Explore Evolution quotes Jonathan Wells, a senior fellow of the creationist Discovery Institute, in support the claim that "assembly instructions" are not solely in DNA. Inaccurately citing Wells as a "developmental biologist," the footnote quotes from Wells' creationist work Icons of Evolution, critiqued elsewhere on NCSE's website:

According to Explore Evolution:

Explore Evolution is part of a longstanding effort by creationists, many of them authors of Explore Evolution, to mischaracterize and obscure scientific critiques of a gene-centric view of biology.

Explore Evolution asserts:

To buttress the false claim that developmental pathways regulated by Hox genes cannot evolve Explore Evolution engages in a major error of omission by failing to address the issue of modularity. This is concept is not obscure - a PubMed search of "modularity and evolution" yields over 140 publications in the last ten years. Modularity describes the independent control of hierarchical levels in development and evolution ranging from anatomical structures to signaling pathways to genetic switches.