Fact or Fraud: 4 Common Science Textbook Errors

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Did you know that science textbooks from elementary school through college continue to print “facts” that were patently proven false decades ago?  We examine these common textbook topics:

• Peppered Moths
• Embryonic Homology
• The Miller Experiment
• The Geologic Column

 

If your child’s textbook taught that bloodletting, heroin, and mercury were effective medical treatments, I imagine you’d take issue with that.  After all, those practices were proven false long ago.  Well, did you know that science textbooks from elementary school through college continue to print “facts” that were patently proven false (by mainstream science) decades ago.

Several years ago, my husband began studying evolution and the age of the earth with a critical eye.  Since then he’s travelled to a number of states to present at camps, churches, and a Bible College.  For Christians, he presents solid Biblical evidence.  He also provides ample scientific evidence that is easy to understand that proves that evolution, besides being mathematically impossible, is wrought with lies and deception.

So let’s dig in to determine fact or fraud.  I know some of these examples will look familiar to you…get ready for (as Paul Harvey used to say), “The rest of the story.”

4 Common Science Textbook Errors

Peppered Moths

This is often the prime example given by textbooks to show natural selection, supposedly proving evolution.  So here’s the set-up as it’s presented:  At one time, 95% of peppered moths were light colored, and only 5% were dark colored.  But, in the mid-1800’s, after soot from coal-fired factories in England darkened the trunks of trees in the area, the light colored moths were more easily found and eaten by birds, leaving the dark colored ones to survive, thrive, and take over the population.

There were some big problems with the research, however.  Mainly, peppered moths don’t land on the trunks of trees.  They live higher up, in the canopy of trees. (Possibly to avoid being easily seen and eaten by birds?)  That not only completely falsifies the entire story, but it also makes it very difficult to take a picture of the moths on a tree trunk, to make your point visually.

That is, unless you glue dead moths to the tree.  Which is exactly what the researcher did.

He had to, because in 40 years of research, he actually only observed 2 moths on tree trunks.  (Can I say, those must have been two exciting days!  40 years… can you imagine?!)  He also altered his other research to reflect the point he wanted to make (that there were more dark moths in areas with soot-covered trees and light moths in areas where the trees were not soot-covered).

Criticisms of the experiment first began in the 1980’s, and in 1998 it was proven fraudulent.  Upon examining proof of the fraud, Dr. Jerry Coyne, a professor and evolutionist, said,

My own reaction resembles the dismay attending my discovery, at the age of six, that it was my father and not Santa who brought the presents on Christmas Eve.

Why is this forged example of natural selection still used by evolutionists today as the primary example of natural selection?  Here’s the thing…natural selection is real.  It’s observable and true. But this study is not.  It is, however…

the slam dunk of natural selection, the paradigmatic story that converts high school and college students to Darwin, the thundering left hook to the jaw of creationism.  (Hopper)

Another proponent says,

The rise and fall of the peppered moth is one of the most visually impacting and easily understood examples of Darwinian evolution in action [so] it should be taught.  It provides, after all, the proof of evolution.  (Majerus)

In 1999, textbook writer Bob Ritter, who knew the study was fraudulent, but used it anyway, defended his practice.

You have to look at the audience.  How convoluted do you want to make it for a first time learner? High school students are still very concrete in the way they learn.  The advantage of this example is that it’s extremely visual.

Let me say again, natural selection is real.  (It does not, however, prove evolution.  Evolution relies on new information being added to an organism, which has never…never…been observed.)

The glaring problem I have with this is that it proves that mainstream scientists are willing to lie, to present fraud as fact.  And that’s a big deal.

The Peppered Moth Experiment:  Fact or fraud?  Fraud.

–

Embryonic Homology

You’ve seen this drawing, right?

Darwin considered this, by far, the strongest proof of his theory of evolution.

However, these drawings were discovered in the 1870’s to be fraudulent.  In fact,  Earnest Haeckel was charged with fraud by his own university in Germany for falsifying them.  He was desperate to provide evidence for Darwin’s theory.  So he hand-picked various embryos that somewhat resembled each other.  They weren’t all at the same stage of development, but he lied and said they were.

Here’s a more accurate set of images for several of the embryos:

 

Even lying about the stages of development was not good enough, so he altered the drawings to resemble each other even more closely.  In some cases using the exact same drawing to represent different kinds of embryos.

Something else that Haeckel’s drawings have perpetuated is the idea of human embryos having ‘gill slits.’

Merrill Earth Science textbook from 1993 says,

The human embryo growing in it’s mother has gills like fish.

Even National Geographic published Haeckels drawings in a 2007 photo essay on ocean-dwelling worms.  They state that the worms’ gill slits are just like those on embryonic humans.

Yet it has been known for over 100 years that those ‘gills’ are just folds of skin that are never used for breathing (neither in the womb nor out) and eventually turn into glands in your throat and bones in your ear.  By the way, even fish don’t have gills at that stage of development!

Like Darwin, Haeckel claimed that the developmental stages of an embryo retrace its evolutionary past. The idea is that the human embryo supposedly goes through a fish stage, an amphibian stage, a reptile stage, and so on.  Sadly, this view that human embryos are ‘less than human’ has been used in arguments in support of abortion over the years.

Embryonic Homology:  Fact or fraud?  Fraud.

The Miller Experiment

Almost every biology textbook uses the Miller Experiment as an example when discussing the origin of life.

In the 1950’s, Stanley Miller set out to create the building blocks of life using his spark chamber.  He tried to simulate the atmosphere of ‘billions of years ago’ by combining gases such as methane and ammonia.  He left out oxygen.  Then he generated electrical sparks to drive the chemical reactions.  The textbooks say that he created amino acids, the building blocks of life!

And that is a fact…kind of.

When Miller picked which gases to use to represent the early atmosphere, why did he intentionally leave out oxygen?

Well, because he knew from previous attempts that life could not have started in the presence of oxygen.  Oxidation prevents the molecular bonds from forming.  And yet, it has been shown that the early atmosphere likely had more oxygen than our atmosphere today.

Let’s say, however, that the early atmosphere really didn’t have any oxygen.  No oxygen – -no ozone layer.  Earth fried.  Goodbye.

Even if we overlook the oxygen issue, let’s take a look at the amino acids that Miller produced in his spark chamber.

There are two types of amino acids, left-handed and right-handed.  Every amino acid in every protein in the human body (and there are trillions of these) is left-handed.  In fact, every living thing on Earth has only left-handed amino acids.

What Miller created was an even mixture of left-handed and right-handed amino acids.  That is poison to life.  It’s actually what happens when an organism dies.

Every experiment had the same result.  What Miller created was death, not life.

Also, the mixture he produced was 85% tar, 13% carboxylic acid (both toxic to life) and only 2% amino acids.

The experiment is a known and recognized failure, and yet it is still used as evidence in textbooks that life can start on its own.

By the mid 1970’s, Belgian biochemist Marcel Florkin had declared that the concept behind Miller’s theory of the early atmosphere had been abandoned.  In 1995, Science magazine said that the experts now dismiss Miller’s experiment because the early atmosphere looked nothing like it did in his experiment.

The Miller Experiment:  Fact or fraud?  Fraud.

–

The Geologic Column

Science textbooks would have us believe that the geologic column was created by geologists who, having examined the evidence, constructed a model of their findings.

Nope.

Would you be surprised to know that the geologic column was created in the mid 1800’s, before any dating methods were in use.  A group of men came up with a number of layers of rock, giving each one a name (like Jurassic), an arbitrary age, and an index fossil to identify that layer.

Sounds really scientific.

Interestingly, once dating methods were developed…none of the assigned dates changed.  Weird, huh?  (A brief aside here about radiometric dating methods…they’ve been proven unreliable when dating things that we know the age of, and yet scientists trust them to determine accurately the age of things we don’t know the age of).

The geologic column can be found in only one place in the world:  Textbooks.

In fact 80-85% of the earth’s surface does not have even three geologic periods appearing in the ‘correct’ consecutive order.  In many places, you’ll find the geologic periods in the ‘wrong’ order.

If the geologic column did exist in one place, it’s been estimated that it would be 100 miles thick.  (Psst…the earth’s crust is at most 30 miles thick).

One secular Earth Science textbook states,

If there was a column of sediments deposited continuously since the formation of the Earth, the entire history of the planet could be reconstructed. Unfortunately, no such column exists.

No such column exists.

 

What about the fossils, you ask?

One textbook we have says,

The layers of rock can be dated by the types of fossils they contain.

On the very next page it states,

Scientists have determined the relative times..of organisms from the locations of their fossils in sedimentary rock layers.

Did you catch that?

This quote from the American Journal of Science in 1976 says it all,

The intelligent layman has long suspected circular reasoning in the use of rocks to date fossils and fossils to date rocks.  The geologist has never bothered to think of a good reply, feeling the explanations are not worth the trouble as long as the work brings results.

Even the Encylopedia Brittanica says,

It cannot be denied that from a strictly philosophical standpoint geologists are here arguing in a circle.  The succession of organisms has been determined by a study of their remains embedded in the rocks, and the relative ages of the rocks are determined by the remains of organisms that they contain.

The geologic column:  Fact or Fraud?  Fraud.

–

Fact or Fraud

These textbook errors are just the tip of the iceberg.  It is disturbing to me that mainstream scientists have become a taboo that we are not allowed to question or challenge without being called ignorant or backward.  These examples of intentionally perpetrated fraud by the scientific community should cause us to question everything they say, however.  In what other area of life are we expected to trust someone who is repeatedly wrong or deceptive…the weatherman, maybe?

Keep an eye out for these textbook errors…I guarantee you’ll find them.  And when you do, ask yourself

(1) Do these textbook editors know so little about science that they think these things are true?  OR

(2) Do they know they are false and put them in anyway?

 

Click here for lots more resources on growing faith, lessons from Scripture, and more!

 

If you’d like more resources:

• Have we disconnected the fruit from the seeds when it comes to a Biblical worldview?
• Answers in Genesis
• The Institute for Creation Research
• Creation.com

If you’re interested in a presentation on this topic at your church or homeschool group:

• onegodsixdays.com

And if you’re looking for curriculum for homeschoolers:

Apologia, Dr. Jay Wile and the Answers in Genesis Bookstore  all have curriculum that is scientifically accurate.

You can follow Dr. Wile on Facebook, too, or on his website.

 

Sources

• Hooper, Judith. Of Moths and Men: An Evolutionary Tale (New York: W.W. Horton, 2002), pg. xvii.
• Majerus, M.E.N., Melanism: Evolution in Action (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998).
• Coyne, J.A., “Not Black and White,” Nature396 (1998): 35.
• Richardson, St. George’s Hospital Medical School, London.  New Scientist.  Sept. 6, 1997, p. 23.
• Mitchell, Elizabeth M.  M.D., Something Fishy About Gill Slits, Answers in Genesis
• C. Flowers, A Science Odyssey: 100 Years of Discovery. New York: William Morrow and Company, 1998, p. 173
• Austin, Stephen A. PhD.  Ten Misconceptions About the Geologic Column.  Institute for Creation Research.
• O’Rourke, J.E. American Journal of Science 1976, p. 276

 

Click here for lots of resources on living a Biblical faith.