Science Education

We would like to welcome our newest addition to the Evolution News & Views reporting team, Larry Caldwell. Mr. Caldwell is a parent and attorney in Roseville, California. He is also president of Quality Science Education for All (QSEA), a non-profit organization which has advocated for quality science education policies in the Roseville school district to guarantee that science will not be taught dogmatically and that teachers will “help students analyze the scientific strengths and weaknesses of existing scientific theories, including the theory of evolution.” Under Larry’s leadership, QSEA has been involved in a lawsuit to end Establishment Clause violations by Darwinists who are using taxpayer money to promote pro-Darwinian theology via the Understanding Evolution website. More information can be Read More ›

Parents and students beware: the author of a leading college biochemistry textbook believes that pro-intelligent design students are not smart and should not be admitted to college. Discussing the UCSD Robert Pennock lecture, UncommonDescent reports that Larry Moran, professor of biochemistry at the University of Toronto and author of the widely used college biochemistry textbook, Principles of Biochemistry, thinks that UCSD should not admit students who are pro-ID. In a post entitled, “Flunk the IDiots,” Professor Moran wrote: I agree with the Dembski sycophants that UCSD should not have required their uneducated students to attend remedial classes. Instead, they should never have admitted them in the first place. Having made that mistake, it’s hopeless to expect that a single lecture–even Read More ›

On Tuesday, I reported that the University of California at San Diego (UCSD) required all freshmen to attend an anti-ID lecture by Robert Pennock. Apparently it was a packed house in the 5000-seat RIMAC arena, illustrating that thousands of freshmen did attend (as they were required). In my prior post I noted that Pennock’s “arguments are fairly standard misrepresentations of intelligent design” and tried to make “educated predictions about Pennock will say.” I know many pro-ID people were in the audience. One friend contacted me and confirmed that most of my predictions about Pennock’s arguments were correct. Pennock made the following arguments, as I predicted: Why Not Praise UCSD for Discussing ID? A friendly questioner e-mailed me asking why I Read More ›

Since 1998, Michael Behe, Phillip Johnson, Jonathan Wells, William Dembski, and Paul Nelson have all spoken at the University of California at San Diego (UCSD). Now UCSD is striking back. Tonight, anti-ID philosopher of science Robert Pennock is being paid by UCSD’s Council of Provosts and the Division of Biological Sciences to speak against intelligent design in a lecture that is free and open to the public in UCSD’s RIMAC Arena (which holds about 5000 people). Of course, these groups are all taxpayer-supported. Not only is this free event open to anyone, but TritonLink, the UCSD student website, on its main home-page, reports that Professor Pennock’s lecture is mandatory attendance for all freshmen: “All first-quarter freshmen are required to attend Read More ›

Yesterday I blogged about my correspondence with New York Times reporter Cornelia Dean, who covers the evolution debate for the Times. Today I thought I would remind readers that this is not the first time we’ve reported about editorializing by Ms. Dean on the evolution issue. Last year, Dean wrote an op-ed advising evolutionists on what they should do to win the public debate over evolution. But the Times still assigns Ms. Dean to cover the evolution debate. Question: Would the Times assign a reporter to cover the abortion debate who had written an op-ed advising the pro-life movement on what it needed to do to in order to prevail? Conflicts of interest apparently don’t matter when the issue is Read More ›

A few days ago, I took New York Times reporter Cornelia Dean to task for putting words in the mouth of Ohio Board of Education member Deborah Owens Fink. According to an article by Dean, “Dr. Owens Fink…said the [Ohio] curriculum standards she supported did not advocate teaching intelligent design, an ideological cousin of creationism.” But as I pointed out, Dr. Owens Fink did not call intelligent design “an ideological cousin of creationism,” even though Dean’s wording makes this appear to be the case. Those words represent Dean’s own editorial evaluation (in what was supposed to be a news article, not an editorial). According to Dr. Owens Fink, “the reporter… put words in the article that may represent her view but not mine.”

I contacted Ms. Dean to give her a chance to respond to my criticisms, and she graciously replied. What ensued was an exchange of views that helps illuminate the mindset of many reporters who cover the evolution issue. Here is Dean’s first response:

Earlier today, Rob Crowther speculated that wording attributed by New York Times reporter Cornelia Dean to Ohio State Board of Education member Dr. Deborah Owens Fink was in fact wording that came from Ms. Dean, not from Dr. Owens Fink. We have just received confirmation of that fact from Dr. Owens Fink herself.

Last December I wrote a series of blog posts critiquing Judge Jones’ decision in the Kitzmiller v. Dover case. Most of the articles analyzed the text of the Kitzmiller opinion and explained why I thought it was an example of judicial activism. However, in a final post, I also criticized the newsmedia for inaccurately portraying Judge Jones as a political and religious conservative, which I viewed as an effort to shield his judicial opinion from legitimate criticism.

The whole point of independent schools is that they are supposed to be independent! The whole point of the media is to report the news, not distortions. Yet in the story from The Ottawa Citzen (“Teach sex and evolution or close, Quebec evangelical schools told“), we discover by reading the whole story carefully that the schools under attack do teach evolution. They also teach the scientific evidence against it and they teach intelligent design. And that additional teaching is the state’s real beef.

[Editor’s Note: A single article combining all ten installments of this response to Barbara Forrest can be found here, at “Response to Barbara Forrest’s Kitzmiller Account.” The individual installments may be seen here: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8, Part 9, Part 10.] In her Kitzmiller account, Barbara Forrest writes that leading ID proponents have “blustering cowardice … who must capture support with brazen deceit and sarcastic punditry.” Ironically, she later attacks Discovery Institute’s critique of the Kitzmiller ruling, claiming it had “nastiness.” In response to her inconsistent argument, Dr. Forrest would likely respond that her attacks are justified based upon the evidence she presents in her article. (I’m not Read More ›