John G. West

Discovery Institute’s “Stand up for Science, Stand up for Kansas” education campaign is intended to defend the excellent science standards adopted by the Kansas State Board of Education and to counter the campaign of misinformation by groups like Kansas Citizens for Science (KCFS), which are wildly distorting what the Kansas science standards actually say and do.

Most importantly, the “Stand up for Science, Stand up for Kansas” campaign seeks to correct three big falsehoods being spread by opponents of the Kansas science standards:

Falsehood #1: The Kansas science standards include intelligent design.

Contrary to claims by opponents, the Kansas science standards do not include intelligent design. In spreading this falsehood, opponents of the standards ignore the following clear statement by the Kansas Board of Education in the standards: “We also emphasize that the Science Curriculum Standards do not include Intelligent Design….” (emphasis added) Which part of “do not include Intelligent Design” can’t opponents of the standards understand?

The Associated Press has corrected the lead paragraph of its story on biology standards adopted yesterday in South Carolina. As Casey Luskin reported last night, the AP’s original story erroneously stated that the new South Carolina standards do not require the critical analysis of evolution. But as of early this morning, the new AP story clearly states that the South Carolina standards do require critical analysis of evolution: COLUMBIA, S.C. – The state Education Oversight Committee approved high school biology standards Monday that require students to “critically analyze aspects of evolutionary theory.” (emphasis added) Kudos to the AP for correcting its earlier inaccurate report.

I’ll say this for administrators at Baylor University in Waco, Texas: They certainly know how to provoke lots of free attention. But it might not be the kind of attention they want. The University’s denial of tenure to conservative scholar Francis Beckwith is beginning to generate a buzz on the world wide web. But it’s the type of buzz that carries a sting. Commenting on the Beckwith decision yesterday, Joseph Bottum of First Things responded with withering scorn:

Last week Baylor University in Texas denied tenure to noted scholar Francis Beckwith. Beckwith is an impeccable scholar with a distinguished publication record, including a forthcoming book from Cambridge University Press. He is also a gentleman in the classic sense of the term, someone who is liked and respected even by his fair-minded opponents.

But Beckwith has a problem: His views are out of sync with the left-wing ideologues who control much of American academia. First, he is a prominent critic of the morality of abortion, and his work on this issue is cited all over the place by other scholars (including in the Encyclopedia of Philosophy article on the topic). Second, Beckwith has defended the the constitutionality of teaching about intelligent design. Note: He has not advocated the wisdom of teaching ID, nor has he taken sides on the ultimate rightness or wrongness of ID. He has only defended the constitutionality of presenting the debate. (But this is no doubt too much for Darwin dogmatists.)

That a scholar of Beckwith’s stature should be denied tenure at Baylor raises serious questions about the university’s commitment to fairness and academic freedom. This is especially the case since it has been reported that Beckwith’s annual evaluations leading up to the tenure denial were glowing. He is said to have received the rating “exceeds expectations” each year. Apparently he exceeded expectations too much for some members of Baylor’s faculty.

Today’s Washington Times’ carries an interesting interview with Carson Holloway, author of the new book, The Right Darwin: Evolution, Religion and the Future of Democracy. Holloway criticizes efforts to ground morality in Darwinian biology.

Last night, the Board of Trustees of the Lancaster School District in southern California voted unanimously to adopt a “Science Philosophy” policy permitting teachers to present scientific criticisms of Darwinian evolution. The policy had been supported by the groups Integrity in Academics and Quality Science Education for All. The new policy states that Darwin’s theory should not be taught as “unalterable fact” and states that “Discussions that question the theory may be appropriate as long as they do not stray from current criteria of scientific fact, hypothesis and theory.” The policy further allows the use of supplemental materials by teachers in teaching about science. “This is an innovative effort by the Lancaster School District to propel science education out of Read More ›

New questions are being raised about the accuracy of the New York Times’ article on scientific critics of neo-Darwinism last week, spurred by an amazing admission by Times’ reporter Ken Chang that only a small minority of the scientists he interviewed actually fit his story’s stereotyped description of Darwin’s critics. While Chang’s story conveys the clear impression that scientists who support Discovery’s Dissent from Darwin statement are motivated by religion rather than science, Chang has now admitted in an interview that 75% or more of the scientists he interviewed did not fit this description. In other words, Chang and his editors selectively reported the results of their own investigation to convey the exact opposite of what they found. It turns out I was right to warn before the article’s publication that when it comes to the evolution issue, the Times’ motto should be “all the news that fits”!

Editor’s Note: In the original post we mistakenly identified the newspaper in question as the Orlando Sentinel. It was in fact the Sun Sentinel in Fort Lauderdale. While the identification was incorrect, the links all went to the right articles.

In what was supposed to be a news article, the Sun Sentinel yesterday substituted its own inaccurate definition of intelligent design for the definition actually used by proponents of the theory. In so doing, its editors apparently suppressed a more accurate definition of ID written by the reporter with whom I spoke. In addition to misdefining intelligent design, the Sentinel article engages in blatant editorializing by pejoratively labeling efforts to correct textbook errors as “watering down” the teaching of evolution. Below is the text of the letter I just sent to the Sentinel’s reader’s representative.

My previous post exposing how the New York Times changes its definition of who is a biologist depending on whether a scientist supports or opposes Darwin’s theory has apparently hit a raw nerve. A Darwinist blogsite calling itself “Hell’s Handmaiden” has taken me to task for supposed inaccuracies in my post. But it turns out that it is Hell’s Handmaiden who is misrepresenting the facts, not me.

Who are biologists? The New York Times can’t seem to make up its mind. Last week, the Times described Darwinist Patricia Princehouse at Case Western Reserve University as an “evolutionary biologist.” This was despite the fact that Princehouse’s doctorate is in the history of science — not biology — and her position at her university is “Lecturer in Philosophy & Evolutionary Theory.” When questions were raised about the accuracy of calling an historian of science an “evolutionary biologist,” the Times corrections desk refused to budge, ruling that Princehouse’s credentials were good enough for the Times.

But that was last week. Yesterday, the Times apparently decided that even biochemists shouldn’t be called biologists if they happen to be skeptical of Darwinian evolution.