Evolution’s Stubborn Icons: Peppered Moths and Miller-Urey Still Shambling Along

Intelligent Design the Future

Discovery Institute's Center for Science and Culture

Science, Philosophy, Astronomy, Society & Culture, Life Sciences

4 • 993 Ratings

🗓️ 10 September 2025

⏱️ 30 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

By now, you might think that the icons of evolution that Dr. Jonathan Wells wrote about 24 years ago have been put out of our misery. And indeed, much has changed, and these icons have even less ground to stand on than they did back then. But they don’t call them icons for nothing! Whatever else they are, they’re stubborn, and it’s not uncommon to see evidence of them still popping up in popular science articles, cartoons, movies, and even scientific journals. On this episode of ID The Future, host Andrew McDiarmid welcomes back freelance science reporter David Coppedge to give us a few recent examples of the icons of evolution that keep shambling along, including recent sightings of the peppered moth myth and the Miller-Urey experiments. Source

Transcript

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0:00.0	ID, The Future, a podcast about evolution and intelligent design.
0:11.7	By now, you might think that the icons of evolution that Dr. Jonathan Wells wrote about 24 years ago
0:17.7	have been put out of our misery. And indeed, much has changed, and these icons have
0:23.1	even less ground to stand on than they did back then. But they don't call them icons for nothing.
0:28.8	Whatever else they are, they're stubborn, and it's not uncommon to see evidence of them still
0:33.2	popping up in popular science articles, cartoons, movies, and even scientific journals.
0:39.4	Welcome to ID the Future. I'm your host, Andrew McDermid.
0:43.1	Today I welcome back freelance science reporter David Koppage to give us a few recent examples
0:48.5	of the icons of evolution that keep shambling along.
0:52.8	Mr. Koppage worked at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, the JPL, for 14 years on the Cassini
0:59.1	mission to Saturn, until he was ousted in 2011 for sharing material on intelligent design,
1:05.5	a discriminatory action that led to a nationally publicized court trial in 2012.
1:11.2	Discovery Institute supported his case, but a lone judge ruled against him without explanation.
1:17.0	He has been a board member of illustra media since its founding and serves as their science consultant.
1:22.8	A nature photographer, outdoorsman, and musician, David holds BS degrees in science education and in physics
1:29.5	and gives presentations on ID and other scientific subjects.
1:34.0	Welcome again to the podcast, David.
1:36.3	Good to be back with you, Andrew.
1:38.5	Well, one of my sources for daily news and commentary on the evidence for intelligent design,
1:43.8	as well as the debate over
1:44.8	evolution, is our very own science and culture today, science and culture.com. You might know it formally
1:51.6	as evolutionnews.org. Now, David, you're one of our regular contributors there, and I recently
	...

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