Science Education

The Washington Post today published on their front page the latest in a series of drive-by reportings on intelligent design. Not surprisingly the reporter, Peter Slevin, sees this more as a political issue than a scientific issue. He’s much more concerned with how religious zealots may try to use ID theory in the political realm than whether or not peppered moths really rest on trees. Are Heaeckel’s embryo drawings less fake because the Post wants to make this a political issue? They’re missing the point, which is a scientific one.

I tried to get Slevin to focus more on the science than the politics, but he was determined to do a political piece. So he decided to come to Seattle and I encouraged him to interview both John West (see West’s blog about the interview here), our main policy person, and Steve Meyer as the director of the CSC and one of the main scientists involved in design theory. Slevin spent a day in Seattle and interviewed each of them at length. I sat in on the interviews and took notes myself, as well as helped to clarify certain issues when they came up.

The upshot is that John West spent nearly two hours with Slevin talking about the policy and politics of ID, and Steve Meyer spent equal time with Slevin and focused almost solely on what the case for ID is and how it is not an argument from ignorance as the Washington Post, and others, has persisted in defining it.

What does Slevin do? He does not quote John West at all. He does quote Steve Meyer — but he strings together different thoughts on different issues from different points in the conversation and presents them as if they are one single quote:

The Kansas Board of Education is thinking about implementing science curricula that would teach the controversy over neo-Darwinism. The ultra-Darwinists insist that there is no scientific controversy, that opponents of Darwin’s theory of common descent by natural selection are Christian fundamentalists conspiring to establish a global theocracy. Piercing this smokescreen of ad hominem rhetoric comes the wry voice of Jewish agnostic David Berlinski. In today’s Wichita Eagle he writes: The suggestion that Darwin’s theory of evolution is like theories in the serious sciences — quantum electrodynamics, say — is grotesque. Quantum electrodynamics is accurate to 13 unyielding decimal places. Darwin’s theory makes no tight quantitative predictions at all. Perhaps Berlinski, a philospher and mathematician with a Ph.D. from Princeton, is Read More ›

The Cobb Co. textbook disclaimer has finally been cleverly parodied by Steve Mirsky in the latest issue of Scientific American. And not a moment too soon. Let’s see, the first disclaimer sticker case was a decade or more ago in Louisiana. The Cobb Co. case originated just after the turn of the millennia, and it was over three years ago that the school district authorized the use of the disclaimers. About time someone at long last humorlessly skewered it. Never mind that in December 2004, The New York Times op-ed page published a chart by Colin Purrington, The Descent of Dissent that poked fun at disclaimer stickers and criticized anyone at all critical of evolution. Purrington of course had been Read More ›

Portsmouth, NH columnist D. Allan Kerr favors evolutionary theory and equates intelligent design with creationism. So you might think Darwin’s defenders would be pleased as punch with him. Think again. Mr. Kerr is being taken to task by the Darwinist thought-police. His crime? He had the audacity to suggest that students might actually benefit from hearing about intelligent design. Kerr was amazed by the swift reaction his proposal provoked from Darwinists:

A college newspaper in Massachusetts reports on a talk by Darwinist biologist Kenneth Miller and rewrites history in the process: In 2002, Miller joined a debate in Ohio, where the theory of “intelligent design” was almost incorporated into education. As a result of the efforts of Miller and other scientists, the school board voted 15 to 0 in favor of prohibiting the teaching of “intelligent design.” If Prof. Miller supplied the information for the above statement, he appears to have entered some kind of alternative universe. Members of the Ohio State Board of Education did not ban the teaching of intelligent design in 2002. Instead, they adopted the following benchmark for student learning: “Describe how scientists continue to investigate and Read More ›

If Kansas Darwinists continue to be shy about defending their theory in open public hearings, the Kansas State Board of Education can always consider advertising for witnesses to defend evolution. Here is a possible ad: WANTED: State Board of Education urgently seeks Darwinists unafraid to present the “overwhelming evidence” for their theory in a fair and balanced public hearing. Applicants who regard the democratic process as stupid need not apply. Ditto for those who think open debate in a free society is pointless Essential Qualification: enough self-confidence to engage one’s opponents in a public forum that is not completely stacked in one’s favor. Preferred Qualifications: an ability to rationally present evidence without resorting to conspiracy theories and ad hominem attacks; Read More ›

A few days ago Washington Post reporter Peter Slevin came to Seattle to interview me and Steve Meyer for an upcoming article about evolution, intelligent design, and politics. I suspect his story will appear soon. After the Post’s recent track record editorializing and reporting on the evolution issue, I must admit I was somewhat skeptical about talking with another Post reporter. As the interview started, I made a point of going into detail about the false and misleading statements in previous Post coverage. I also explained how the Post’s ombudsman (unlike the ombudsman at the Boston Globe) didn’t even bother to respond to a detailed complaint we sent about inaccuracies in one of the Post’s articles.

Like most reporters, Mr. Slevin appeared mild-mannered, fair, and genuinely interested in hearing our side of the debate. Despite his impeccable manners, however, some of his comments raised concerns. He mentioned he had read Time’s tabloid-style article about intelligent design, but he indicated he was disappointed because the article didn’t deliver on its promise to expose the “real” motives behind the design movement. He further said he had interviewed a minister in Kansas who thinks that attacking evolution is a way to win the culture war about gay marriage and presumably a host of other social issues. These comments made me wonder whether his report will ignore the substance of the policy debate over evolution and simply recapitulate the hackneyed Red State v. Blue State storyline being pressed ad nauseum by much of the major newsmedia. At one point, Mr. Slevin even wanted to know whether Discovery Institute is funded by the Unification Church! (We aren’t.)

Defenders of Darwin’s theory of evolution typically proclaim that evidence for their theory is simply overwhelming. If they really believe that, you would think they would jump at a chance to publicly explain some of that overwhelming evidence to the public. Apparently not. The Kansas State Board of Education has proposed ten days of hearings featuring scientists who embrace evolutionary theory along with scientific critics of neo-Darwinism, but according to this article in the Lawrence Journal-World, evolutionists are crying foul:

some evolution proponents are suggesting that scientists shouldn’t participate in what they say will be an unfair hearing. “The deck is completely stacked,” said Liz Craig, a spokeswoman for Kansas Citizens for Science. “I don’t believe anybody’s going to participate… because it’s just ridiculous.”

Darwinists have a rather peculiar definition of an “unfair” and “stacked” hearing, however. The Kansas Board has asked for an equal number of scientists (10) to testify on each side. Scientists favoring evolution would be selected by professor Steve Case, chair of the state committee drafting revised science standards for Kansas and an ardent evolutionist. Scientists critical of evolutionary theory would be chosen by biochemistry professor Bill Harris, another member of the same science standards committee, and a supporter of intelligent design. Case would be allowed to cross-examine scientists critical of evolutionary theory, and Harris would be allowed to cross-examine scientists who defend evolutionary theory. In other words, the ground rules proposed are scrupulously fair and even-handed to both sides of the debate.

With some local reporters in Kansas striving to cover the science standards controversy there with fairness and accuracy, it’s disappointing to see the Associated Press reporter in Kansas writing science fiction in the guise of news reports. According to the latest salvo from AP’s Bill Draper:

Some conservative members of the state board have questioned whether the committee has properly considered views about creationism or intelligent design alongside evolution.

A minority of members on Case’s committee have said it’s not fair to teach evolution as an explanation of the origin of life without also including the possibility that life was formed by an intelligent being.

Contrary to Draper, there is no debate on the Kansas Board of Education over whether to teach creationism, and there is no debate on the Kansas science standards committee about whether to teach intelligent design. What minority members on the science standards committee have called for is teaching about scientific criticisms of modern evolutionary theory as well as the evidence favoring evolutionary theory. They have not called for the teaching of intelligent design. Has Mr. Draper even read the minority report issued by members of the science standards committee?

A writer for the newspaper of record in Liberal, Kansas (yes, there is a town with that name in Kansas) endorses the truly liberal policy of teaching the scientific controversy over evolution. He argues: (opponents of teaching the controversy) should come up with a good argument on why teaching only the evolution theory does not violate the state education science mission statement to make all students lifelong learners who can use science to make reasoned decisions. Presenting only one life science theory in classes without alternatives breeds ignorance and violates the mission statement. The author of the essay is wrong to suggest that the Kansas Board of Education is considering adding intelligent design to the Kansas state science standards. In Read More ›