What is Icons really about?
The central irony of Icons of Evolution is that, while biologists no longer accept and indeed actively debunk the “March From Ape-to-Man” image on the cover, it appears to be closer to something that Wells believes. He apparently does not deny common ancestry of humans with animals; on page 223 (in the middle of six pages of selective quoting about the subjectivity and disagreements in paleontology) Wells admits, “Obviously, the human species has a history. Many fossils have been found that appear to be genuine, and many of them have some features that are ape-like and some that are human-like.” It seems like Wells’s next sentence ought to be “Sorry for all the trouble, folks, I guess I got a little carried away with this book…”, but of course it isn’t. As far as anyone can tell, Wells has the idea that “the human species was planned before life began, and that the history of life is the record of how this plan was implemented” (see his essay “Evolution and Design,” online here: http
