I guess I’d have to trust your conclusion that they contained false evidence since you provide nothing to support that contention.
I don’t think scientists have anything to gain by falsifying evidence in the long run. They never have in the past.
If you choose to reject the science, it’s really no skin off my nose or theirs’. I feel no need to persuade you.
The book Icons of Evolution is written by Jonathan Wells. Here is a review of that book.
Here are the concluding paragraphs:
In conclusion, the scholarship of Icons is substandard and the conclusions of the book are unsupported. In fact, despite his touted scientific credentials, Wells doesn't produce a single piece of original research to support his position. Instead, Wells parasitizes on other scientists' legitimate work. He could not have written the "Haeckel's embryos" chapter without the work of Richardson et al. (1997, 1998), or the "peppered moths" chapter without Coyne (1998) and Majerus (1998), or the "Archaeopteryx" chapter without Shipman (1998). Even then, Wells's discussions are rife with inaccuracies and out-of-date information. Wells seems to think that scientific theories are supported by certain "keystone" pieces of evidence, removal of which causes the theory to collapse. Paradigms in science work when they provide solutions and further research; their health is not tied to single examples. The paradigm of evolution is not tied to a single piece of evidence.If that is the case, why "defend" the "icons" at all? If evolution doesn't need them, why not just replace them? The answer is simple: There is no reason to throw out good teaching examples unless the criticisms leveled against them are valid. We should not just acquiesce to Wells's arguments unless they have merit. Just as no piece of evidence becomes a teaching example without extensive testing, no example should be removed on the basis of one poorly argued, inaccurate, and tendentious book. In each case, it is Wells's arguments that are wanting, not the "icon."
When Alfred Wegener first proposed his theory of continental drift, he was laughed at and ridiculed. What did he do? Did he form a non-profit advocacy group and lobby state school boards and lawmakers to force teaching of "evidence against" geosynclinal theory? Write a book called Icons of Uniformitarianism? Evaluate and grade earth science textbooks and demand that they be rewritten to remove examples of "borderlands"? No. He went back and did more research. He found like-minded colleagues and they produced research. He fought in the peer-reviewed literature. He produced original research, not polemical popular tracts or politics. Eventually his ideas were adopted by the whole of geology -- not through politics but because of their overall explanatory power. If Wells and his colleagues want "intelligent design" to succeed, they need to produce that research. Until they do, evolution remains the reigning paradigm and the "icons" are perfectly acceptable teaching aids.
From another review, titled Creationism by Stealth, by Jerry Coyne:
In 1976, Jonathan Wells a student in Moon's seminary, answered his leader's call. Wells writes, "Father's [Moon'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 to enter a PhD program in 1978, I welcomed the opportunity to prepare myself for battle." The University of California supplied Wells with his weapon, a PhD in biology and, with Icons of Evolution, Wells has fired the latest salvo in the eternal religious assault on Charles Darwin.
Based on these, I don't think I would accord Wells much credibility in dealing with science, or the theory of evolution.
Just wondering, "They never have" what?
Never have have in the past falsified evidence, or never had anything to gain by falsifying anything?
Thanks,
-Jesse