It is easy to get skeptical about any book on evolution. Writers on all sides of the issue tend to say the same things and usually deal with subject matter about which they have very little expertise. This book is subtitled "Science or Myth? Why much of what we teach about evolution is wrong." So is this another book by a minister regurgitating familiar and perhaps inaccurate attacks on evolution? The answer is definitely "no."

 Jonathan Wells holds two Ph.D.s,--one from Berkeley in molecular and cell biology; the other from Yale in religious studies. This book is an exhaustive exposé of fraud and deception in evolution--exhaustively documented and explained. Some of the discussions point out assumptions evolutionists make that are invalid. An example is the Miller-Urey experiment in which it is assumed that the early earth had no oxygen in its atmosphere. That assumption is highly debated and the strongest evidence is that it is not true.

 More disturbing is the number of cases where deliberate fraud is involved. The famous peppered moth used in so many textbooks is a good example. The idea that the moths changed color because pollution killed the trees they rested on and natural selection did the rest turns out to be a fake. Wells shows that the moths do not rest on trees and that the pictures of the moths on the trees were faked. They were mostly dead moths pinned on trees for the pictures.

 The book discusses everything from Darwin's finches to human evolution from an apelike ancestor. It also evaluates 10 recent biology textbooks. It is an expos?-style book which will be quoted and used extensively by creationists, but should be read by science teachers and parents of all persuasions.

 We recommend it highly.

Back to Contents Does God Exist?, SepOct01.