Science and Culture Today Discovering Design in Nature
Latest

Darrow-Mencken Syndrome (DMS)

Categories
Science Reporting
Share
Facebook
Twitter/X
LinkedIn
Flipboard
Print
Email

Darrow-Mencken Syndrome: closely associated with delusions of grandeur, this pathology infects many in the media and the advocacy profession by convincing them that they can be as great as Darwinist attorney Clarence Darrow or as brilliant as journalist and religious skeptic H.L. Mencken if they merely cast intelligent design arguments as a recapitulation of the Scopes Monkey Trial.

Signs & Symptoms

Darrow-Mencken Syndrome most often manifests itself in attorneys and reporters and usually prevents them from actually investigating the evidence and arguments of design theorists. One tell-tale symptom of Darrow-Mencken syndrome is the chronic use of simplistic or inaccurate definitions of intelligent design. Many aren’t consciously trying to misrepresent intelligent design. They have just been disabled by the delirium often associated with Darrow-Mencken.

Treatment

The beginning of a cure to Darrow-Mencken syndrome can be had by reading the actual works of intelligent design theorists, which can be had here and here and here.

By Keith Pennock

Jonathan Witt

Executive Editor, Discovery Institute Press and Senior Fellow, Center for Science and Culture
Jonathan Witt, PhD, is Executive Editor of Discovery Institute Press and a Senior Fellow with the Center for Science and Culture. His co-authored books include Intelligent Design Uncensored (IVP), A Meaningful World: How the Arts and Sciences Reveal the Genius of Nature (IVP), and The Hobbit Party: The Vision of Freedom That Tolkien Got, and the West Forgot (Ignatius Press). Witt is also the lead writer and associate producer for Poverty, Inc., winner of the $100,000 Templeton Freedom Award and recipient of over 50 international film festival honors. His latest book is a YA novel co-authored with astronomer Guillermo Gonzalez, The Farm at the Center of the Universe.

Keith Pennock

© Discovery Institute