Eight Days to Go: More on Jonathan Wells

One of the things I have tried to do, as a journalist who's been cast in the role of a defender of science ever since the publication of The Republican War on Science, is to take on some of the attackers. That's why I agreed to debate Jonathan Wells this coming Tuesday night, and it's why I have debated a number of other folks as well, like Tom Bethell. I feel like it's a dirty job, but someone has to do it. Moreover, I can't fairly criticize the scientific community for failing to engage, as I have done repeatedly, if I myself am not engaging. So I want to thank everyone who posted comments to my last twoposts about Wells; there's truly a lot of food for thought there. It will be of immense help to me. Now with this post, in anticipation of the debate, I want to get a little deeper into the issues. First of all, nobody yet linked this piece, by Kevin Padian and Alan Gishlick, which takes a fairly devastating look at how Wells' last book Icons of Evolution distorted and misrepresented the science on evolution, specifically "misleading by the omission of important information." Now that I myself have been through about half of Wells' new book The Politically Incorrect Guide to Darwinism and Intelligent Design, the Padian/Gishlick critique really rings true to me. This in particular is priceless: