Science Reporting

This is my second post in 2 days praising media articles which get this issue right. Let there be no mistake: the Evolution News & Views blog is not a “media complaints desk.” It’s a place for objective analysis–and we just try to call the balls and the strikes as we see them! MSNBC’s Current Magazine article by Victoria Bosch (“Monkey Business“), manages to objectively discuss the question of how doubters of Darwin are treated in college science classes. The article sensitively talks about how students who are skeptical of Darwinism cope with the issue. It was also gratifying that Niall Shanks at Wichita State professes to require only that students simply understand–not fully endorse–Darwinian evolution. Not only is it Read More ›

The New Republic and The New Criterion have excellent pieces discussing the debate over Darwin. The former explains how Darwinism has become a brand of scientism in the eyes of many leading proponents. The latter takes aim at the science of Darwinism itself, comparing it to a dogmatic faith which makes claims beyond what is warranted from the evidence. Monkey and Morals In Monkey and Morals, Gertrude Himmelfarb, the distinguished professor emeritus of history at City University (N.Y.), explains that some Darwinists such as E. O. Wilson and James Watson have an anti-religious agenda in their Darwinian advocacy. Himmelfarb recognizes, however, that some proponents of intelligent design approach this issue with scientific objections to evolution: “Yet others, themselves scientists, insist Read More ›

The debate over evolution just blew out of Kansas and into Oz for one college professor. The Associated Press reports that KU professor Paul Mirecki was beaten up Monday morning. And this just after spending a week in the newspapers for caustic remarks he made belittling religion, Catholics, conservatives, and intelligent design. According to the Associated Press: “University of Kansas religious studies professor Paul Mirecki told the Lawrence Journal-World that two men who beat him were making references to the class that was to be offered for the first time this spring. Originally called “Special Topics in Religion: Intelligent Design, Creationism and other Religious Mythologies,” the course was canceled last week at Mirecki’s request. “I didn’t know them,” Mirecki said Read More ›

In her new article dumping on intelligent design, New York Times reporter Laurie Goodstein presents a fantasy version of the new Kansas science standards, claiming that “in Kansas last month, the board of education voted that students should be exposed to critiques of evolution like intelligent design.” Actually, the Board did no such thing. The Kansas science standards encourage students to learn about scientific criticisms of Darwin’s theory. They do not ask for the teaching of alternatives to Darwin’s theory such as intelligent design. Indeed, the Board included the following explicit statement in the standards: “We also emphasize that the Science Curriculum Standards do not include Intelligent Design….” [emphasis added] This isn’t merely a case of sloppy reporting. When Ms. Read More ›

Here is the e-mail I sent to New York Times reporter Laurie Goodstein after she interviewed me last Thursday for her predictable hatchet-job on intelligent design in Sunday’s Times. Decide for yourself whether her story accurately reflected all of the information she was given: Laurie, It was good to talk with you. In follow-up to our conversation, here is a link providing a list of the peer-reviewed and peer-edited scientific publications favoring intelligent design and/or fundamental critiques of the claims of neo-Darwinism: https://www.discovery.org/a/2640/. To reiterate: We think that the debate over intelligent design will eventually be decided among scientists and scholars, and that’s why we put most of our resources into supporting the work of scholars on intelligent design and Read More ›

We are not alone in observing the sand wash out from under the Darwinists’ feet. The estimable editors of First Things have given readers a fine Christmas present in their December number.

Within is an essay by CSC senior fellow Michael Behe on “Scientific Orthodoxies”, and another by senior fellow Wesley J. Smith–in a book review–meditating on John Brown. And there’s a wonderful piece by Richard John Neuhaus mediating on a whole parade of related issues that we care about (such as Leon Kass’ principled leadership on the President’s Council on Bioethics), and, yes, evolution.