early Man in 1970 and shows a sequence of primates walking from left to right, starting with an ape on the left, progressing through a series of hominids, and finishing with a modern Cro-Magnon male on the right. A version of the drawing is on the cover of Wells's book, and Wells describes it as the "ultimate icon" of evolution.

Wells's assertions and conclusion both in and outside his book are rejected by the scientific community.

In 2005, Wells published a paper entitled "Do Centrioles Generate a Polar Ejection Force?" in Rivista di Biology/Biology Forum.[27] The Discovery Institute lists this paper as a "featured article" on their list of "Peer-Reviewed & Peer-Edited Scientific Publications Supporting the Theory of Intelligent Design."[28] Rivista di Biology/Biology Forum is edited by Italian creationist Giuseppe Sermonti, has been criticized for its publication of research outside the general scientific consensus, and is viewed by some as a pseudoscientific journal.[29] Wells' paper "assumes that [ centrioles ] are holistically designed to be turbines", and goes on to develop a hypothesis of how they work.[30]

Also in 2005, Wells attended the Kansas evolution hearings, which were boycotted by mainstream scientists. Wells asserted that "I became convinced that the Darwinian theory is false because it conflicts with the evidence." When questioned about the age of the earth, he replied "I think the earth is probably four-and-a-half billion or so years old. ... But the truth is I have not looked at the evidence. And I have become increasingly suspicious of the evidence that is presented to me and that's why at this point I would say probably it's four-and-a-half billion years old, but I haven't looked at the evidence."[31]

AIDS reappraisal

Wells, along with fellow Discovery Institute member Phillip E. Johnson, questions the mainstream scientific view that HIV has been conclusively proved to be the sole cause of AIDS and signed the The Group for the Scientific Reappraisal of the HIV-AIDS Hypothesis AIDS reappraisal petition calling for a "reappraisal of the evidence" for the connection between HIV and AIDS.[7]

Publications

Articles in peer-reviewed journals

Books

References

  1. ^ a b "In order to advance his thesis, Wells has to convey the idea that "Darwinism" pits itself against traditional Christianity: to allow pupils to learn it is to give them up to atheism, decadence, liberalism and to lose the culture war. Note that Wells does not wage war against evolution. In fact, he is at pains to make it (somewhat) clear that he wages war against "Darwinism", which in context might sound like the sort of thing any sensible Christian would want to guard against. Unfortunately, Wells isn’t exactly clear what he means by Darwinism as opposed to evolution. Easily, one of the prominent faults of Wells’s screed is a pervasive confusion between terms. Words, like "Darwinism" and “Traditional Christianity”, seem to mean whatever Wells wants them to mean for that specific sentence. In many cases words are used without regard for his own stated definitions and usually without regard to usage elsewhere in his book. There are several possible reasons for this confusion in terms. First, Wells confusion may be by design. I have argued elsewhere that creationists intend to confuse their audiences when they argue. Second, if you review the acknowledgements page, you’ll read how Wells used many authors to help him prepare this text. It is possible that Wells’s editorship was so insufficient that he allowed a term that makes up part of the book’s very title to have a flexible meaning. My suspicion is that there was both disparity between the understanding of key terms by different authors as well as an intention to confuse." The Politically Incorrect Guide to Darwinism and Intelligent Design Review: Why Should Words Have Meanings? (Chapter 1) Burt Humburg. The Panda's Thumb, August 26, 2006.
  2. ^ a b "As I stated earlier, Johnson, Dembski, and their associates have assumed the task of destroying 'Darwinism,' 'evolutionary naturalism,' 'scientific materialism,' 'methodological naturalism,' 'philosophical naturalism,' and other 'isms' they use as synonyms for evolution." Barbara Forrest’s Letter to Simon Blackburn Barbara Forrest. March 2000. Quoted in Rebuttal to Reports by Opposing Expert Witnesses William A. Dembski. May 14 2005
  3. ^ a b "In [Berlinski's] latest Commentary essay on 'Darwinism' - as it is often called by those who do not know much evolutionary biology..." Darwinism Versus Intelligent Design Paul Gross. Commentary Magazine, Vol. 115, March 2003, No. 3
  4. ^ Biography, Jonathan Wells Discovery Institute
  5. ^ "Several of them grossly exaggerate or distort the truth, while others are patently false. Yet they are found year after year in almost all textbooks dealing with evolutionary theory, and they invariably accompany other material promoting that theory. When someone points out that the textbook examples misrepresent the facts, Darwinists don’t rush to correct them. Instead, they rush to defend them." [1]
  6. ^ http://www.iconsofevolution.org/intro/ Introduction, Icons of Evolution] Jonathan Wells.
  7. ^ a b The Group for the Scientific Reappraisal of the HIV-AIDS Hypothesis
  8. ^ on the DI "His personal peculiarities include membership in the Moonies and support for AIDS reappraisal - the theory that the HIV is not the primary cause of AIDS"
  9. ^ [2] "some leading lights of anti-evolution Intelligent Design theory, including ID godfather Phillip Johnson and Moonie Jonathan Wells, have joined the AIDS denialist camp." (originally from the Vancouver Sun - June 17, 2006
  10. ^ a b Is It Science Yet?: Intelligent Design Creationsim And The Constitution Matthew J. Brauer, Barbara Forrest, Steven G. Gey. Washington University Law Quarterly, Volume 83, Number 1, 2005. (PDF file)
  11. ^ National Science Teachers Association, a professional association of 55,000 science teachers and administrators in a 2005 press release: "We stand with the nation's leading scientific organizations and scientists, including Dr. John Marburger, the president's top science advisor, in stating that intelligent design is not science.…It is simply not fair to present pseudoscience to students in the science classroom." National Science Teachers Association Disappointed About Intelligent Design Comments Made by President Bush National Science Teachers Association Press Release August 3 2005
    Defending science education against intelligent design: a call to action Journal of Clinical Investigation 116:1134-1138 American Society for Clinical Investigation, 2006.
    Echoes of Lysenko: State-Sponsored Pseudoscience in South Africa University of Cape Town, Centre for Social Science Research. (PDF file)
    Myers, PZ (2006-06-18). "Ann Coulter: No evidence for evolution?". Pharyngula. scienceblogs.com. Retrieved 2006-11-18.
    National Association of Biology Teachers Statement on Teaching Evolution
    IAP Statement on the Teaching of Evolution Joint statement issued by the national science academies of 67 countries, including the United Kingdom's Royal Society (PDF file)
    From the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the world's largest general scientific society: 2006 Statement on the Teaching of Evolution (PDF file), AAAS Denounces Anti-Evolution Laws
  12. ^ "I eventually dropped out of school and drove a taxicab in New York City until receiving my draft notice in 1964. After spending two years in the U. S. Army, I transferred to the University of California at Berkeley. By then I was a critic of the Vietnam War, and when the Army called me back as a reservist in 1967 I refused. I was arrested by military police, court-martialed, and sent to Leavenworth. All together, I spent a year and half in prison." [3]
  13. ^ a b "NNDB:Jonathan Wells". NNDB. 2006. Retrieved 2006-12-28.
  14. ^ Jonathan Wells (1997) [Theological Witch-Hunt: The NCC Critique of the Unification Church, Journal of Unification Studies hosted at www.tparents.org
  15. ^ An Introduction to Intelligent Design Peter Gegenheimer. Department of Molecular Biosciences, University of Kansas-Lawrence. Associate Professor of Molecular Biosciences. Lawrence KS USA
  16. ^ Jonathan Wells, Notable Names Database
  17. ^ Biography, Jonathan Wells Discovery Institute
  18. ^ Cite error: The named reference darwinism was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  19. ^ The new Monkey Trial Michelle Goldberg. Salon, January 10, 2005.
  20. ^ Darwinism: Why I Went for a Second Ph.D. Jonathan Wells. The Words of the Wells Family
  21. ^ Mything the point: Jonathan Wells’ bad faith John S. Wilkins. The Panda's Thumb March 30, 2004.
  22. ^ Jonathan Wells knows nothing about development, part I PZ Myers, Pharyngula, January 24, 2007.
  23. ^ Jonathan Wells knows nothing about development, part II PZ Myers, Pharyngula, January 25, 2007.
  24. ^ PZ Myers is such a LIAR! PZ Myers, Pharyngula, November 3, 2006.
  25. ^ Whereby Jon Wells is smacked down by an undergrad in the Yale Daily News Tara C. Smith. Aetiology, January 31, 2007.
  26. ^ The Real Truth about Jonathan Wells from the Discovery Institute.
  27. ^ "Do Centrioles Generate a Polar Ejection Force?"
  28. ^ Peer-Reviewed & Peer-Edited Scientific Publications Supporting the Theory of Intelligent Design (Annotated) by the Discovery Institute
  29. ^ Revisiting Revista
  30. ^ http://www.pandasthumb.org/archives/2006/08/wells_vs_tiny_f.html
  31. ^ Wells testimony Kansas evolution hearings.

Official/supportive

Neutral

Criticism

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Jonathan_Wells_(intelligent_design_advocate)&oldid=105413245"