Darwinism and popular culture: A tour of the textbooks

Sometimes, when discussing the much misunderstood Scopes Trial, I have referred to the textbook from which Scopes was teaching, Hunter's Civic Biology, which seems to have been an amalgam of civics and biology, with a dose of eugenics thrown in, and smug assertions about "highest" or "lowest". Bad idea. Enough already with total subject confusion, ecological misunderstanding, and useless social conflict. Here's an interesting site where Ron Ladouceur gives us a tour of exotic textbooks of our storied past.

I am glad my own biology teachers focused on the cell theory of life, the germ theory of disease, and the life and times of the endangered ribbon snake (= ecology).

There is only so much students will take away when they graduate (if they do) , and you want it to be something they can make sense of in dealing with their own life and environment.

Note: I wasn't blogging recently because I was editing.

Find out why there is an intelligent design controversy:

More textbook chronicles: To Goodwill, to Goodwill, to buy us a text

A friend tells me that Goodwill is a great place to buy used textbooks. Recently he discovered William A. Haviland’s textbook, Anthropology*, which - he advises me - promotes materialism.

I should have brought the feather duster to knock myself over with, right?

Anyway, Haviland apparently states that our origin “was made possible only as a consequence of historical accidents” and was an “essentially random event.”

This type of observation is quite common among textbook authors, and notice what it depends on: The materialist knows by faith alone that our origin was an "essentially random event." If he didn't know that by faith, he could not know it at all, since he would have to analyze the evidence in some detail, and much of the evidence is lost and much of what isn't lost points in another direction.

From the text, we learn,

The history of any species is an outcome of many such contingencies. At any point in the chain of events, had any one element been different, the final result would be markedly different. As Stephen Jay Gould puts it, “All evolutionary sequences include … a fortuitous series of accidents with respect to future evolutionary success. Human brains did not evolve along a direct and inevitable ladder, but by a circuitous and tortuous route carved by adaptations for different reasons, and fortunately suited to later needs."

(William A. Haviland, Anthropology, pg. 123-124 (10th ed., Thomson-Wadsworth, 2003).)

Again, how does Haviland know that the history of any species is an outcome of many such contingencies? Or that "had any one element been different, the final result would be markedly different"?

Even if one were a pure naturalist, there are a number of reasons for supposing otherwise. For one thing, form is limited by function. As Michael Denton pointed out in Nature's Destiny, the marsupial mammals of Australia organized themselves in pretty much the same way as the placental mammals did. The marsupial wolf skull was quite similar to that of the placental wolf. But that similarity makes sense if we keep in mind that a wolf of any kind must do certain things, one of which is to fell large prey animals. That rules out a variety of types of skull immediately.

But function is also limited by form. Could insects be as intelligent as people? Well, it would help if they were much bigger, were warmblooded and had actual brains, wouldn't it? Absent those qualities insects are not likely headed to Harvard any time soon, except as subjects of study.

Anyway, you will hardly be surprised to learn that my friend thought that this was "one of the worst texts" he had ever seen. I'll take his word for that, though I am sure I've seen worse.

*The linked text is actually the 2007 edition. I can't find 2003 at the 'Zon just now.

Textbook watch: Gems from Miller and Levine

Darwin knew that accepting his theory required believing in philosophical materialism, the conviction that matter is the stuff of all existence and that all mental and spiritual phenomena are its by-products. Darwinian evolution was not only purposeless but also heartless--a process in which the rigors of nature ruthlessly eliminate the unfit. … Suddenly, humanity was reduced to just one more species in a world that cared nothing for us. The great human mind was no more than a mass of evolving neurons. Worst of all, there was no divine plan to guide us.
- Joseph S. Levine and Kenneth R. Miller, Biology: Discovering Life (D.C. Heath and Co.; 1st ed. 1992, pg. 152; 2nd ed. 1994, p. 161.

[E]volution works without either plan or purpose … Evolution is random and undirected.”
- (Biology, by Kenneth R. Miller & Joseph S. Levine (1st ed., Prentice Hall, 1991), pg. 658; (3rd ed., Prentice Hall, 1995), pg. 658; (4th ed., Prentice Hall, 1998), pg. 658)

I have heard Miller claim to be a good Catholic, which is either not possible, or illustrative of how elastic the definition of a good Catholic can be. Or maybe there's a story there? Anyway, jsut so you know, when someone says not to worry about what they would tell your kids about origin, meaning, or purpose in the universe because they are "good Catholics", grab the kid and run, will you?

Update A friend notes,

I just learned that there were not only 4 editions of Miller & Levine's "Elephant" Biology textbook, but in fact there were 5. Apparently
there was a 5th edition published in 2000 which also had the "random and undirected" quote. So here's the new, full citation for the quote:
"[E]volution works without either plan or purpose - Evolution is random and undirected. -

(Biology, by Kenneth R. Miller & Joseph S. Levine: 1st ed., Prentice Hall, 1991, pg. 658; 2nd ed., Prentice Hall, 1993, pg. 658; 3rd ed., Prentice Hall, 1995, pg. 658; 4th ed., Prentice Hall, 1998, pg. 658; 5th ed. Teachers Edition, 2000, pg. 658; emboldened emphasis in original.)

My friend comments, "Yet during the Dover Trial, Miller said it only existed in 1 edition and was promptly removed! If only that were true", and refers me here.

Darwin misconceptions in textbooks slammed in biology journal

British ID blog Truth in Science features a critique of Darwin hagiography and misconceptions promoted in textbooks, published by Brit prof Dr. Paul Rees in the Journal of Biological Education. The critique aims at inaccurate accounts of Charles Darwin "found in many A-Level textbooks", identifying seven common misconceptions in twelve popular textbooks published in 12 popular textboks over the last 35 years. The .pdf of the article is here. A suitable addition to examples of ridiculous hagiography in trade books and exhibitions.

Also, I have put up a longish item at Uncommon Descent on key points in the , Gonzalez case.

My other blog is the Mindful Hack, which keeps tabs on neuroscience and the mind.

If you like this blog, check out my book on the intelligent design controversy, By Design or by Chance?. You can read excerpts as well.

Are you looking for one of the following stories?

Animations of life inside the cell, indexed, for your convenience.

Anti-God crusade ... no, really! My recent series on the spate of anti-God books, teen blasphemy challenge, et cetera, and the mounting anxiety of materialist atheists that lies behind it.

Catholic Church A summary of the Catholic Church's entry into the controversy, essentially on the side of ID.

Collins, Francis My review of Francis Collins’ book The Language of God

Columnists weigh in on the intelligent design controversy A summary of recent opinion columns on the ID controversy

Darwinism dissent Lists of theoretical and applied scientists who doubt Darwin

Gilder, George A summary of tech guru George Gilder's arguments for ID and against Darwinism

Intelligent design academic publications.

Intelligent design-friendly students should be flunked, according to bio prof Evolutionary biologist’s opinion that all students friendly to intelligent design should be flunked.

Intelligent design controversy My U of Toronto talk on why there is an intelligent design controversy, or my talk on media coverage of the controversy at the University of Minnesota.

Intelligent design controversy timeline An ID Timeline: The ID folk seem always to win when they lose.

Intelligent design and culture My review of sci-fi great Rob Sawyer’s novel, The Calculating God , which addresses the concept of intelligent design.

March of the Penguins A critical look at why March of the Penguins was thought to be an ID film.

Origin of life Why origin of life is such a difficult problem.

Peer review My backgrounder about peer review issues.

Polls relevant to the intelligent design controversy A summary of recent polls of US public opinion on the ID controversy

Stove, David O'Leary's intro to non-Darwinian agnostic philosopher David Stove’s critique of Darwinism.

Blog policy note:Comments are permitted on this blog, but they are moderated. Fully anonymous posts and URLs posted without comment will be accepted if I think they contribute to a discussion. For best results, give your name or some idea who you are and why we should care. To Mr. Anonymous: I'm not psychic, so if you won't tell me who you are, I can't guess and don't care. To Mr. Nude World (URL): If you can't be bothered telling site visitors why they should go on to your fave site next, why should I post your comment? They're all busy people, like you. To Mr. Rudesby International and Mr. Pottymouth: I also have a tendency to delete comments that are merely offensive. Go be offensive to someone who can smack you a good one upside the head. That may provide you with a needed incentive to stop and think about what you are trying to accomplish. To Mr. Righteous but Wrong: I don't publish comments that contain known or probable factual errors. There's already enough widely repeated misinformation out there, and if you don't have the time to do your homework, I don't either. To those who write to announce that at death I will either 1) disintegrate into nothingness or 2) go to Hell by a fast post, please pester someone else. I am a Catholic in communion with the Church and haven't the time for either village atheism or aimless Jesus-hollering.

Textbook watch: Why pretend that textbooks have not gone well beyond the evidence in promoting Darwin's theory?

Recently, the following comment appeared in the combox for "Marsupial frogs: Another reason to check out of Darwinism", which I reproduce here for your convenience, and then provide a response from Jonathan Wells:

Lance Duval has left a new comment on your post "Marsupial frogs: Another reason to check out of Darwinism":
As for 1) Can you be clear exactly which homologous feature is (or is not) developing, I did not quite understand what your are trying to get at.

As for 2), that is not Darwinism, but Haeckelism. Haeckel believed that embryo development would "play" through the stages, i.e. that in a human embryo we would see a fish stage, followed by a frog, and then onto a mammalian stage. This nonsense was never considered mainstream biological science and has not appeared in any textbooks since the 1920s.

For more information about the way that the Discovery Institute has seized apon Haeckelism as a straw-man for modern evolutionary theories.

Enjoy this examination of Wells' poor scholarship on Haeckel's drawings.

Now, Jonathan Wells is possibly the most hated of the ID guys because his books, Icons of Evolution and The Politically Incorrect Guide to Darwinism and Intelligent Design, catalogue many unsubstantiable claims in recent textbooks. So I asked Wells for a response, and here it is, unvarnished:

Lance Duval really should do his homework. Here are some quotes you might find useful (all of them in Icons of Evolution, 2000):
(a) Lance Duval: “that is not Darwinism, but Haeckelism.”

Charles Darwin: “It seems to me,” Darwin wrote in The Origin of Species, “the leading facts in embryology, which are second to none in importance, are explained on the principle of variations in the many descendants from some one ancient progenitor.” And those leading facts, according to him, were that “the embryos of the most distinct species belonging to the same class are closely similar, but become, when fully developed, widely dissimilar.” Reasoning that “community in embryonic structure reveals community of descent,” Darwin concluded: “it is probable, from what we know of the embryos of mammals, birds, fishes and reptiles, that these animals are the modified descendants of some ancient progenitor,” and that early embryos “show us, more or less completely, the condition of the progenitor of the whole group in its adult state.” In The Descent of Man, Darwin extended the inference to humans: “The [human] embryo itself at a very early period can hardly be distinguished from that of other members of the vertebrate kingdom.” Since humans and other vertebrates “pass through the same early stages of development,... we ought frankly to admit their community of descent.” (Origin of Species, Chapter XIV; Descent of Man, Chapter I)

(b) Lance Duval: "This nonsense was never considered mainstream biological science and has not appeared in any textbooks since the 1920s."

B. I. Balinsky, An Introduction to Embryology (1975), pp. 7-8: “Features of ancient origin develop early in ontogeny; features of newer origin develop late. Hence, the ontogenetic development presents the various features of the animal’s organization in the same sequence as they evolved during the phylogenetic development. Ontogeny is a recapitulation of phylogeny.” [emphasis in original]

Bruce Alberts, et al., Molecular Biology of the Cell (1994), pp. 32-33: “Embryos of different species so often resemble each other in their early stages and, as they develop, seem sometimes to replay the steps of evolution.”

Peter Raven & George Johnson, Biology (1999), p. 416: “Some of the strongest anatomical evidence supporting evolution comes from comparisons of how organisms develop. In many cases, the evolutionary history of an organism can be seen to unfold during its development, with the embryo exhibiting characteristics of the embryos of its ancestors.”

Will the real "poor scholar" please stand up...

This exchange reminds me of a similar claim by Flock of Dodos filmmaker Randy Olson that Haeckel's fraudulent series of vertebrate embryos d not appear in modern textbooks. As Discovery Institute's John West and Casey Luskin note,

Were Ernst Haeckel’s bogus embryo diagrams ever used in modern textbooks to prove evolution? Not according to filmmaker Randy Olson, who in his film Flock of Dodos portrays biologist Jonathan Wells as a fraud for claiming in the book Icons of Evolution (2000) that modern biology textbooks continued to reprint Haeckel-based drawings.

But it turns out that Olson is the one who is promoting a fraud. The diagrams in question were unquestionably used in modern textbooks, and Olson himself knows that fact.

[ ... ]

Olson’s botched coverage of Haeckel’s embryo drawings may have been due initially to ignorance and sloppiness. Although in his film Olson claims to have read Wells’ book Icons of Evolution, he shows little indication of having actually done so. Since Wells’ book provides extensive documentation of the textbooks that have recycled Haeckel’s diagrams, it would have been easy for Olson to have checked the relevant textbooks if he doubted Wells’ account. But the excuse of ignorance no longer applies. At a pre-release screening of Olson’s film at the Scripps Institution for Oceanography in San Diego in April, 2006, Discovery Institute’s Casey Luskin confronted Olson with copies of recent textbooks that reused Haeckel’s drawings. Later Jonathan Wells sent Olson an e-mail providing a list of recent textbooks that have included the diagrams. Olson has been informed of the facts, but he has chosen to keep hoaxing his audiences.

The question that has always puzzled me is why, exactly? Why this cognitive dissonance about something that is so easy for others to discover the truth about? Clearly, these people need to believe that the textbooks do not mislead even when they clearly and obviously do.

Most doctors who have been in practice for more than 25 years probably studied from textbooks that are considered dated today. Think of "hormone replacement therapy" for example. Do doctors insist that the previous generation's protocols never at any time advocated it? Of course not. Medical science learns from its mistakes and moves on.

But Darwinists and their friends, as I have frequently had occasion to observe, are not defending a science, as the doctors are; they are defending a religion - the Book of Genesis of materialism. It is for precisely that reason that the textbooks that promote Darwinism must be holy writ, free of vulgar error (or the vulgar error must have been committed so long ago old that no one alive is likely to be misled by it). And if that's not factually true, the position must be maintained anyway as an act of faith.

No wonder there is an intelligent design controversy.

I put up a bunch of news items and such yesterday here.

(Note: Duval's comment may have been made some weeks ago. 50 or 60 comments were waiting for me when Google stealthily moved my blogs to New Blogger, and I found out about it Monday or so. Some of the messages were pretty old. I think I have got rid of most of the offers for weight loss, hair gain, and business partnerships with the widows of foreign thugs. I have embedded Duval's links to avoid margin width issues. New Blogger is actually quite nice. It automatically offers a tag, for example.)

My other blog is the Mindful Hack, which keeps tabs on neuroscience and the mind.

If you like this blog, check out my book on the intelligent design controversy, By Design or by Chance?. You can read excerpts as well.

Are you looking for one of the following stories?

My review of sci-fi great Rob Sawyer’s novel, The Calculating God , which addresses the concept of intelligent design. Also, my reviews of possibly ID-related films, etc.

My recent series on the spate of anti-God books, teen blasphemy challenge, et cetera, and the mounting anxiety of materialist atheists that lies behind it.

My review of Francis Collins’ book The Language of God , my backgrounder about peer review issues, or the evolutionary biologist’s opinion that all students friendly to intelligent design should be flunked.

Lists of theoretical and applied scientists who doubt Darwin and of academic ID publications.

My U of Toronto talk on why there is an intelligent design controversy, or my talk on media coverage of the controversy at the University of Minnesota.

A summary of tech guru George Gilder's arguments for ID and against Darwinism

A critical look at why March of the Penguins was thought to be an ID film.

A summary of recent opinion columns on the ID controversy

A summary of recent polls of US public opinion on the ID controversy

A summary of the Catholic Church's entry into the controversy, essentially on the side of ID.

O'Leary's intro to non-Darwinian agnostic philosopher David Stove’s critique of Darwinism.

An ID Timeline: The ID folk seem always to win when they lose.

Why origin of life is such a difficult problem.

Blog policy note:Comments are permitted on this blog, but they are moderated. Fully anonymous posts and URLs posted without comment will be accepted if I think they contribute to a discussion. For best results, give your name or some idea who you are and why we should care. To Mr. Anonymous: I'm not psychic, so if you won't tell me who you are, I can't guess and don't care. To Mr. Nude World (URL): If you can't be bothered telling site visitors why they should go on to your fave site next, why should I post your comment? They're all busy people, like you. To Mr. Rudesby International and Mr. Pottymouth: I also have a tendency to delete comments that are merely offensive. Go be offensive to someone who can smack you a good one upside the head. That may provide you with a needed incentive to stop and think about what you are trying to accomplish. To Mr. Righteous but Wrong: I don't publish comments that contain known or probable factual errors. There's already enough widely repeated misinformation out there, and if you don't have the time to do your homework, I don't either. To those who write to announce that at death I will either 1) disintegrate into nothingness or 2) go to Hell by a fast post, please pester someone else. I am a Catholic in communion with the Church and haven't the time for either village atheism or aimless Jesus-hollering.

My other blog is the Mindful Hack, which keeps tabs on neuroscience and the mind.

If you like this blog, check out my book on the intelligent design controversy, By Design or by Chance?. You can read excerpts as well.

Are you looking for one of the following stories?

My recent series on the spate of anti-God books, teen blasphemy challenge, et cetera, and the mounting anxiety of materialist atheists that lies behind it.

My review of Francis Collins’ book The Language of God , my backgrounder about peer review issues, or the evolutionary biologist’s opinion that all students friendly to intelligent design should be flunked.

Lists of theoretical and applied scientists who doubt Darwin and of academic ID publications.

My U of Toronto talk on why there is an intelligent design controversy, or my talk on media coverage of the controversy at the University of Minnesota.

A summary of tech guru George Gilder's arguments for ID and against Darwinism

A critical look at why March of the Penguins was thought to be an ID film.

A summary of recent opinion columns on the ID controversy

A summary of recent polls of US public opinion on the ID controversy

A summary of the Catholic Church's entry into the controversy, essentially on the side of ID.

O'Leary's intro to non-Darwinian agnostic philosopher David Stove’s critique of Darwinism.

An ID Timeline: The ID folk seem always to win when they lose.

Why origin of life is such a difficult problem.

Blog policy note:Comments are permitted on this blog, but they are moderated. Fully anonymous posts and URLs posted without comment will be accepted if I think they contribute to a discussion. For best results, give your name or some idea who you are and why we should care. To Mr. Anonymous: I'm not psychic, so if you won't tell me who you are, I can't guess and don't care. To Mr. Nude World (URL): If you can't be bothered telling site visitors why they should go on to your fave site next, why should I post your comment? They're all busy people, like you. To Mr. Rudesby International and Mr. Pottymouth: I also have a tendency to delete comments that are merely offensive. Go be offensive to someone who can smack you a good one upside the head. That may provide you with a needed incentive to stop and think about what you are trying to accomplish. To Mr. Righteous but Wrong: I don't publish comments that contain known or probable factual errors. There's already enough widely repeated misinformation out there, and if you don't have the time to do your homework, I don't either. To those who write to announce that at death I will either 1) disintegrate into nothingness or 2) go to Hell by a fast post, please pester someone else. I am a Catholic in communion with the Church and haven't the time for either village atheism or aimless Jesus-hollering.

Textbooks: Backing away from materialism?

The story regarding flunking students sympathetic to intelligent design theory is here.

Meanwhile, evolutionary biologist Larry Moran (yes, der flunker) advises me that there was a slight error in an earlier quotation/link re a textbook by Douglas Futuyma. It should have read,

Darwin's immeasurably important contribution to science was to show how mechanistic causes could also explain all biological phenomena, despite their apparent evidence of design and purpose. By coupling undirected, purposeless variation to the blind, uncaring process of natural selection, Darwin made theological or spiritual explanations of the life processes superfluous. In the decades that followed, physiology, embryology, biochemistry, and finally molecular biology, would complete this revolution by providing entirely mechanistic explanations, relying on chemistry and physics, for biological phenomena. But it was Darwin's theory of evolution, followed by Marx's materialistic (even if inadequate or wrong) theory of history and society and Freud's attribution of human behavior to influences over which we have little control, that provided a crucial plank to the platform of mechanism and materialism—in short, of much of science—that has since been the stage of most Western thought. [Futuyma's emphasis]

Moran acknowledges that "the sense hasn't been changed much." No, I would not have thought so. My source tells me that the quote was from the second edition (1986), and was attributed to the similar 1998 3rd edition.

Now here is the really interesting part: Apparently, the 2005 edition does not contain the quote, and my source thinks that Futuyma's book has cut way back on the superfluous materialist philosophy.

Well, good for Futuyma. People who want philosophy should sign up for it, and write the exam.

Thinkquote of the day: More antireligious dogma in publicly funded biology text

This should disappear from the next revision of the Monroe Strickberger textbook:

"The advent of Darwinism posted even greater threats to religion by suggesting that biological relationship, including the origin of humans and of all species, could be explained by natural selection without the intervention of a god. Many felt that evolutionary randomness and uncertainty had replaced a deity having conscious, purposeful, human characteristics. The Darwinian view that evolution is a historical process and present-type organisms were not created spontaneously but formed in a succession of selective events that occurred in the past, contradicted the common religious view that there could be no design, biological or otherwise, without an intelligent designer. … The variability by which selection depends may be random, but adaptions are not; they arise because selection chooses and perfects only what is adaptive. In this scheme a god of design and purpose is not necessary. Neither religion nor science has irrevocably conquered. Religion has been bolstered by paternalistic social systems in which individuals depend on the beneficiences of those more powerful than they are, as well as the comforting idea that humanity was created in the image of a god to rule over the world and its creatures. Religion provided emotional solace … Nevertheless, faith in religious dogma has been eroded by natural explanations of its mysteries, by a deep understanding of the sources of human emotional needs, and by the recognition that ethics and morality can change among different societies and that acceptance of such values need not depend on religion. ( Evolution by Monroe, W. Strickberger (3rd ed., Jones & Bartlett, 2000), pg. 70-71)

If you like this blog, check out my book on the intelligent design controversy, By Design or by Chance?. You can read excerpts as well.

Are you looking for one of the following stories?

My U of Toronto talk on why there is an intelligent design controversy, or my talk on media coverage of the controversy att he University of Minnesota.

A summary of tech guru George Gilder's arguments for ID and against Darwinism

A critical look at why March of the Penguins was thought to be an ID film.

A summary of recent opinion columns on the ID controversy

A summary of recent polls of US public opinion on the ID controversy

A summary of the Catholic Church's entry into the controversy, essentially on the side of ID.

O'Leary's intro to non-Darwinian agnostic philosopher David Stove’s critique of Darwinism.

An ID Timeline: The ID folk seem always to win when they lose.

O’Leary’s comments on Francis Beckwith, a Dembski associate, being granted tenure at Baylor after a long struggle - even after helping in a small way to destroy the Baylor Bears' ancient glory - in the opinion of a hyper sportswriter.

Why origin of life is such a difficult problem.

Blog policy note:Comments are permitted on this blog, but they are moderated. Fully anonymous posts and URLs posted without comment are rarely accepted. To Mr. Anonymous: I'm not psychic, so if you won't tell me who you are, I can't guess and don't care. To Mr. Nude World (URL): If you can't be bothered telling site visitors why they should go on to your fave site next, why should I post your comment? They're all busy people, like you. To Mr. Rudeby International and Mr. Pottymouth: I also have a tendency to delete comments that are merely offensive. Go be offensive to someone who can smack you a good one upside the head. That may provide you with a needed incentive to stop and think about what you are trying to accomplish. To Mr. Righteous but Wrong: I don't publish comments that contain known or probable factual errors. There's already enough widely repeated misinformation out there, and if you don't have the time to do your homework, I don't either. To those who write to announce that at death I will either 1) disintegrate into nothingness or 2) go to Hell by a fast post, please pester someone else. I am a Catholic in communion with the Church and haven't the time for either village atheism or aimless Jesus-hollering.

Textbook Watch: Marx, Freud and Darwin as the "textbook triad" of materialism

Discovery Institute notes the following from Douglas Futuyma's Evolutionary Biology (1998, 3rd Ed., Sinauer Associates), p. 5:

Darwin showed that material causes are a sufficient explanation not only for physical phenomena, as Descartes and Newton had shown, but also for biological phenomena with all their seeming evidence of design and purpose. By coupling undirected, purposeless variation to the blind, uncaring process of natural selection, Darwin made theological or spiritual explanations of the life processes superfluous. Together with Marx's materialistic theory of history and society and Freud's attribution of human behavior to influences over which we have little control, Darwin's theory of evolution was a crucial plank in the platform of mechanism and materialism…

This is especially interesting in view of the sometimes-heard claim that ID advocates invented the Marx-Freud-Darwin triad of materialist influences. That was unlikely in principle because, in order to communicate with a broad audience, the ID advocates had to riff off an already accepted cultural pattern. But this instance of the usage by a prominent pro-Darwin and anti-ID source demonstrates that the claim is incorrect. Which doesn't mean you won't hear it again and again - and again. I would be interested to know if this paragraph appears unaltered in the just-released 2006 edition, but Toronto Public Library seems to have nothing later than the 2nd edition.
My other blog is the Mindful Hack, which keeps tabs on neuroscience and the mind.

Amazon.dot.watchit!: Brazilian group monitors textbooks

One thing that has really inflated the intelligent design controversy has been random acts of Darwinism in taxpayer funded textbooks: historical distortions, slams at traditional philosophies, announcements that life has no meaning or purpose, gross inflation of the significance of various findings and inappropriate hagiography of Darwin... The main reason ID embryologist Jonathan Wells became so widely hated was his exposure of American textbooks.

In Brazil, an ID-friendly group has taken a proactive position, undertaking to analyze books and get corrections for subsequent editions before it all gets out of hand. Here, here, and here, in Portuguese, are some examples.

Enezio E. de Almeida Filho, who operates the blog Pos-darwinista, writes to say that in 2003 and 2005, his group sent a critical analysis of origin of life and evolution in seven major biology high school textbooks to the Brazilian Education Ministry group. This year, they are planning a critical analysis of all books (about 10) approved by the Brazilian Education Ministry specialists, which they will forward to the ministry.

According to Enezio, a very prominent author – José Mariano Amabis – a Ph. D. professor at USP (University of São Paulo – a Brazilian Ivy league university) has already removed two questionable items from his textbook ( Haeckel’s embryos and the Manchester moths ), though he did not give a reason. Other textbook authors are reportedly becoming more cautious and the Ministry has now appointed specialists to have a look at new books. A good idea, that.

Essentially, students must and should learn about Darwinian evolution - its strengths and weaknesses as an explanation for various features of life - but there is absolutely no justification for textbooks to read like the Holy Scriptures of Darwinism, complete with Darwinian miracle stories.

My other blog is the Mindful Hack, which keeps tabs on neuroscience and the mind.

If you like this blog, check out my book on the intelligent design controversy, By Design or by Chance?. You can read excerpts as well.

Are you looking for one of the following stories?

My U of Toronto talk on why there is an intelligent design controversy, or my talk on media coverage of the controversy att he University of Minnesota.

A summary of tech guru George Gilder's arguments for ID and against Darwinism

A critical look at why March of the Penguins was thought to be an ID film.

A summary of recent opinion columns on the ID controversy

A summary of recent polls of US public opinion on the ID controversy

A summary of the Catholic Church's entry into the controversy, essentially on the side of ID.

O'Leary's intro to non-Darwinian agnostic philosopher David Stove’s critique of Darwinism.

An ID Timeline: The ID folk seem always to win when they lose.

O’Leary’s comments on Francis Beckwith, a Dembski associate, being granted tenure at Baylor after a long struggle - even after helping in a small way to destroy the Baylor Bears' ancient glory - in the opinion of a hyper sportswriter.

Why origin of life is such a difficult problem.

Blog policy note:Comments are permitted on this blog, but they are moderated. Fully anonymous posts and URLs posted without comment are rarely accepted. To Mr. Anonymous: I'm not psychic, so if you won't tell me who you are, I can't guess and don't care. To Mr. Nude World (URL): If you can't be bothered telling site visitors why they should go on to your fave site next, why should I post your comment? They're all busy people, like you. To Mr. Rudeby International and Mr. Pottymouth: I also have a tendency to delete comments that are merely offensive. Go be offensive to someone who can smack you a good one upside the head. That may provide you with a needed incentive to stop and think about what you are trying to accomplish. To Mr. Righteous but Wrong: I don't publish comments that contain known or probable factual errors. There's already enough widely repeated misinformation out there, and if you don't have the time to do your homework, I don't either. To those who write to announce that at death I will either 1) disintegrate into nothingness or 2) go to Hell by a fast post, please pester someone else. I am a Catholic in communion with the Church and haven't the time for either village atheism or aimless Jesus-hollering.

Expose of Darwinist Textbooks “Five Years Old, Yet Still Packing a Punch”

Tristan Abbey, deputy editor of Stanford Review, notes that it has been five years since Jonathan Wells’s Icons of Evolution has been published. Icons exposed the rot in the textbook industry around the protection of Darwinism.

Few books set off a firestorm when they’re first published, but Icons of Evolution was about as flammable as an American flag at an anti-war protest in Berkeley . Of course, in earlier days when Wells was a conscientious objector to the Vietnam War and even went to jail to avoid the draft, setting Old Glory ablaze wasn’t a hugely radical endeavor. A radical Wells is, however, as he battles a scientific establishment that, he feels, is bent on censorship and the suppression of the truth.

Denounced by critics in peer-reviewed science journals ranging from Nature to The Quarterly Review of Biology, Wells seems to have quite a bit of fun writing up rebuttals. Serious critiques do not go unanswered and many are available to read on the website of the Discovery Institute, at which he’s a senior fellow. He has been attacked as a liar and a cultish religious crusader working for the Reverend Moon (yes, he really is a Moonie). Icons, his critics claim, uses the perennial strategy of quote-mining, combing through the literature, and picking out-of-context gems to cite. Wells has even been the subject of a libelous assault from the National Center for Science Education, a plain-sounding and faux-prestigious name for an ideologically-driven institution, which asserted Wells didn’t get any research published at Berkeley ; the professor Wells studied under has since contradicted this claim, but the record has not been righted. Wells, it should be noted, holds a Ph.D. in Molecular and Cell Biology from Cal .

Wells examines an impressive list of reputable biology textbooks used in universities and high schools, including the widely-used Biology by Campbell, Reece, and Mitchell. Relying on an incredible amount of peer-reviewed articles published in the scientific field, Wells critiques the textbook claims about the origin of life, the fossil record, embryology, and a variety of other classic arguments used by neo-Darwinists. The Miller-Urey experiment, for example, is outdated, and later origins research hasn’t progressed very far; the Cambrian explosion is barely covered in textbooks, which means students aren’t taught that most animal phyla appear in the fossil record without precursors; and textbooks claim that the earlier in development, the more similar are embryos of different kinds of animals, a false statement that has often been buttressed by faked drawings from the 19th century.

Speaking for myself, I knew that Wells was on the money when I began to read the obsessive attacks on him posted by Darwinists. (I will undoubtedly have to remove some such attacks from this blog, because I do not allow obsessive attacks as a matter of principle.) Obviously, the Darwinists would be better to concentrate their efforts on cleaning up the mess, but that would involve retracting many inflated claims for Darwinism, which they do not, of course, want to do.

Textbook publishing is in a very bad state generally, principally because the textbook publisher is paid out of sequestered tax funds and the student is not a customer. Even the teacher is often not really a customer, because the decisions may be made by far-off committees. I personally know textbook editors who go to heroic lengths to defeat the crud, sometimes endangering their own livelihoods, unthanked and unheralded. But their efforts can only mitigate, not change, an overall system that promotes contented mediocrity and stifling political correctness.