How Jonathan Wells Dismantled the Icons of Evolution

Intelligent Design the Future

Discovery Institute's Center for Science and Culture

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

4 • 993 Ratings

🗓️ 17 March 2025

⏱️ 34 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

On this episode of ID The Future, host Andrew McDiarmid invites Dr. Casey Luskin 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. In a career spanning three decades, Wells made significant contributions to our understanding of the limits of evolutionary processes and the evidence for intelligent design. In this interview, Dr. Luskin describes the powerful impact Jonathan's work had on him and how it led to meaningful reform in textbooks and classrooms. He also identifies the character traits he most admired in Dr. Wells. Source

Transcript

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0:00.0	ID the Future, a podcast about evolution and intelligent design.
0:12.0	Welcome to ID the Future. I'm your host, Andrew McDermid. Well, joining me today is Dr. Casey Luskin
0:18.1	to share some of his remembrances of our longtime colleague Dr. Jonathan
0:22.4	Wells, who recently passed away at 82 years old.
0:26.6	Dr. Wells was one of the first fellows at Discovery Institute's Center for Science and Culture,
0:31.6	and his contributions to the Intelligent Design movement have been vastly and massively influential.
0:42.2	Few who listened to ID the Future will not know about his 2000 book,
0:47.9	icons of evolution, wherein he exposed a range of falsehoods in popular biology textbooks,
0:55.2	including the fraudulent heckle embryo drawings, Darwin's famous finches, the fabled peppered moths, and more.
1:00.1	In the words of Eugenie Scott, Darwin champion and a former director of the National Center for Science Education, icons of evolution became, quote, a royal pain in the fanny
1:06.7	for the evolution establishment. Well, if you don't know Dr. Luskin, he's Associate Director of Discovery Institute's Center for Science and Culture.
1:14.6	He's a scientist and attorney with graduate degrees in science and law,
1:18.6	giving him expertise in both the scientific and legal dimensions of the debate over evolution.
1:23.6	He holds a PhD in geology from the University of Johannesburg, where he specialized in paleo-magnetism and the early plate tectonic history of South Africa.
1:34.0	He earned a law degree from the University of San Diego, where he focused on First Amendment law, education law, and environmental law.
1:41.8	His BS and MS degrees in earth sciences are from the University of California, San Diego,
1:47.0	where he studied evolution extensively at the graduate and undergraduate levels,
1:51.0	and conducted geologic research at Scripps Institution for Oceanography.
1:56.0	Dr. Luskin has been a California licensed attorney since 2005, practicing primarily in the area of evolution education in public schools, and defending academic freedom for scientists who face discrimination because of their support for intelligent design.
2:12.4	Hey, Casey, welcome back.
2:14.0	It's great to be with you, Andrew. I wish it was a different occasion, but it's great to be with you.
2:18.5	Yeah, yeah, I know. So, Casey, you were introduced to Jonathan's book,
	...

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