Tom Woodward on the Impact of Icons of Evolution
On this ID The Future, host Andrew McDiarmid welcomes Dr. Tom Woodward to the podcast to share some of his memories of our longtime colleague Dr. Jonathan Wells, who recently passed away at 82 years old. Dr. Wells was one of the first fellows at Discovery Institute’s Center for Science and Culture, and his contributions over the last quarter century to the intelligent design movement have been formidable.
Tom Woodward has been ubiquitous in the unfolding culture war over intelligent design. With his book Doubts about Darwin, he established himself as the historian of the intelligent design movement. With his follow-up Darwin Strikes Back, he assumed the role of a gifted war correspondent, moving up and down the lines of engagement, tracing streams of intense and often ferocious rhetoric directed toward intelligent design proponents by panic-stricken Darwinists.
In this first half of the conversation, Dr. Woodward tells the story of Jonathan’s efforts to fight the battle over textbook misinformation with his 2000 book Icons of Evolution. When the book first came out, National Center for Science Education director Eugenie Scott said that Icons of Evolution would be a “royal pain in the fanny” for the evolutionist community. She was not wrong! Woodward talks about the reverberations caused by the book’s release and the waves of textbook reform it has brought about.
This is Part 1 of a two-part conversation. Look for Part 2 next!
Dig Deeper
- If you haven’t read Wells’s classic Icons of Evolution, now is the time!
- Watch Dr. Wells discuss Darwin’s tree of life argument in this 5-minute video clip: