Science Reporting

“I hope that the media will critically analyze Forrest’s testimony and get our response to her allegations,” said John West. “I would warn them to take what she says not with just a grain of salt, but with a shaker-full.”

Today, Southeastern Louisiana University philosophy professor Barbara Forrest testified in the Kitzmiller v. Dover trial that it is her opinion that intelligent design and creationism are essentially one in the same.

Michael Balter is a Paris-based correspondent for the AAAS and the journal Science. In an opinion piece titled “Let ‘intelligent design’ and science rumble” in last Sunday’s LA Times, Balter argued that public acceptance of evolution was suffering because of the Darwinian monopoly on public education.

SEATTLE – “Every educator should be alarmed when an institution’s administrator issues an order preventing faculty from teaching `differing views’ about the subject they teach.” said David DeWolf, professor at Gonzaga University Law School. “Yet that is precisely what the President of the University of Idaho did when he issued a letter informing faculty, staff and students that it was “inappropriate” for anyone to teach “views that differ from evolution” in any “life, earth, and physical science courses or curricula.”

Larry Caldwell is a parent in Sacramento who has fought to improve the teaching of biology in his children’s high school. We’ve reported on his efforts (here, here, and here) and their consequences (here, here, and here) in the past.

Now the Sacramento Bee has a very good profile on Caldwell. It opens with an excellent summary of Caldwell’s approach to the debate over teaching evolution.”

One of the most rhetorically effective portions of evolutionist Kenneth Miller’s testimony in the Dover trial was his PowerPoint discussion of pseudogenes. As Ted Davis describes it here, “For evolution, he gave several such examples, esp. the recent discovery of pseudogenes in identical locations for humans and some other primates–a “fact” that favors the “theory” of evolution over a theory of a common design plan, since the genes have no known functions and thus a designer would have no reason to give them to all of these organisms.”

The Kitzmiller vs. Dover trial has generated much talk on the internet about Darwinism and the theory of intelligent design, some of it trenchant, much of it stimulating. The American Scientific Affiliation is discussing it here.

One ASA member, Ted Davis, a friendly critic of intelligent design interested in more open debate on the question of origins, provides a favorable review of evolutionist Kenneth Miller’s expert testimony, describing it as “superb testimony … on all counts.” He also provides intriguing if less flattering analysis of Friday’s expert testimony here:

85 Scientists Join Together in Urging Court to Protect Academic Freedom and Not Limit Research into Intelligent Design Theory

Harrisburg, PA – Eighty-five scientists have filed an Amicus Brief in the Kitzmiller v. Dover trial asking the Judge to “affirm the freedom of scientists to pursue scientific evidence wherever it may lead” and not limit research into the scientific theory of intelligent design. Not all the signers are proponents of intelligent design, but they do agree “that protecting the freedom to pursue scientific evidence for intelligent design stimulates the advance of scientific knowledge.”

Design theorist William Dembski reports that “last spring The Thomas More Law Center (TMLC) hired me as an expert witness in the Dover area school district case regarding ID (Kitzmiller v. Dover)” and that “because the focus of that case and trial is a book titled Of Pandas and People and because I am the academic editor for the publisher of that book (i.e., The Foundation for Thought and Ethics [FTE]), when FTE tried to intervene in the case, TMLC decided to drop me as an expert witness, citing a conflict of interest.” Before that occurred, however, Dembski prepared “an expert witness report as well as a rebuttal of the opposing expert witness reports.”

Having been at the federal courthouse for three days watching Kitzmiller vs. Dover unfold from the press side of the gallery, let me just say that this is so accurate it isn’t even funny. On the first day I spotted biologists Kenneth Miller and Michael Behe, expert witnesses for the two sides of the lawsuit; they were approached now and again by some member of the media. But who was this, during the break, mobbed by cameras and reporters outside the courthouse? Some Nobel Laureate called in to testify for the ACLU? Philosopher Antony Flew fetched over from England to testify for the defense? Who could this slight, intelligent-looking older man possibly be to generate such excitement? It turned out Read More ›

Today CSC Director Dr. Stephen Meyer debated Dr. Eugenie Scott of the NCSE on MSNBC. Dr. Scott claimed that there have been no peer-reviewed science articles which support intelligent design. This claim has also been made by plaintiffs’ expert witnesses at the Dover trial. MSNBC host Dan Abrams had also been misled into believing this false claim. Meyer, who authored a peer-reviewed science article supporting intelligent design, made a clear rebuttal. Yet Scott persisted in saying that his article did not support intelligent design. Meyer should know — he wrote the article. Judge for yourself. Here is what Meyer’s article actually says: “An experience-based analysis of the causal powers of various explanatory hypotheses suggests purposive or intelligent design as a Read More ›