Jonathan Wells

Senior Fellow, Center for Science and Culture

Jonathan Wells has received two Ph.D.s, one in Molecular and Cell Biology from the University of California at Berkeley, and one in Religious Studies from Yale University. A Senior Fellow at Discovery Institute's Center for Science and Culture, he has previously worked as a postdoctoral research biologist at the University of California at Berkeley and the supervisor of a medical laboratory in Fairfield, California. He also taught biology at California State University in Hayward and continues to lecture on the subject.

Dr. Wells has published articles in Development, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA, BioSystems, The Scientist and The American Biology Teacher. He is the author of Charles Hodge's Critique of Darwinism (Edwin Mellen Press, 1988), Icons of Evolution: Why much of what we teach about evolution is wrong(Regnery Publishing, 2000), The Politically Incorrect Guide to Darwinism and Intelligent Design (Regnery, 2006), and The Myth of Junk DNA (Discovery Institute Press, 2011). He is also co-author with William Dembski of The Design of Life (FTE, 2008). His latest book, Zombie Science (Discovery Institute Press, 2017), shows how evolutionary theory — "though empirically dead" — continues to stalk our scientific and educational institutions.

Dr. Wells is currently doing research and writing on developmental information in embryos that is outside of, and inherited independently of, their DNA.

Archives

Jonathan Wells Dives into “the Genome’s Uncharted Territories”

Jonathan Wells
August 25, 2021
On this ID the Future, Icons of Evolution author Jonathan Wells sat down with host and fellow biologist Ray Bohlin at the August 2021 Insiders’ Briefing near Seattle to discuss some fresh discoveries into the workings of the human genome detailed in a recent article in the journal Axios, “Diving into the Genome’s Uncharted Territories.” As the article details, researchers continue to discover important functions in the noncoding regions of the human genome, once regarded by evolutionists as junk DNA. Wells and Bohlin explore the exciting new findings and some of their implications for modern evolutionary theory and intelligent design.

Evolution, ID, and the Coronavirus: Jonathan Wells Explains

Jonathan Wells
April 13, 2020
On this episode of ID the Future, biologist and Discovery Institute senior fellow Jonathan Wells tackles questions of evolution and intelligent design as they relate to the novel coronavirus SARS CoV-2. Is it the product of evolution, in the sense of Darwin’s Origin of Species? Wells argues to the contrary: It’s not a new species; in fact viruses aren’t even considered living species. Does modern evolutionary theory guide medicine’s response? Not when you consider that most of the major treatments being used and pursued actually preceded Darwin. Is intelligent design involved? Yes and no, Wells says. Listen in to get his take on this and more.

Honoring Phillip Johnson, Pt. 2: Jonathan Wells and Paul Nelson

Jonathan Wells
January 22, 2020
Today’s episode of ID the Future comes from a Berkeley, California symposium honoring the recently deceased Phillip Johnson. Biologist Jonathan Wells recalls how he met Johnson and the huge influence he had on Wells’ own research and writing. Then philosopher of biology Paul Nelson reminisces on Johnson’s keen intellect, his eye for hidden assumptions, his awareness that “we are not of our own devising,” and on the mountain range of new knowledge opening up to us in biology, one that scientists knew little about even 30 years ago and that Nelson says points strongly away from Darwin’s idea of common descent.

Jonathan Wells Remembers Phillip Johnson

Jonathan Wells
November 6, 2019
On this episode of ID the Future, Jonathan Wells remembers Phillip Johnson, “godfather of the intelligent design movement.” Johnson not only attracted scientists’ and other academics’ attention with his groundbreaking Darwin on Trial, he brought them together as a united movement, pushing for a “big tent” for ID theorists to work together.

Dead Peppered Moths Can’t Evolve, and the Myth About Them Hasn’t Changed Much, Either

Jonathan Wells
September 10, 2018
On this episode of ID the Future, biologist Jonathan Wells, author of Icons of Evolution: Science or Myth? Why Much of What We Teach About Evolution is Wrong and Zombie Science: More Icons of Evolution, debunks a new study purporting to breathe fresh life into an old and throughly discredited icon of evolution, the peppered moth. Wells also tells how this icon of a moth “evolving” from light to dark still lives on in current textbooks, in the same form many parents probably remember from their school days. Dr. Wells and others have shown that many of these pictures used dead moths, pinned in places that live ones never rest. The supposed science of peppered moth evolution has been shown to Read More ›

Jonathan Wells on the Eye Evolution Simulation That Failed

Jonathan Wells
May 16, 2018
On this episode of ID the Future, biologist Jonathan Wells talks with Ray Bohlin about a conversation he imagined between evolutionists Richard Dawkins and Dan-Eric Nilsson, and published recently at Evolution News. Dawkins had lectured (in real life) on Nilsson’s computer simulation work, showing the human eye could have evolved easily and quickly. What would the two of them have said when Nilsson contacted Dawkins and told him, “I’m sorry, Richard, but I didn’t do that simulation?” Wells imagines them talking about rushing the work on that simulation. But then, what about the next conversation when the simulation failed?

Intelligent Design in Brazil: A Jonathan Wells Field Report

Jonathan Wells
February 28, 2018
“It’s been a long time since I’ve had such respectful give-and-take, from both professors and students.” Jonathan Wells gives that encouraging word and more when he speaks with Ray Bohlin about his recent visit to Brazil. Interest in intelligent design is strong there, audiences were large, and the Q&A lively. Among other things, Wells reports on Discovery Institute-Mackenzie at Mackenzie Presbyterian University in São Paulo.

Darwin’s Finches: Meet the New Hype, Same as the Old Hype

Jonathan Wells
January 15, 2018
On this episode of ID The Future, Ray Bohlin talks with CSC Senior Fellow Jonathan Wells, author of the Zombie Science, about some new hype over Darwin’s finches, an icon of evolution that just won’t die. Seventeen years after Icons of Evolution, Darwin’s finches are back in the news and can still be found in biology textbooks despite the fact that they illustrate no net evolutionary change nor did they play a role in helping Darwin formulate his theory.

Zombie Science Author: From Berserkeley to Berkeley and Back Again

Jonathan Wells
October 2, 2017
On this episode of ID the Future, Zombie Science author Jonathan Wells talks about his multifaceted, impressive and, at times, quirky educational history. Dr. Wells started as an undergrad geology major at Princeton and later moved to Berkeley to finish his undergraduate work. He was arrested as a conscientious objector and saw the ugly side of the anti-war movement. Disgusted, he moved to the remote mountains and there discovered evidence of intelligent design. After snagging a Ph.D. in theology from Yale, he returned Berkeley for his second Ph.D., this one in embryology. It was in studying embryos that Dr. Wells came across his first Icon of Evolution, Haeckel’s embryos. More icons soon followed. These and the dogmatism of the scientific Read More ›

Separating Fact from Faith in Science

Jonathan Wells
September 25, 2017
An accountant wonders how people can separate fact from faith in scientific claims, and biologist Jonathan Wells (author of Zombie Science) and playwright Matt Chait respond. This conversation was taped live in Hollywood during a discussion after the final performance of Disinherit the Wind, a play that tells the story of a neurobiologist who sues his university for the right to challenge neo-Darwinian evolution.