“The Ultimate Gentleman”: Tom Woodward Remembers Jonathan Wells
On this ID The Future, author and professor Dr. Tom Woodward shares more 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.
In Part 2, Dr. Woodward kicks off by describing Dr. Wells’s skills as a communicator. His writing displayed “crazy levels of excellence,” and his dedication to the facts and gentlemanly manner impressed audiences wherever he spoke. When asked what his favorite Wells book is, Woodward singles out one of Wells’s lesser-known volumes, The Politically Incorrect Guide to Darwinism and Intelligent Design, a resource that became his textbook for teaching others about intelligent design.
Dr. Woodward also discusses Dr. Wells’s mind-boggling insights on the design beyond DNA in every nook and cranny of the cell. Woodward calls Wells a “Galileo figure” in intelligent design’s connection with epigenetics. “If the genome is like a little anthill,” says Woodward, “we’re looking now at Mount Everest in terms of the information content” in the cell. Wells sensed the importance of these additional layers of information in the cell, knowing they only strengthened the case for intelligent design at the heart of biological life.
This is Part 2 of a two-part conversation. Listen to Part 1.
Dig Deeper
- Get Dr. Wells’s books, read his articles, or enroll in his online video course at www.jonathanwells.org.
- Want a taste of Jonathan Wells’s sense of humor? Check out his classic response to critics of Icons of Evolution: