Jonathan Wells

Today’s episode of ID the Future comes from a Berkeley, California symposium honoring the recently deceased Phillip Johnson. Biologist Jonathan Wells recalls how he met Johnson and the huge influence he had on Wells’ own research and writing. Then philosopher of biology Paul Nelson reminisces on Johnson’s keen intellect, his eye for hidden assumptions, his awareness that “we are not of our own devising,” and on the mountain range of new knowledge opening up to us in biology, one that scientists knew little about even 30 years ago and that Nelson says points strongly away from Darwin’s idea of common descent.

On this episode of ID the Future, Jonathan Wells remembers Phillip Johnson, “godfather of the intelligent design movement.” Johnson not only attracted scientists’ and other academics’ attention with his groundbreaking Darwin on Trial, he brought them together as a united movement, pushing for a “big tent” for ID theorists to work together.

On this episode of ID the Future, biologist Jonathan Wells, author of Icons of Evolution: Science or Myth? Why Much of What We Teach About Evolution is Wrong and Zombie Science: More Icons of Evolution, debunks a new study purporting to breathe fresh life into an old and throughly discredited icon of evolution, the peppered moth. Wells also tells how this icon of a moth “evolving” from light to dark still lives on in current textbooks, in the same form many parents probably remember from their school days. Dr. Wells and others have shown that many of these pictures used dead moths, pinned in places that live ones never rest. The supposed science of peppered moth evolution has been shown to be false as well. But the pictures and the claims are persuasive, so some textbooks still use them. This prompts host Rob Crowther to ask Dr. Wells, what can parents do to help their kids know the truth? Listen in and to hear Dr. Wells’ advice.

On this episode of ID the Future, biologist Jonathan Wells talks with Ray Bohlin about a conversation he imagined between evolutionists Richard Dawkins and Dan-Eric Nilsson, and published recently at Evolution News. Dawkins had lectured (in real life) on Nilsson’s computer simulation work, showing the human eye could have evolved easily and quickly. What would the two of them have said when Nilsson contacted Dawkins and told him, “I’m sorry, Richard, but I didn’t do that simulation?” Wells imagines them talking about rushing the work on that simulation. But then, what about the next conversation when the simulation failed?

“It’s been a long time since I’ve had such respectful give-and-take, from both professors and students.” Jonathan Wells gives that encouraging word and more when he speaks with Ray Bohlin about his recent visit to Brazil. Interest in intelligent design is strong there, audiences were large, and the Q&A lively. Among other things, Wells reports on Discovery Institute-Mackenzie at Mackenzie Presbyterian University in São Paulo.

On this episode of ID The Future, Ray Bohlin talks with CSC Senior Fellow Jonathan Wells, author of the Zombie Science, about some new hype over Darwin’s finches, an icon of evolution that just won’t die. Seventeen years after Icons of Evolution, Darwin’s finches are back in the news and can still be found in biology textbooks despite the fact that they illustrate no net evolutionary change nor did they play a role in helping Darwin formulate his theory.

On this episode of ID the Future, Zombie Science author Jonathan Wells talks about his multifaceted, impressive and, at times, quirky educational history. Dr. Wells started as an undergrad geology major at Princeton and later moved to Berkeley to finish his undergraduate work. He was arrested as a conscientious objector and saw the ugly side of the anti-war movement. Disgusted, he moved to the remote mountains and there discovered evidence of intelligent design. After snagging a Ph.D. in theology from Yale, he returned Berkeley for his second Ph.D., this one in embryology. It was in studying embryos that Dr. Wells came across his first Icon of Evolution, Haeckel’s embryos. More icons soon followed. These and the dogmatism of the scientific materialists are explored in his newest book, Zombie Science: More Icons of Evolution.

An accountant wonders how people can separate fact from faith in scientific claims, and biologist Jonathan Wells (author of Zombie Science) and playwright Matt Chait respond. This conversation was taped live in Hollywood during a discussion after the final performance of Disinherit the Wind, a play that tells the story of a neurobiologist who sues his university for the right to challenge neo-Darwinian evolution.

On this episode of ID the Future, Robert Crowther asks biologist Jonathan Wells, author of Zombie Science, what icons of evolution students should be on the lookout for as they head back to school. Wells says there are several still in wide circulation.

On this episode of ID the Future, Ray Bohlin gets author Jonathan Wells’ reaction to early feedback on Wells’ new book, Zombie Science. Listen in as Wells shares his favorite endorsement, discusses evolutionist Jerry Coyne’s “review” (Coyne doesn’t appear even to have read the book), and describes a spoof review that … well, listen and decide for yourself what you think the reviewer’s real message was.