Wells' Icons
Wells focused on 10 examples that he said were commonly used to teach evolution, which he called "icons". He evaluated how seven of these icons are treated in ten "widely used" high school and undergraduate textbooks. Although Wells established a grading scale for the textbooks, Alan Gishlick reported that the grading scale was poorly constructed and inconsistently used. Wells contended that the 10 case studies used to illustrate and teach evolution are flawed. Wells' ten "icons" were:
| 1 | Miller–Urey experiment |
| 2 | Darwin's tree of life |
| 3 | Homology in vertebrate limbs |
| 4 | Haeckel's embryos |
| 5 | Archaeopteryx |
| 6 | Peppered moth |
| 7 | Darwin's finches |
| 8 | Four-winged fruit flies |
| 9 | Fossil horses |
| 10 | Hominid evolution |
The last three "icons" – four-winged fruit flies, horse evolution, and human evolution –- were discussed in the book, but Wells did not evaluate their coverage in textbooks. Although most textbooks cover the first seven "icons", they are not used as the "best evidence" of evolution in any of the textbooks.
Read more about this topic: Icons Of Evolution