Jonathan Tweet has authored a new up and coming Darwinian evolution book for tots the description of which is:
Grandmother Fish is a child’s first book of evolution. The book engages a young child’s imagination with sounds and motions that imitate animals, especially our direct ancestors. The book lets children see for themselves that we are related in form and function to the nonhuman animals that preceded us. It’s our story of where we came from, told so simply that a 2-year old can follow it. Wiggle like a fish! Hoot like an ape!
In the attached video you can hear Jonathan Tweet stated that creationists have books about Adam and Eve that for their children and that “we” need something similar for “our” kids. Well, pray tell, who is “we” and “our”?
Well, a hint comes with his juxtaposition of creationists and “we.” Another hint comes by way of the KickStarter page for gaining funds for this book which notes three endorsements by Steven Pinker—an
Atheist, Daniel Dennett—an Atheist and David Sloan Wilson—an Atheist.
Jonathan Tweet seems to be, oddly, unaware that he has the entire media complex and public “education” system on his side. There are a about a gazillion children’s books, TV shows, cartoons, movies, etc. on Darwinian evolution.
Another description of the book notes:
“Grandmother Fish” teaches preschoolers to love the idea that we are descended from animals…Grandmother Fish is the first book to teach evolution to preschoolers. While listening to the story, the child mimics the motions and sounds of our ancestors, such as wiggling like a fish or hooting like an ape. Like magic, evolution becomes fun, accessible, and personal.
The phrase “Like magic, evolution becomes fun, accessible, and personal” says it all and does so in more ways than one.
Firstly, biology is a science but Darwinian evolution is a philosophy and is actually a branch of crypto-zoology which asserts and seeks mythological chimera. Also in the attached video, Tweet’s daughter notes that Darwinian evolution is her favorite creation story and that is just what it is; a modern day cosmogenic myth.
In the video you can also hear that book’s illustrator noting how she backed off of the science and attempted to be emotive. This is a typical Darwinian tactic; replace scientific evidence with illustrations and quaint tall tales (or, in the case of Grandmother Fish: tall tails). When you do not have evidence, just hire an illustrator, a painter, a sculptor, a computer graphics specialist and have them manufacture some. Add to this a Victorian Era Darwinian story and you can pass it off as scientific evidence.
Secondly, Jonathan Tweet has a background of promulgating “magic”:
Grandmother Fish was created by Jonathan Tweet, an award-winning game designer and lifelong fan of evolution. Over the last 25 years, has worked on major game brands, such as Dungeons & Dragons and Magic: The Gathering. For most of that time, he has also been working on the concept for Grandmother Fish. He started the project fifteen years ago when his daughter was little. Last year, he added the interactive motions and sounds, which make the book click with young children…Is the world ready for an evolution book for preschoolers? Jonathan’s betting that it is.
Note the direct relation between games that encourage role playing as practitioners of the occult arts with promulgating Darwinian evolution as Tweet, “worked on major game brands, such as Dungeons & Dragons and Magic: The Gathering” and “For most of that time” was also “working on the concept for Grandmother Fish.”
Indeed, in a culture wherein reference to God is virtually illegal within the public “education” system, where Atheism is not smuggle in through the backdoor but brought right in the front within textbooks that are supposed to be about science; yes, indeed, the world is ready for an evolution book for preschoolers…even though there are about a gazillion of them already out there.
Within the draft version of the book, Jonathan Tweet wrote:
Dear Parents, Teachers, Babysitters, and Other Readers: The story of Grandmother Fish gets children to see how evolution relates to them, personally, but only you can really explain to them how evolution works. Grandmother Fish is my words, but you have to reach your children where they are, with your own words.
Evolution by natural selection is very difficult to understand because it doesn’t make intuitive sense. Many adults have misconceptions about evolution, and to a lot of people it just doesn’t make any sense at all…
He provides a portion in the book that is meant to be a guide for the actual scientific facts supporting Darwinian evolution. In the video he notes that adult can learn about evolution from be book because, apparently, a minimum of a dozen years of indoctrination was not enough.
He begins by stating, “Our ancestors evolved into gnathostomes about 400 million years ago. The one pictured represents our branch of the gnathostome family tree, separate from the extinct placoderm branch.” Do you see the problem? This is supposed to provide evidence but it is merely an assertion; he said it so, by golly, it must be true! It is your job to think “I believe it and that settles it!” and merely repeat it to your young, impressionable kids who are a captive audience listening to their authority figure; just like in public school!
The tale progresses with “Jaws helped them catch and eat other animals. The other fish didn’t have hinged jaws. Our ancestors could bite, but they couldn’t chew…Not many lobe-finned fish are left, unless you count the animals that descended from them: reptiles and the closely related amphibians.”
He seeks to narrow the field by making some seem more likely to be our ancestors. Given enough time, your kids too can think just like Stephen Jay Gould did when he wrote:
We are here because one odd group of fishes had a peculiar fin anatomy that could transform into legs for terrestrial creatures; because the earth never froze entirely during an ice age; because a small and tenuous species, arising in Africa a quarter of a million years ago, has managed, so far, to survive by hook and by crook. We may yearn for a “higher” answer – but none exists.
Do you discern what happened to an otherwise wise person’s thinking progress? He turned Darwinian evolution into a worldview rather than merely a theory about biology.
This goes on and on and are not evidence but mere assertions:
Our ancestors evolved into amniotes about 300 million years ago….When they were still fish, our ancestors evolved lungs and nostrils…Dinosaurs went extinct 65 million years ago, except for the lines that had evolved into birds. Crocodiles are closely related to dinosaurs…lizard…evolved into snakes…Our ancestors evolved into mammals about 200 million years ago…They evolved cuddling as part of nursing young…the first apes and carnivores lived in the trees…Our ancestors evolved into primates about 60 million years ago…They evolved into apes about 30 million years ago…We split from the chimpanzee line about 7 million years ago…Our ancestors evolved into Homo habilis or a closely related species about 2 million years ago…Our ancestors started walking on four legs over 200 million years ago…
Jonathan Tweet also provides a list of “Common Errors” which he seeks to correct. For example, a common error is to think “We descended from one fish or pair of fish, or one early human or pair of early humans.” But, in “fact,” “We descended from a large number of early jawed fish, and a large number of early humans.” He writes that “Evolution means a change in a population, not in individuals” seeming to neglect the fact that a population consists of individuals.
He also argues, as it were, for survival of the luckiest by writing, “Some individuals left no surviving descendants. The luckier ones are each the ancestor of every human alive today.”
In the end, we find that a man known for writing role playing scripts for magical games has written a role playing script of magical Darwinian evolution.
For more on such issues, see:
Protecting the Science Classroom (examples of Atheism in textbooks, etc.)
God and the science classroom (a follow up on the above)
Atheist and Darwinian Science and Story Telling (self-explanatory)
Scientific Cenobites (presents what scientists have to say about science, scientists and evolution)