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Arguments should be accurately represented

Nature Reviews Genetics volume 4, page 752 (2003)Cite this article

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Michael J. Behe did not challenge a single piece of evolutionary biology in my article. Rather, he decided to go after the messenger of the data. So, let me respond to his note by first thanking him for questioning the title of my paper. During the 1980s, when a group of biologists were trying to convince other scientists of the need to include embryology in evolutionary theory, I would often state that developmental biology was the 'black box' of evolutionary theory — the missing set of connections between the genotype and the phenotype. Embryologists had been using this phrase to describe the relationship between embryology and evolutionary biology at least since Viktor Hamburger's critique of the Modern Synthesis in 1980 (Ref. 1). So, I had every right to use it here. Indeed, I had also described (in a 1998 web site) Haeckel's oversimplified picture of comparative embryonic development as “an icon of evolution”. When Jonathan Wells published his Icons of Evolution2 four years later, I thought that I must be in the business of supplying book titles to creationists.

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References

  1. Hamburger, V. in The Evolutionary Synthesis (eds Mayr, E. & Provide, W. B.) 96–112 (Harvard Univ. Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1980).

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  2. Wells, J. Icons of Evolution (Regnery Publishing, New York, 2000).

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  3. Behe, M. J. Darwin's Black Box: The Biochemical Challenge to Evolution (Simon and Schuster, New York, 1996).

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  4. Miller, K. R. in God and Design (ed. Manson, N. A.) 292–307 (Routeledge, New York, 2003).

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  5. Miller, K. R. in Debating Design — From Darwin to DNA (eds Dembski, W. & Ruse, M.) (Oxford Univ. Press, New York, 2004).

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  6. Counterbalance Foundation [online], (cited 30 Jan 2004), <http://www.counterbalance.org> (2004).

  7. Michael Behe — Presentation [online], (cited 30 Jan 2004), <http://www.counterbalance.net/perspevo/presmb-frame.html> (2001).

  8. Ken Miller — Presentation [online], (cited 30 Jan 2004), <http://www.counterbalance.net/perspevo/preskm-frame.html> (2001).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Swarthmore College, Swarthmore, 19081, Pennsylvania, USA

    Scott F. Gilbert

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  1. Scott F. Gilbert
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Gilbert, S. Arguments should be accurately represented. Nat Rev Genet 4, 752 (2003). https://doi.org/10.1038/nrg1159-c2

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