Icons of Evolution

Actually, the term "Icons of Evolution" was used as a book title by Jonathan Wells and usually refers to the icons he named. None of these are hoaxes or mere media hype like Nebraska man. They are actual cases found in many textbooks and you have probably heard of at least some of them (see list below). Wells contends that these have become iconic models of evolution but that there are problems with all of them.Here is his list (taken from the Table of Contents of Icons of Evolution):The Miller-Urey Experiment
Darwin's Tree of Life
Homology in Vertebrate Limbs
Haekel's Embryos
Archeopteryx: the Missing Link
Peppered Moths
Darwin's Finches
Four-winged Fruit Flies
Fossil Horses and Directed Evolution
From Ape to Man: the Ultimate Myth

Well's point is that this is exactly the problem: they seem supportive of evolution. In fact, they are so supportive of evolution that they are found in virtually all basic texts on evolution. That's why he tries to find a way to undermine them.But as Mr. Jack says, there are no real problems with them. Probably the only major effect has been to retire the pictures of Haekel's embryos. While they are not nearly as misleading as creationists imply, it is true that Haekel enhanced his portrayal of some embryos to make the similarities more obvious.His drawings continued to be used because in general they are very good and because they are in the public domain so they are inexpensive for publishers to use. However, the same point can and is made with actual pictures of embryos and that is the way new textbooks are going.In two other cases the "problem" with the icons is not the actual evidence but an image of it. You have no doubt seen the picture of horse evolution: a reproduction of a mural at (I think) the Smithsonian going from Eohippus to the modern horse. That image implies a straight-line evolution that is inconsistent with the complexity of the actual history of evolutionary development in the Equidae. No biologist would disagree that it is an oversimplified image. But what does that have to do with the actual evidence?Then the big brouhahah on the peppered moths is that the photos illustrating the camouflaging effects of colour on polluted and non-polluted trees were staged and the photographer made the great mistake of taping moths to the trunk of the tree instead of up in the branches which is the preferred resting place of the moths. As if either of these "mistakes" interfered with the main point. The camouflaging effect of the colour acts as an instrument of natural selection.The other "problems" are of the same caliber.There is plenty of discussion of Well's icons on line. I believe talkorigins has a whole article that discusses them all from a scientific perspective. For a creationist perspective just go to Answers in Genesis and do a search on a key word such as Urey-Miller experiment. Edited by gluadys, : Added last paragraph.

But we don't have evidence that it is not possible. Only incredulity. Actually natural causes only does not eliminate the possibility that intelligence could be involved. It only eliminates a situation in which an intelligence chooses not to use natural causes instrumentally. Logically natural causes are not necessarily godless causes.

Unless you are presuming to judge who is and is not a Christian, this statement is wrong. I am a Christian and I do not agree with this view of creation. Nor do Kenneth Miller, Francis Collins, Denis L'amoureux and many other Christians.In fact, except in the US, this is probably a minority view among Christians.

I don't pick and choose what part of scripture to believe.But just like you I do choose how to interpret the text. I just think that it is ridiculous to insist on literal interpretations that don't make sense and have no basis in reality.I believe God created a real world, not the fantasy world of YECism.

Because physical reality is testable and it doesn't correspond to the claimed reality of YECism. Note that I say YECism, not the bible. And children are very good at understanding stories as stories. I am not talking about trusting the words of men. I am talking about believing the works of God. About believing that God does not deceive in creation any more than in scripture. Which is why we have so many interpretations of the bible, but so few interpretations of natural phenomena. Nature does not get rewritten and interpretations that have been falsified are dropped leaving only those that actually correspond to reality. You only need Genesis to be this explicit if you assume it is supposed to be a science text. People then had the same intellectual capacity as today. They did not have the same sort of accumulated scientific knowledge, nor the same level of interest in science as our generation does. Nor did they use the same style of communication common to today. Quite right. One does not need geology to understand Genesis because it is not about geology. It is about God. A non-literal approach to scripture does not require twisting the words of scripture. In fact, I see much more twisting of scripture by literalist who try to stuff modern science into the bible than I ever see from non-literalists. I find a non-literalist approach a much more straightforward way of reading scripture because it respects scripture for what it is instead of forcing modern concepts onto it.Would you like to continue this discussion in a different thread?