Valentine Pontifex

That National Center for Science Education now has a new resource debunking Icons of Evolution:

<a href="http://www.ncseweb.org/icons/" target="_blank">http://www.ncseweb.org/icons/</a>

Don't forget that The Talk.Origins Archive has good material on the subject as well:

<a href="http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/wells/index.html" target="_blank">http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/wells/index.html</a>
<a href="http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/wells/" target="_blank">http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/wells/</a>

tgamble

I wonder how long it would last on ARN if I posted it there? 2 hours?

"For any textbook to show Haeckel's drawings themselves as unqualified statements of developmental anatomy or to advocate "recapitulation" in a Haeckelian sense would be inexcusable, but none of the textbooks reviewed by Wells appear to do so. Wells gleefully excoriates Futuyma for using Haeckel's drawings, but apparently in his fit of righteous indignation, he forgot to read the text, in which the drawings are discussed in a historical context -- stating why Haeckel is wrong -- and Futuyma has an entire chapter devoted to development and evolution. Guttman uses them in an explicitly historical context as well. Wells states that books use "Haeckel's drawings, or redrawn versions of them" (Wells 2000:255), but this is not true. Figure 10 shows Haeckel's drawings compared to the drawings in the textbooks reviewed by Wells. It can be clearly seen that a majority of the drawings are not "redrawn." Some textbooks show more accurate drawings; some use photos; only Starr and Taggart (and Raven and Johnson in their development chapter along with accurate drawings and photos) use what could be considered embryos "redrawn" from Haeckel. No textbook discusses embryology in any way that could be considered strongly "recapitulationist." In most textbooks, embryology is presented in just one or two paragraphs, making it hard to discuss all the complexities of development. At a high school level, the aim of the book is to convey some basic concepts of biology, not to confuse students with the complexity of a subject."

How can Well's get away with such slander?! Isn't there legal action that can be taken against someone who makes while accusations of deliberate fraud and deception?

"Contrary to Wells's subtitle, Archaeopteryx is not a "missing link."

Anyone wanna bet that this will be parroted by creationsts? "Oh look, NCSE admits Archie isn't a transitional form!" <img src="graemlins/boohoo.gif" border="0" alt="[Boo Hoo]" /> <img src="graemlins/banghead.gif" border="0" alt="[Bang Head]" /> <img src="graemlins/banghead.gif" border="0" alt="[Bang Head]" />

Principia

Don't bother, it's already <a href="http://www.arn.org/ubb/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic;f=14;t=000231" target="_blank">there</a>.

Baloo

An amusing grammar slip occurs on the Icon #2: Darwin's "Tree of Life" - very subtle, if intentional: (emphasis mine)