Author: Jonathan Wells
The Myth of Vestigial Organs and Bad Design: Why Darwinism Is False
Note: This is Part 5 in a series reviewing Jerry Coyne’s Why Evolution Is True. Read Part 1 here, Part 2 here, Part 3 here, and Part 4 here. Darwin argued in The Origin of Species that the widespread occurrence of vestigial organs — organs that may have once had a function but are now useless — is evidence against creation. “On the view of each organism with all its separate parts having been specially created, how utterly inexplicable is it that organs bearing the plain stamp of inutility … should so frequently occur.” But such organs, he argued, are readily explained by his theory: “On the view of descent with modification, we may conclude that the existence of organs Read More ›
Jerry Coyne Defends Haeckel’s Embryos: Why Darwinism Is False
Note: This is Part 4 in a series reviewing Jerry Coyne’s Why Evolution Is True. Read Part 1 here, Part 2 here, and Part 3 here. So evolutionary theory needs better evidence than the fossil record can provide. Coyne correctly notes: “When he wrote The Origin, Darwin considered embryology his strongest evidence for evolution.” Darwin had written that the evidence seemed to show that “the embryos of the most distinct species belonging to the same class are closely similar, but become, when fully developed, widely dissimilar,” a pattern that “reveals community of descent.” Indeed, Darwin thought that early embryos “show us, more or less completely, the condition of the progenitor of the whole group in its adult state.”15 But Darwin Read More ›
Fossils Don’t Lie: Why Darwinism Is False
Note: This is Part 3 in a series reviewing Jerry Coyne’s Why Evolution Is True. Read Part 1 here and Part 2 here. Coyne goes on to discuss several “transitional” forms. “One of our best examples of an evolutionary transition,” he writes, is the fossil record of whales, “since we have a chronologically ordered series of fossils, perhaps a lineage of ancestors and descendants, showing their movement from land to water.”9 “The sequence begins,” Coyne writes, “with the recently discovered fossil of a close relative of whales, a raccoon-sized animal called Indohyus. Living 48 million years ago, Indohyus was… probably very close to what the whale ancestor looked like.” In the next paragraph, Coyne writes, “Indohyus was not the ancestor Read More ›
Coyne and the Meaning of Evolution: Why Darwinism Is False, Part II
Read Part I here Jerry A. Coyne is a professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolution at The University of Chicago. In Why Evolution Is True, he summarizes Darwinism–the modern theory of evolution–as follows: “Life on earth evolved gradually beginning with one primitive species–perhaps a self-replicating molecule–that lived more than 3.5 billion years ago; it then branched out over time, throwing off many new and diverse species; and the mechanism for most (but not all) of evolutionary change is natural selection.” 1 Coyne further explains that evolution “simply means that a species undergoes genetic change over time. That is, over many generations a species can evolve into something quite different, and those differences are based on changes in the Read More ›
Jerry Coyne Recycles: Why Darwinism Is False, Part I
On Earth Day 2009, we are reminded of the ecological importance of recycling. As a professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolution at The University of Chicago, Jerry A. Coyne must be keen on recycling: He even recycles worn-out arguments for Darwinism. If “evolution” meant simply that existing species can undergo minor changes over time, or that many species alive today did not exist in the past, then evolution would undeniably be true. But “evolution” for Coyne means Darwinism — the theory that all living things are descendants of a common ancestor, modified by unguided natural processes such as DNA mutations and natural selection. Coyne discusses the fossil record, embryos, vestigial structures, the geographic distribution of species, artificial and Read More ›