Speaker 0 00:00:00 <silence>
Speaker 1 00:00:05 ID the Future, a podcast about evolution and intelligent design.
Speaker 0 00:00:11 Welcome
Speaker 2 00:00:12 To the program. My name is Daniel Reeves. I serve as the Director of Education Outreach for Discovery Institutes Center for Science and Culture, and I'll be the host of today's episode of ID The Future. Before I introduce our special guest today, I wanted to remind our listeners about a book that was published more than 20 years ago now, but which remains no less relevant to today's discussion. The book is entitled Icons of Evolution, science, or Myth, why Much of What We Teach about Evolution is wrong, and it's authored by biologist Jonathan Wells back in 2002. In this book, he exposed many of the exaggerated claims, sometimes even deceptions, I would say, that have persisted in discussions of biological origins for decades, despite evidence to the contrary. If you haven't read it, you absolutely should. And then if the findings presented in that book weren't shocking enough, Dr.
Speaker 2 00:00:59 Wells released a follow-up book 15 years later in 2017 entitled Zombie Science in which he convincingly demonstrated that many of these quote icons of evolution continue to persist Undaunted or undead, you might say, in a long list of mainstream textbooks. It's now been about eight years since Zombie Science, and you may be wondering, has anything changed? Has the accuracy of teaching on evolutionary theory improved in standard textbooks? Well, our guest today is a recent high school graduate by the name of Natalie, and I've invited Natalie onto the program today because I think she has a unique story to tell our listeners. Natalie, first of all, thanks for your willingness to jump on the air today. Yeah,
Speaker 3 00:01:39 Thank you so much for having me. I'm excited.
Speaker 2 00:01:41 Awesome. Okay, so a little over a month ago, you reached out to our team to let us know about an AP research project that you had completed during your senior year of high school. And as I recall, you said that you took the opportunity to evaluate the scientific accuracy of a new biology textbook that was being proposed for use at your high school, focusing on the way that it presents the theory of evolution. Is that right?
Speaker 3 00:02:04 Yes, that is right. Yeah.
Speaker 2 00:02:05 Okay. So fascinating. So it's been a busy month for me since you emailed, and I'm gonna be totally honest, I haven't actually read your, your research paper. It's okay. <laugh> in all fairness, it's like 40 pages long, right? Yeah, yeah, no worries. Yeah, can barely find the, the time to read the morning news these days, <laugh>. Yeah. Um, that said, I'm, I'm really excited to hear about the project from you directly. Um, it's been many years since I've waited into high school biology textbook, and I'd love to just hear an update from you on how they've changed or if they've changed in recent years. And I figured our listeners too would be fascinated by this. So let's, let's dive in. Yeah. So let me start with the question of like, how did you learn that this new textbook was being evaluated for possible use at your, your local high school?
Speaker 3 00:02:52 Yeah, so it's actually pretty interesting because I went into this project and I didn't know that we had received new biology textbooks. I just knew that I wanted to look at the most current version of, you know, evolutionary context in textbooks, but I didn't know that we had brand new ones. So I went into my old biology teacher's classroom and I asked her if I could check one out a textbook out and take a look at it, and she let me know that they actually had a new one that they were trialing. So I found out just by going into her classroom, and I was like, oh my gosh, this is like such a cool coincidence that I get to look into brand new textbooks.
Speaker 2 00:03:30 That's perfect. Okay. So what inspired you to, to approach this study in the first place? Did you already have some idea that textbooks in general were kind of falling short of a satisfactory <laugh> uh, accuracy on the subject?
Speaker 3 00:03:43 Yeah, so, um, I didn't really know going into this class what I was gonna do. I just knew that I wanted to do something with the fossil record and evolution because that was sort of the area of intelligent design and apologetics in general that I am not that well versed in. And I'll just preface this by saying I'm definitely not an expert, but I know a lot more now than I did going into this. And yeah, I just remember when I was a freshman taking biology that a lot of things didn't really line up and, um, there were a lot of drawings, like the embryo drawings that just seemed like they shouldn't be in there anymore because I had heard stories about how they weren't accurate. And like I'll say, you know, my faith is huge to me. And so it kind of just all fell into place. I feel like God's provision was really, um, involved in this whole research process. So I feel like the textbook idea, it just kind of came to me. Yeah.
Speaker 2 00:04:39 Okay, great. So you had some interest already in evolution, how that relates to intelligent design and even your faith. That's great. So before we get into this particular textbook at your, your high school and into kind of your methods and your findings on that, um, that book, I wanted to just ask you in general about some of the background research that you did on the teaching of evolution in textbooks. What did you find as kind of a general trend when you were doing that background research?
Speaker 3 00:05:10 Yeah, so the study that I used that was the most closely related to what I did was done in Brazil. So it doesn't totally speak to what it's like in American textbooks, but they found that more often than not, the textbooks, especially in the chapter of evolution, were inaccurate. And they led students to make wrong biological conclusions. And then I also read a study that was done in America. It was super interesting to me because it spoke to teaching evolution versus teaching creationism in the classroom. And they found that the students that were taught both evolution and creationism, so not totally throwing evolution out the window, came away with a better understanding of both topics than students that are just taught evolution. It allowed them to kind of make, make a more well-rounded perception of, of their worldview and how they view their origin of life. So yeah, those were the main studies. And then there was another one, um, that evaluated college students, so kind of like upper division schooling, and they found that students had the totally wrong idea of evolution, even in the baseline definition, um, and that it related back to their faulty textbooks.
Speaker 2 00:06:21 Okay. So learning about alternative, um, theories for origin of life actually helped them to evaluate the claims of evolution better and to have come away with a better understanding even of the standard mainstream theory. Right.
Speaker 3 00:06:34 Yeah.
Speaker 2 00:06:35 Okay. Well, that's fascinating. Do you think that from what you looked at, do you think that this is, this problem as you've identified it, is isolated to biology textbooks? Or did you find that it was also true of other STEM areas as well?
Speaker 3 00:06:49 Yeah, you know, I'm not totally sure. I guess that's a little bit controversial as well, just because whether or not you believe textbooks are always accurate or if they have an agenda, maybe, you know, I haven't looked too much into history textbooks, but I always, you know, I personally just a little suspicious of the content sometimes, but, um, I really, yeah, the main focus of this was just biology textbooks.
Speaker 2 00:07:12 Yeah, yeah, yeah. Makes sense. Yeah, I definitely think, uh, anyone who has read icons of evolution, like I mentioned at the beginning, zombie science definitely develops a healthy, uh, kind of critical eye when they're looking at any textbook. And, and I know from my personal experience that, um, evolutionary theory makes its way into lots of different subject areas, which is always fascinating to me how you can frame science, you can frame chemistry, math, all sorts of different things in kind of an evolu evolutionary worldview. Okay. So you decided to see how your textbook compares to some of these overall trends. And I, I'm curious, what kind of methodology did you use to go about this?
Speaker 3 00:07:54 So I used something called comparative analysis, and it's pretty much just what it sounds like. It's when you take two pieces or more of, of different information and you just compare them side by side to see how they compare and contrast with each other. So the two different pieces of information I used was the, um, chapter of evolution and then what I called credible outside sources that represented the most up to date discoveries and evolution.
Speaker 2 00:08:21 Okay. And then within Evolution, did you focus on particular areas, particular lines of evidence?
Speaker 3 00:08:27 Yeah, so I focused on the false record and genetic and molecular biology in particular. Part of this was because I had a word limit in my paper, so I couldn't focus on all of the subtopics in the textbook. There were so many, like embryology and anatomy, there's so many, but I focused on those two because I kind of felt like they're really strong pillars for Darwin's theory. And so if you can find really strong evidence supporting them or, um, ways that they don't line up, it means a lot for Darwinian evolution. So I focused on those two in particular.
Speaker 2 00:09:02 Yeah, that makes sense. Okay. So, so you're looking at genetics, looking at fossil record, and you're comparing the way that it's presented in this particular textbook with the most credible kind of presentation of these topics that you can find on internet sources, things like that, right? Yes. Okay. And how did you go about kind of determining what would be a, a credible source on this subject?
Speaker 3 00:09:26 That was definitely the most, one of the most vital parts in my process because, you know, it's an AP class, so everything you do has to be super credible. So I kind of created a list of criteria, and I used Owl Purdue and, um, other websites that are generally good guidelines for creating a credible study in order to make sure that my sources were, you know, they were reputable. So I made sure that they didn't have religious affiliation just to keep my research as objective as possible, that they had, that the website or organization had strong ties to biology, um, or chemistry and just things like that to make sure that they knew what they were doing. And the Discovery Institute met all of those expectations. And so it was a huge, um, it was just a really big help that I had that to go to because they speak to everything <laugh>.
Speaker 2 00:10:17 That's great. Yeah. Yeah. But I'm assuming that, you know, as you were finding your, your credible sources on this subject that you were finding both those that support standard evolutionary theory as well as those that dissent from that. So were you able to find, um, you know, sources that you felt were credible on both sides of the debate?
Speaker 3 00:10:35 Yeah, I did. I definitely had to do a lot of digging. Um, you know, you can do like Google Scholar or put.edu at the end of your search, and it helps come up with more reputable sources. I had to do a lot of digging though, because most of the articles that I found were pro evolutionary, and, you know, you can take that as you like, because sometimes, you know, search engines might be a little bit biased in what they produce, but I was able to find things from both perspectives. And, um, oftentimes I would find articles that had a more anti evolutionary or challenging evolution perspective, and they would have links in that article to places like science or nature that are generally seen as, you know, pretty objective, um, and really accepted in the scientific community that spoke to exactly the false record and genetic and molecular biology. So that was really helpful.
Speaker 2 00:11:27 Cool. Okay. So I am, I'm so eager to hear. So what did you find, what, what did you compare in your study and, you know, what were your, your overall findings?
Speaker 3 00:11:36 So I found that more often than not, the textbook was misleading students. I grouped, um, certain amounts of quotations. So I picked quotations just based on their ability to accurately and, you know, concisely describe what the textbook was getting at. And I grouped them into three categories, which were, uh, misrepresented, underdeveloped, and well aligned. And so I found that more often than not, they fell into the underdeveloped or misrepresented category. So when it came to the fossil record, I analyzed this lineage of whale evolution that was initially proposed by Stephen J. Gould, who was a late evolutionary paleontologist. And Jonathan Wells spoke to this in his book Zombie Science. And I found that it was misrepresented because those animals are distinct, they are their own species, their own organisms, and it's not a complete lineage specifically, they try to make it seem like this animal, it's called rots, lived on land and underwater, and they want it to be this perfect transition from on land and underwater to fully aquatic animals, but it's missing the length there between on land and underwater to fully aquatic, because that's a pretty big jump.
Speaker 3 00:12:48 And they want to say that it can be connected with absolutely nothing. And recently, the, they have actually found that roto CTUs didn't have a tail and it likely didn't have, didn't have web legs and feet or arms and feet, and that was found in 2007, but the textbooks are still using that illustration. So that's pretty remarkable in my opinion. And they still have the tree of life in there. I didn't focus on that in my paper, but that's, it's its own topic <laugh>. Um, but yeah, I thought that it was interesting that they still kept that illustration in there. And then when it came to genetic and molecular biology, I was able to explore a lot more in that room in my paper. And I found that more often than not in that section it was misrepresented and underdeveloped as well. The one thing that was well aligned is the fact that we have, you know, we share a lot of our D n A with other organisms.
Speaker 3 00:13:40 There's only about a 1% difference in our D n A to that of a chimpanzee. And at first glance, that seems like, oh my gosh, that's huge evidence for evolution. Like if our d n A is so similar, then we have to be related to them. But I use this analogy in my paper. We're 50%, our D n A is 50% identical to a banana, but we don't walk around saying that we're part banana, and the same goes for, you know, lettuce. We don't say that we're part lettuce. So in that 1% difference, an article by science explored whether or not this 1% truism should be taken outta textbooks altogether. And they found that on top of that 1%, there were millions of differences in d n A base pairs, which play a huge role in our development and function. They found that there were 17.4% distinctions in our cortex connections.
Speaker 3 00:14:30 And so the 1% really, it's what makes us human, and it speaks volumes to our, um, individuality and the textbook. It doesn't, it doesn't reflect that, it doesn't even note it, it just says, oh, we're similar, so we must be related. And I also wanna bring up Douglas acts really quick because, um, he did a lot of research on protein folding, and before you can even get a protein chain, protein folding has to take place. And he found overall that the chance of getting a functional protein chain is as low as 10 to the 65th power, and there are 10 to the 77th atoms in the Milky Way galaxy. So that basically just goes to show that, um, the chance of getting a functional protein chain is super low. So that's overall what I found. Yeah, in a nutshell, <laugh>.
Speaker 2 00:15:19 That's great. Yeah. Yeah. I've heard a couple of analogies on this before. One of them is the idea that, you know, just because when you mentioned the fossil record, just because you found the island of Hawaii in the middle of the Pacific doesn't mean that you have found a pathway that you can walk from the west coast of the US over to Asia, right? There's huge gaps in the fossil record between so-called transitional forms. And each of those transitional forms really are quite unique and different than, you know, anything else in the record. And then, you know, like you were saying about the, the 1% difference, I mean, even that percentage is, is arguable, but even if you accept a 1% difference, the question would naturally be, well, what are the 1% differences? You know, what are those changes? Yeah. And how do they affect the, the overall phenotypes? So that's great. I'm, I'm so impressed by, you know, the research that you were able to do on this. What do you think that your, your findings in general, what do they suggest about the quality of evolutionary education in, in high schools?
Speaker 3 00:16:16 So I'll just start off by saying that nowhere in my paper or in my intentions in sharing my findings, do I wanna suggest that evolution should be taken out of textbooks. Totally. Because I think that students should be able to decide for themselves how they came to be, and we should propose a lot of different theories that are based in science. And so, yeah, I think that what I found just goes to show that there might be a little bit of an agenda here, because there's been a lot of challenges to these lineages, such as the whale evolution proposed by Stephen J Gold that have been met with, I think is valid criticism and critiquing. And the textbooks don't, you know, they still have it in there, but I think that they should at least suggest what might be faulty about it so students can, you know, that's, that's the truth, and they deserve to know that. But yeah, I think that there's just a little bit of, of an agenda. I don't know if that's the right word.
Speaker 2 00:17:12 Well, you're in good company. I'm sure Jonathan Wells would agree with you. He's, you know, spent many years working on this, and I'm sure he'd agree that there's definitely an agenda that's keeping these kind of undead icons in the textbooks Yeah. Year after year. So, yeah. You mentioned, you know, a minute ago that you, you think that students deserve to know the truth on this. So I'm curious, you know, compared to other scientific topics or areas, do you feel like it's especially important that high school students are taught accurately about evolution in particular?
Speaker 3 00:17:44 I do. I really do. So evolution, it's weird because it's super controversial, but we don't really talk about it anymore because there's so many other things going on right now, but sometimes it seems to go hand in hand with people who are theistic. And then there are people who think there's no way that evolution can align with the theistic worldview. And, um, so it is really controversial in that sense. But I think that especially high school students, they're in such a pivotal time in their life because they're forming their worldview. They're trying to figure out who they are, what their purpose is, and evolution is a theory on the origin of life. And so I think that that's huge to answering those questions because, you know, some people don't wanna admit this, especially not the textbook, it doesn't speak to this at all, but if evolution is true, assuming it doesn't align with a theistic worldview, which I don't think that it does, because it's a random process, but, um, assuming that it is true, then we arose from purely naturalistic. And if you wanna say a random process, which means we don't really have a logical purpose. We weren't wanted, we weren't planned. And so I think that if students really dive into that, they'll realize it has huge implications for their purpose, and they deserve to be able to form their worldview in this time of life. Yeah. So I think it's, I think it's huge.
Speaker 2 00:19:04 That's great. Yeah. I, I've seen from your paper and from our conversation that you've also learned a little bit about intelligent design, how it offers a different hypothesis for the origin of life and the complexity of life. And I'm curious from what you've learned about intelligent design, whether you feel like it does compared to evolution, it does set students up well for understanding their purpose, their value, and those sorts of things.
Speaker 3 00:19:29 Yeah, I definitely think that it would be a great thing to include in school curriculum because, you know, a lot of people are concerned that it would push a little bit of religion on students, which I understand, but if they were to truly look into the theory, I think that they would find that that's not true. Because, um, it suggests only that there is an intelligence and that there is a mind behind the creation of the universe. Because, you know, if we look at the world around us, it's so complex, you know, each species is so different from the other. And, you know, we are perfectly aligned between the sun and the moon. And I think that scientifically it agrees with so many, if not all of the scientific principles, we know to be objectively true. And I think that it would offer students who are questioning their worldview, questioning their purpose, it would offer them a lot of peace and a lot of hope to know that there is a possibility they were planned and they weren't made by somebody on purpose.
Speaker 2 00:20:21 Yeah. So I know that in, you know, many schools in America, intelligent design is not, you know, mentioned at all in the classroom. And it's not something that we actually encourage of schools because the, the current state of the debate. On the other hand, I'm curious, if you were in front of a room full of high schoolers right now, and there were no rules, you know, and you were able to speak on this subject of evolution, intelligent design, the, the current scientific evidence from the most credible sources that you can find, what would you want them to know?
Speaker 3 00:20:50 That's a great question, because I didn't have an opportunity to talk to my class. I was only a friend of my teacher when I gave my presentation at the end of the year. I think that I would just let them know that it's probably seems totally strange for anybody to be telling you that science and faith and purpose can go hand in hand. But they can. And intelligent design really speaks to that. I think I would just encourage them to reflect again on how complex our universes, how complex we just as an individual are, you know, all of our thoughts and how we function, how we process, how complex that is, and to ask themselves if it makes more sense that all of this is, you know, product of random chance and mutation or maybe doesn't make sense that we were designed by an intelligence. And I think I would just encourage them to question things that they learn in school, because that's what I did. And I have learned so much and I'm so grateful for that. It's okay not to think exactly like your peers, because I was definitely met with some criticism when people found out this is what I was I was pursuing. But it's okay. Yeah.
Speaker 2 00:22:02 Amazing. What are you up to now? So you've graduated high school, do you have plans to continue studying something related to this? Or was this just kind of like a, a high school senior year project and
Speaker 3 00:22:12 Yeah. Well, I went into this because senior year is crazy and I knew that I was gonna be really busy and I wanted to find a way to work in my love for apologetics into my, into my year. So I did it through this class. But yeah, I, like most people out there, or at least adolescents, have changed my mind so many times about what I wanna do. I really was thinking about environmental science for a little bit, but I really love working in the special ed community. So right now I'm thinking recreational therapy, which is basically helping older adults that have a disability of some sort with their social skills, with their life skills. And I wanna find a way to incorporate kind of horticulture into that. There's something called horticultural recreational therapy, and it's just taking them outside and helping them connect with the environment
Speaker 2 00:22:59 Sounds right up your alley. That's great. I'm sure in whatever you do, you'll be an open-minded researcher who always thinks critically about the subject area that you're in. And so that's wonderful. You reminded me of the dedication at the beginning of Jonathan Wells's book, zombie Science. He says, this book is dedicated to the students who will need to discern the truth for themselves. And I, I think that's definitely where we're at today. Students who seriously care about any subject area in the sciences need to have a really discerning eye to do the research for themselves, to use Google Scholar, just like you did. Yeah. <laugh> not to just rely on, you know, a single textbook to, to give them the most up-to-date accurate picture. So
Speaker 3 00:23:39 Yeah, question it and dive deep. Yeah.
Speaker 2 00:23:41 Wow. Awesome. Well, again, thank you so much for coming on the air today, sharing your story. I think this has been really fascinating. It gives us a little peek into kind of the world of mainstream biology textbooks eight years after zombie science. So I really appreciate that. Yeah, thank you so
Speaker 3 00:23:55 Much for having me. It's been a
Speaker 2 00:23:57 Pleasure. Awesome. Well, for those that want to learn a little bit more about the topic of our conversation today, I recommend both of these books, icons of Evolution, zombie Science, and if you're looking for something more brief, you can just visit jonathan wells.org/textbooks where you can actually see a full list of the textbooks that were evaluated by Dr. Wells back in 2002, as well as an updated list evaluated by my colleague Casey Luskin in 2011. You can also check out our textbook Explore Evolution, which is designed to provide a more in-depth nuanced study of the evidence for and against evolutionary theory in a way that compliments a standard textbook like the one that we've just been talking about. We also have a free online companion course that will guide you through that study as well. Natalie, thank you so much again. Thank
Speaker 1 00:24:42 You.
Speaker 2 00:24:43 Alright, for ID the Future, I'm Daniel Reeves. Thanks for listening.
Speaker 1 00:24:47 Visit
[email protected] and intelligent design.org. This program is Copyright Discovery Institute and recorded by its Center for Science and Culture.
