Written by developmental biologist Jonathan Wells, Icons of Evolution has become a modern classic. Taking aim at 10 common “icons” used to bolster Darwin’s theory in widely used biology textbooks, Wells shows how they turn out to be scientific urban legends, long-refuted fakes, or misrepresentations of the scientific data. Wells’ book spurred revisions to a number of biology textbooks, and it has been translated into Polish, Czech, Chinese, and Japanese. This book is a must-read for anyone interested in how high school biology textbooks present modern Darwinian theory, and particularly for anyone planning to teach evolutionary theory. Laden with extensive references to peer-reviewed scientific literature, Icons of Evolution will be impossible for a fair-minded reader to ignore.

The Icons

The 10 “icons” discussed by the book are:

- The Miller-Urey Experiment: A 1953 experiment that supposedly showed how the chemical building blocks of life could have formed spontaneously on the early Earth.
- Darwin’s Tree of Life: A branching tree diagram used to illustrate the descent with modification of all living things from common ancestors.
- Homology in Vertebrate Limbs: Similarities in limb bones used as evidence that vertebrates (animals with backbones) are all descended from a common ancestor.
- Haeckel’s Embryos: Drawings of similarities in early embryos used as evidence that all vertebrates (including humans) evolved from fish-like animals.
- Archaeopteryx: A fossil bird with teeth in its mouth and claws on its wings, often cited as the missing link between ancient reptiles and modern birds.
Peppered Moths: Photos of moths resting on tree trunks that supposedly provide evidence for evolution by natural selection.
- Darwin’s Finches: Thirteen species of finches on the Galápagos Islands that are used as evidence for the origin of species by natural selection.
- Four-Winged Fruit Flies: Fruit flies with an extra pair of wings that supposedly provide evidence that DNA mutations provide the raw materials for macroevolution.
- Fossil Horses: Fossils once used to show that evolution proceeds in a straight line and later used to show that it doesn’t.
- The Ultimate Icon: Drawings of ape-like creatures gradually evolving into humans, used to show that we are just animals produced by purposeless natural causes.


Preface 
Chapter 1: Introduction 
Chapter 2: The Miller-Urey Experiment 
Chapter 3: Darwin's Tree of Life 
Chapter 4: Homology in Vertebrate Limbs 
Chapter 5: Haeckel's Embryos 
Chapter 6: Archaeopteryx: The Missing Link 
Chapter 7: Peppered Moths 
Chapter 8: Darwin's Finches 
Chapter 9: Four-Winged Fruit Flies 
Chapter 10: Fossil Horses and Directed Evolution 
Chapter 11: From Ape to Human: The Ultimate Icon 
Chapter 12: Science or Myth?
 
https://iconsofevolution.com/icons-of-evolution/