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John Corrigan "Jonathan" Wells (born 1942) is an American author, theologian, and advocate of the argument of intelligent design. Wells joined the Unification Church in 1974, and subsequently wrote that the teachings of church founder Sun Myung Moon, his own studies at the Unification Theological Seminary and his prayers convinced him to devote his life to "destroying Darwinism." The term Darwinism is often used by intelligent design proponents and other creationists to refer to the scientific consensus on evolution. He gained a PhD in religious studies at Yale University in 1986, then became Director of the Unification Church's inter-religious outreach organization in New York City. In 1989, he studied at the University of California, Berkeley, where he earned a PhD in molecular and cellular biology in 1994. He became a member of several scientific associations and has published in academic journals.

In his book Icons of Evolution: Science or Myth? (2000), Wells argues that a number of examples used to illustrate biology textbooks were grossly exaggerated, distorted truth, or were patently false. Wells said that this shows that evolution conflicts with the evidence, and so argued against its teaching in public education.

Biography

Wells was born in New York City in 1942 and grew up in New Jersey, and was brought up as a Protestant Christian. He studied geology at Princeton University, where he dropped out in his junior year. Following a brief stint as a taxi driver, he was drafted into the United States Army and spent two years serving in Germany. After his discharge in 1966, he attended University of California, Berkeley, where he publicly refused to report for reserve duty. This resulted in him being arrested and being incarcerated for eighteen months at the Leavenworth military prison. Upon his release, Wells returned to Berkeley where he completed his studies with a major in geology and physics and a minor in biology.

In 1974, Wells joined the Unification Church of the United States. He graduated from the church's Unification Theological Seminary in 1978 with a master's degree in religious education. Wells continued his studies at Yale University, earning a PhD in religious studies in 1986, focusing on historical reactions to Darwinism. During this time he wrote extensively on Unification theology and taught at the Unification Theological Seminary. Wells was on the Board of Trustees of the Unification Theological Seminary until resigning in 1997 to return to teaching. He also acted as the director of the International Religious Foundation, a Unification Church affiliated organization which sponsors interdenominational conferences.

Wells has written on the subject of marriage within the Unification Church and has been called a "Unification Church marriage expert" by church sources. Wells defended Unification Church theology against what he said were unfair criticisms made in 1977 by the National Council of Churches.

In 1994, Wells earned another PhD in molecular and cellular biology at UC Berkeley. After receiving his doctorate, he worked at a position he described as "a post-doctoral research biologist at Berkeley, writing articles critical of Darwinism." Shortly after that Wells joined former UC Berkeley law professor Phillip E. Johnson, father of the intelligent design movement, at the Discovery Institute. He now serves as a fellow at the Discovery Institute's Center for Science and Culture, the hub of the intelligent design movement, and at the International Society for Complexity, Information, and Design, which also promotes intelligent design.

Wells appeared on a panel at Harvard with Stephen Palumbi in November 2001, which his supporters lauded as a "home run". Other observers stated that Wells' performance was "uneventful".

Opposition to Darwinian evolution

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Of his student days at Unification Theological Seminary (1976–78), Wells said, "One of the things that Father advised us to do at UTS was to pray to seek God's plan for our lives." He later described that plan: "To defend and articulate Unification theology especially in relation to Darwinian evolution."

Wells stated that his religious doctoral studies at Yale, which were paid for by the Unification Church, focused on the "root of the conflict between Darwinian evolution and Christian doctrine" and encompassed the whole of Christian theology within a focus of Darwinian controversies. He said:

...I learned (to my surprise) that biblical chronology played almost no role in the 19th- century controversies, since most theologians had already accepted geological evidence for the age of the earth and re-interpreted the days in Genesis as long periods of time. Instead, the central issue was design.

Wells said that "destroying Darwinism" was his motive for studying Christian theology at Yale and going on to seek his second PhD at Berkeley, studying biology and in particular embryology:

Father's words, my studies, and my prayers convinced me that I should devote my life to destroying Darwinism, just as many of my fellow Unificationists had already devoted their lives to destroying Marxism. When Father chose me (along with about a dozen other seminary graduates) to enter a Ph.D. program in 1978, I welcomed the opportunity to prepare myself for battle.

He has written articles for the Discovery Institute, WorldNetDaily, Origins & Design, and other sympathetic publications attacking evolution and defending intelligent design. In 1997, he presented a paper entitled "Evolution by Design" at the Unification Church sponsored International Conference on the Unity of the Sciences in Washington, D.C.

In 1999, Wells debated with the New Mexicans for Science and Reason. He was one of the contributors to Natural History magazine's 2002 debate between intelligent design advocates and evolution supporters. In 2005, he debated Massimo Pigliucci on the PBS talk show Uncommon Knowledge. Pigliucci said that Wells "clearly lied" during his debates and misrepresented his agenda and science, as well as not understanding some of the theories he tried to attack.

Wells is one of the signatories of the Discovery Institute's "A Scientific Dissent From Darwinism," a petition which the intelligent design movement uses to promote intelligent design by attempting to cast doubt on evolution. He is also the author of "Ten questions to ask your biology teacher about evolution" for high school students, which is published by the Discovery Institute. The National Center for Science Education has issued a list of answers to the questions.

Icons of Evolution

Wells is best known for his 2000 book Icons of Evolution, in which he discusses 10 examples which he says show that many of the most commonly accepted arguments supporting evolution are invalid.

Kansas evolution hearings

In 2005, Wells participated in the Kansas evolution hearings. There Wells testified:

I became convinced that the Darwinian theory is false because it conflicts with the evidence. ... I think the earth is probably four-and-a-half billion or so years old. But I'll tell you this, I used to-- I would have said, a few years ago, I'm convinced it's four-and-a-half billion years old. But the truth is I have not looked at the evidence. And I have become increasingly suspicious of the evidence that is presented to me and that's why at this point I would say probably it's four-and-a-half billion years old, but I haven't looked at the evidence. ... There are already scientists-- respected scientists in this country who do experiments on things that most people consider supernatural, such as prayer. When Newton proposed the theory of gravitation it was dismissed as supernaturalism because it was action at a distance. What constitutes supernaturalism in today's science may very well not be supernatural in tomorrow's science.

Prior to the evolution hearings, in December 2000 after the Pratt County, Kansas, school board revised its tenth-grade biology curriculum at the urging of intelligent design proponents to include material that encourages students to question the theory of evolution, The Pratt Tribune published a letter from Jerry Coyne challenging Wells's characterization in an article of his work on peppered moths, saying that his article appended to the Pratt standards was misused and being mischaracterized:

Creationists such as Jonathan Wells claim that my criticism of these experiments casts strong doubt on Darwinism. But this characterization is false. ... My call for additional research on the moths has been wrongly characterized by creationists as revealing some fatal flaw in the theory of evolution. ... It is a classic creationist tactic (as exemplified in Wells' book, "Icons of Evolution") to assert that healthy scientific debate is really a sign that evolutionists are either committing fraud or buttressing a crumbling theory.

The Politically Incorrect Guide to Darwinism and Intelligent Design

In 2006, Wells published his second major book, The Politically Incorrect Guide to Darwinism and Intelligent Design, which was part of a series published by Regnery Publishing. The book was praised by Tom Bethell, author of The Politically Incorrect Guide to Science (2005). A quote from the book linking evolution to eugenics, abortion and racism appeared on Starbucks paper cups in 2007.

Publications

Articles in peer-reviewed journals

• Wells, Jonathan (1985). "Inertial force as a possible factor in mitosis". BioSystems. 17 (4): 301–315. doi:10.1016/0303-2647(85)90046-2. ISSN 0303-2647. PMID 3902112.
• Larabell, Carolyn A.; Rowning, Brian A.; Wells, Jonathan; Wu, Mike; Gerhart, John C. (April 1996). "Confocal microscopy analysis of living Xenopus eggs and the mechanism of cortical rotation" (PDF). Development. 122 (4): 1281–1289. OCLC 15088415. PMID 8620855. Retrieved 2013-12-12.
• Rowning, Brian A.; Wells, Jonathan; Wu, Mike; Gerhart, John C.; Moon, Randall T.; Larabell, Carolyn A. (February 18, 1997). "Microtubule-mediated transport of organelles and localization of β-catenin to the future dorsal side of Xenopus eggs". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. 94 (4): 1224–1229. doi:10.1073/pnas.94.4.1224. ISSN 0027-8424. PMC 19772. PMID 9037034.

Books

• Wells, Jonathan (1988). Charles Hodges' Critique of Darwinism: An Historical-Critical Analysis of Concepts Basic to the 19th Century Debate. illustrations by Jody F. Sjogren. Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen Press. ISBN 978-0-88946-671-5. LCCN 87031222. OCLC 16924943.
• —— (2000). Icons of Evolution: Science or Myth?: Why Much of What We Teach About Evolution is Wrong. Washington, D.C.: Regnery Publishing. ISBN 978-0-89526-276-9. LCCN 00062544. OCLC 44768911.
• —— (2006). The Politically Incorrect Guide to Darwinism and Intelligent Design. Washington, D.C.: Regnery Publishing. ISBN 978-1-596-98013-6. LCCN 2008270992. OCLC 70870578.
• Dembski, William A.; Wells, Jonathan (2008). How to be an Intellectually Fulfilled Atheist (or not) (1st ed.). Wilmington, DE: ISI Books. ISBN 978-1-933-85984-2. LCCN 2008934995. OCLC 232128215.
• ——; —— (2008). Dembski, William A. (ed.). The Design of Life: Discovering Signs of Intelligence in Biological Systems. Dallas, TX: Foundation for Thought and Ethics. ISBN 978-0-980-02130-1. LCCN 2009281462. OCLC 183624199.
• Wells, Jonathan (2011). The Myth of Junk DNA (1st ed.). Seattle, WA: Discovery Institute Press. ISBN 978-1-936-59900-4. LCCN 2011925471. OCLC 739090951.

Dissertations

Wells, John Corrigan. 1986. CHARLES HODGE'S CRITIQUE OF DARWINISM: THE ARGUMENT TO DESIGN (EVOLUTION, THEOLOGY). Ph.D. Dissertation, Yale University, 265 pages.

Wells, John Corrigan. 1994. A confocal microscopy study of microtubule arrays involved in cortical rotation during the first cell cycle of Xenopus embryos. Ph.D. Dissertation, University of California, Berkeley, 124 pages.

See also

• Unification Church and science

Notes

1. Wells, Jonathan (November 2004). "Using Intelligent Design Theory to Guide Scientific Research" (PDF). Progress in Complexity, Information and Design. 3.1.2. ISSN 1555-5089. OCLC 315922913. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2006-05-13. Retrieved 2008-07-16.
2. Gishlick, Alan D. (November 23, 2006). "Icon 4 — Haeckel's Embryos". National Center for Science Education. Berkeley, CA: National Center for Science Education. Retrieved 2008-12-17.
3. ^ Wells, Jonathan. "Darwinism: Why I Went for a Second Ph.D." True Parents Organization. Denver, CO. Retrieved 2013-12-12.
4. Forrest, Barbara (March 2000). Dembski, William A (ed.). "The Rise and Fall of Baylor University's Michael Polanyi Center (Barbara Forrest's Letter to Simon Blackburn)". DesignInference.com. William Dembski. Archived from the original on 2008-01-06. Retrieved 2013-12-12. As I stated earlier, Johnson, Dembski, and their associates have assumed the task of destroying 'Darwinism,' 'evolutionary naturalism,' 'scientific materialism,' 'methodological naturalism,' 'philosophical naturalism,' and other 'isms' they use as synonyms for evolution. Quoted in "Rebuttal to Reports by Opposing Expert Witnesses" (PDF) by William A. Dembski (May 14, 2005).
5. "Comparing Darwin's Method with That of Scientific Creationists". 2008-12-31.
6. Wells, Jonathan. "INTRODUCTION to ICONS of EVOLUTION: Science or Myth? Why much of what we teach about evolution is wrong". Icons of Evolution. Seattle, WA: Discovery Institute. Archived from the original on 2013-12-29. Retrieved 2013-12-12. Biological evolution is the theory that all living things are modified descendants of a common ancestor that lived in the distant past. It claims that you and I are descendants of ape-like ancestors, and that they in turn came from still more primitive animals.
   
   ...much of what we teach about evolution is wrong. This fact raises troubling questions about the status of Darwinian evolution. If the icons of evolution are supposed to be our best evidence for Darwin's theory, and all of them are false or misleading, what does that tell us about the theory? Is it science, or myth?
7. Coyne, Jerry (April 12, 2001). "Creationism by stealth". Nature (Book review). 410 (6830): 745–46. doi:10.1038/35071144. Retrieved 2006-12-24.
8. Wells, Jonathan (June 12, 2002). "Critics Rave Over Icons of Evolution: A Response to Published Reviews". Center for Science and Culture. Seattle, WA: Discovery Institute. Retrieved 2007-08-13. Several of them grossly exaggerate or distort the truth, while others are patently false. Yet they are found year after year in almost all textbooks dealing with evolutionary theory, and they invariably accompany other material promoting that theory. When someone points out that the textbook examples misrepresent the facts, Darwinists don't rush to correct them. Instead, they rush to defend them.
9. Cashill 2005, p. 174
10. ^ Wells, Jonathan. "Jonathan Wells Then". The Politically Incorrect Guide to Darwinism and Intelligent Design. Seattle, WA: The Discovery Institute. Retrieved 2008-07-16.
11. ^ Numbers 2006, p. 381
12. "Board of Trustees". True Parents Organization. Denver, CO. Retrieved 2013-12-12.
13. ^ Antal, Chris (February 2000). "New Hope for Dialogue with National Council of Churches of Christ". True Parents Organization. Denver, CO. Retrieved 2013-12-12.
14. "CULTIVATING FRIENDS REV. MOON HOSTS RELIGIOUS SCHOLARS". Philadelphia Daily News. November 21, 1985.
15. Wells, Jonathan. "Marriage and the Family: the Unification Blessing". True Parents Organization. Denver, CO. Retrieved 2013-12-12.
16. Lanham, Cheryl Wetzstein (September 1994). "True Subject and Object, Not Men and Women". Unification News (Letter to the editor (reprint)). New York: Holy Spirit Association for the Unification of World Christianity. ISSN 1061-0871. Retrieved 2013-12-12.
17. "Unificationist Photos from 1997 and 1998". True Parents Organization. Denver, CO. Retrieved 2013-12-12.
18. "Jonathan Wells, Senior Fellow - CSC". Discovery Institute. Seattle, WA: Discovery Institute. Archived from the original on 2013-03-14. Retrieved 2013-12-12.
19. "Society Fellows". International Society for Complexity, Information, and Design. Princeton, NJ: International Society for Complexity, Information, and Design. Archived from the original on 2013-01-16. Retrieved 2013-12-12.
20. "Intelligent Design and Peer Review". American Association for the Advancement of Science. Washington, D.C. Archived from the original on 2007-03-12. Retrieved 2013-12-12.
21. Johnson, Phillip E. (2001-12-02). "The Weekly Edge Update: Wells Hits a Home Run at Harvard". Access Research Network. Retrieved 2018-10-03.
22. Miller, Jeslyn A. (2001-11-29). "Panelists Discuss Validity Of Evolutionary Theory". The Harvard Crimson. Retrieved 2018-10-03.
23. Dawkins, Richard (2006-05-14). "Why I Won't Debate Creationists". The Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science. Archived from the original on 2013-03-12. Retrieved 2018-10-03.
24. Evolution vs Creation debate—Harvard Professor Stephen Palumbi vs Jonathan Wells. Youtube. 2013-11-17. Retrieved 2018-10-03.
25. Esensten, Jonathan H. (2003-03-31). "Death to Intelligent Design". The Harvard Crimson. Retrieved 2018-10-03.
26. "Dr. Jonathan Wells Returns to UTS". The Cornerstone. May–June 1997. ISSN 0197-5196. Retrieved 2013-12-12.
27. Andrew, Stephen (January 15, 2006). "Know Your Creationists". Daily Kos (Blog). Berkeley, CA: Kos Media, LLC. OCLC 59226519. Retrieved 2013-12-12.
28. "Article Database". Discovery Institute. Seattle, WA: Discovery Institute. Retrieved 2013-12-12. List of articles written by Jonathan Wells.
29. Wells, Jonathan. "Evolution by Design". True Parents Organization. Denver, CO. Retrieved 2013-12-12.
30. "The C-Files: Jonathan Wells". New Mexicans for Science and Reason. Peralta, NM: New Mexicans for Science and Reason. Retrieved 2008-05-17.
31. Milner, Richard; Maestro, Vittorio, eds. (April 2002). "Intelligent Design?". Natural History. Retrieved 2013-12-12.
32. Robinson, Peter (host); Massimo, Pigliucci; Wells, Jonathan (January 14, 2005). "MONKEY BUSINESS: Evolution and Intelligent Design". Uncommon Knowledge. Stanford, CA: Hoover Institution. PBS. KTEH. Retrieved 2008-07-17.
33. Pigliucci 2002, pp. 44–45
34. Pennock, Robert T. (September 2003). "Creationism and Intelligent Design" (PDF). Annual Review of Genomics and Human Genetics. 4: 143–163. doi:10.1146/annurev.genom.4.070802.110400. PMID 14527300. Retrieved 2008-07-16.
35. Chang, Kenneth (February 21, 2006). "Few Biologists but Many Evangelicals Sign Anti-Evolution Petition". The New York Times. Retrieved 2008-05-05.
36. "A Scientific Dissent From Darwinism" (PDF). Discovery Institute. Seattle, WA: Discovery Institute. Retrieved 2008-05-05.
37. ^ "10 Questions, and Answers, About Evolution". The New York Times. August 23, 2008. Retrieved 2008-09-17.
38. "A Teacher on the Front Line". National Center for Science Education. Berkeley, CA: National Center for Science Education. August 24, 2008. Retrieved 2008-09-06.
39. "10 Answers to Jonathan Wells's '10 Questions'". National Center for Science Education. Berkeley, CA: National Center for Science Education. October 17, 2008. Retrieved 2008-02-19.
40. "Scientist Exposes Evolution's Weaknesses in Politically Incorrect Book About Darwinism and Intelligent Design". Center for Science and Culture. Seattle, WA: Discovery Institute. August 2, 2006. Retrieved 2013-12-12.
41. "Kansas Evolution Hearings: Jonathan Wells, Bruce Simat, Giuseppe Sermonti, and Ralph Seelke". TalkOrigins Archive (Transcript from the Kansas evolution hearings). Houston, TX: The TalkOrigins Foundation, Inc. Retrieved 2013-12-12.
42. Cite error: The named reference Coyne-letter was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
43. Bethell, Tom (September 1, 2006). "'Politically Incorrect' Series Takes on Darwinism and Intelligent Design". Human Events. Washington, D.C.: Eagle Publishing, Inc. ISSN 0018-7194. Retrieved 2013-12-12.
44. Rosen, Rebecca (May 16, 2009). "Starbucks stirs things up with controversial quotes". The Denver Post. MediaNews Group. Retrieved 2009-03-29.

References

• Cashill, Jack (2005). Hoodwinked: How Intellectual Hucksters Have Hijacked American Culture. Nashville, TN: Nelson Current. ISBN 978-1-59555-011-8. LCCN 2005006138. OCLC 58386577.
• Forrest, Barbara; Gross, Paul R. (2004). Creationism's Trojan Horse: The Wedge of Intelligent Design. Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-515742-0. LCCN 2002192677. OCLC 50913078.
• Numbers, Ronald L. (2006) . The Creationists: From Scientific Creationism to Intelligent Design (Expanded ed.). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. ISBN 978-0-674-02339-0. LCCN 2006043675. OCLC 69734583.
• Pigliucci, Massimo (2002). Denying Evolution: Creationism, Scientism, and the Nature of Science. Sunderland, MA: Sinauer Associates. ISBN 978-0-87893-659-5. LCCN 2002005190. OCLC 49530100.

External links

• Jonathan Wells biography from the Discovery Institute
  • Articles by Wells from the Discovery Institute
• Articles by Wells from the Access Research Network
• "Icons of Evolution FAQs" from talk.origins
• Wells's testimony at the Kansas evolution hearings
• "Icons of Evolution? – Why much of what Jonathan Wells writes about evolution is wrong" by Alan D. Gishlick
• "10 Answers to Jonathan Wells's '10 Questions'" from National Center for Science Education
• Chapter by chapter analysis of Wells's The Politically Incorrect Guide to Darwinism and Intelligent Design by Reed A. Cartwright, The Panda's Thumb

• Intelligent design advocates
• Fellows of the International Society for Complexity, Information, and Design
• American Unificationists
• Unification Theological Seminary graduates
• Discovery Institute fellows and advisors
• HIV/AIDS denialists
• University of California, Berkeley alumni
• 1942 births
• Living people
• Pseudoscientific biologists
• 20th-century American writers
• 21st-century American writers
• Yale University alumni