Glenn Branch is deputy director of the National Center for Science Education, a nonprofit organization that defends the integrity of American science education against ideological interference. He is the author of numerous articles on evolution education and climate education, and obstacles to them, in such publications as Scientific American, American Educator, The American Biology Teacher, and the Annual Review of Genomics and Human Genetics, and the co-editor, with Eugenie C. Scott, of Not in Our Classrooms: Why Intelligent Design is Wrong for Our Schools (2006). He received the Evolution Education Award for 2020 from the National Association of Biology Teachers.

In the obituary published in The New York Times on January 16, 2026, Erich von Däniken was described, accurately, as “the best-selling Swiss author and self-styled maverick archaeologist who propagated the theory that thousands of years ago an advanced alien species visited Earth, mated with ancient humans and gave them the technology, and the intelligence, to erect such marvels as the Great Pyramids.” Unmentioned were his views on evolution, which is not surprising: although his massive oeuvre is punctuated by jabs at evolution, he appears to have written only one book focusing on the topic, Alles Evolution — oder was? Argumente für ein radikales Umdenken (Is It All Evolution — or What? Arguments for a Radical Rethink), published toward the end of his life, in 2020.

Evolution Is Wrong: A Radical Approach to the Origin & Transformation of Life, published in 2022, is apparently a translation of Alles Evolution — oder was?, although there is no clear indication of the original and no credit given to a translator. In a letter to his readers, von Däniken identifies his target: “Evolution is a fact and there isn’t the slightest doubt about it” (p. vii). Here “evolution” apparently means common ancestry of higher taxa, since he concedes, “Of course there is evolution with a small e,” offering the evolution of modern dogs “from a wolf-like primordial dog” by way of example (p. vii). “But,” he adds, “there are beings that live on our planet that, according to the evolutionary principle, should not exist” (p. vii). There is never any explanation of what “the evolutionary principle” is supposed to be.

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Professor Joe Felsenstein has been awarded the Mendel Medal of the Genetics Society in the UK. According to their website, “The Mendel Medal is awarded by the President of the Genetics Society, usually twice within the President’s term of office, to an individual who has made outstanding contributions to research in any field of genetics.” Professor Felsenstein is a de facto editor here at The Panda’s Thumb. The statement of the Genetics Society follows, below the fold.

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Photograph by Vivian Dullien.

Yikes! A newish follower of PT, Robert Dullien, has just notified us that today is National Panda Day. You can celebrate it by following the link above to the World Wildlife Federation’s National Panda Day website. The WWF invites you as follows:

"ON THIS DAY WE CELEBRATE PANDAS!

"To coincide with National Panda Day, we’d like to invite you to get to know more about this amazing species. We've got some simple and fun ways to show your support; from learning more about pandas, to baking a panda cake!"

Activities include an article on how the panda was possibly saved from extinction, to a quiz, top 10 facts about pandas, a drawing by Andy Robert Davies to be colored by a child, young or old, and more.

Our thanks to Mr. Dullien for being so alert!

Max Telford, who is Professor in the Department of Genetics, Evolution, and Environment at University College, London, has written an engaging book, The Tree of Life: Solving Science’s Greatest Puzzle, which has stirred up reactions at the Discovery Institute site Science And Culture Today. (I have not yet read Telford’s book, except to find a passage where he mentions me, saying that when he attended a lecture by me years ago he found me terrifying. Sorry about that.)

The conclusion that there is a treelike genealogy of life is about 250 years old, starting to gain acceptance even before Darwin’s work. It is central to modern biology.

But this is not the impression you’d get if all you read was the Discovery Institute’s website Science and Culture Today. Instead you’d find Emily Reeves, who describes herself as “a biochemist, metabolic nutritionist, and aspiring systems biologist” questioning the conclusion that there is such a genealogy, in two posts responding to Telford’s book. And even before that, posts by Rob Stadler, a biomedical engineer, concluded that the evidence from homology did not support the conclusion that it came from common ancestry.

What is particularly interesting is that this seems to signal the Discovery Institute’s shifting from arguing that Intelligent Design is detectable in evolution, to arguing that common ancestry is not detectable.

Here are some indications:

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