Science and Culture Today | Page 1449 | Discovering Design in Nature

This week the newsmedia converge on Harrisburg, PA for the opening of the Dover School District intelligent design trial. As readers of this blog know already, the ACLU has sued the Dover School District for notifying students about the existence of the theory of intelligent design (ID). Although Discovery Institute doesn’t favor Dover’s policy (see here for why), we strongly oppose the ACLU’s heavy-handed effort to shut down even voluntary classroom discussions of ID through government censorship. We hope to provide daily coverage and analysis of the trial on this blog, and we’ve dispatched Discovery Institute Senior Fellow Jonathan Witt to Harrisburg this week to file eyetwitness reports. (For complete background information about the Dover case, check the informational web page we’ve set up here.)

What remains to be seen is how accurately—or not—the major media will cover the trial. As you read the newsmedia reports this week, watch carefully to see how frequently the following myths about intelligent design and the critics of Darwinism are reported as “facts”:

Just in time for Monday’s thought-crime trial in Dover, Pennsylvania, H. Wayne House has an extensive review here of cases in the U.S. dealing with Darwinism and the public schools: “Darwinism and the Law: Can Non-Naturalistic Scientific Theories Survive Constitutional Challenge?” It’s an excellent resource for anyone covering the trial, though I could quibble with a few elements. For instance, if House means to include contemporary design arguments in biology, it would be more precise to say “Non-Materialist Scientific Theories.”

I’ll be flying to Harrisburg, PA to cover the Dover trial. It begins in federal court Monday. As Discovery Institute explains here:

In Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District, the ACLU is suing the school board of Dover, Pennsylvania for adopting a policy that requires students to be informed about the theory of intelligent design. The ACLU claims that the Dover policy violates the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment by promoting a religious doctrine.

What does the Dover policy consist of? Administrators read the following statement to biology students:

CSC senior fellow Jonathan Witt will be dispatched to Pennsylvania to cover the Dover intelligent design trial that starts on Monday in federal court in Harrisburg. He will attend the opening three days of the trial, but will continue to post reports throughout the trial until its conclusion, sometime in October.

I suspect we will see a slew of articles about the looming Dover ID trial, slated to start on Monday in federal court in Harrisburg, PA. MSNBC’s Alex Johnson has one of the best ID related news stories, Dover trial or otherwise. His definitions of the key terms, and his examination of the various issues involved are thorough and accurate. One of the better news reports related to ID.

Next week the case of Kitzmiller vs. Dover School Board goes to federal court in Harrisburg, PA. Here is a page with links to a number of resources. Also, the Federal court has posted this page with information about the trial.

In my “The Darwinist Misinformation Train,” post from last week, I explain that there are 2 types of Darwinist critics of ID out there who misrepresent ID: Type I Darwinists critics: It starts with these Darwinist critics who correctly understand ID and realize that it respects the limits of science and doesn’t try to identify the designer. Yet, Type I Critics then purposefully misrepresent ID to the public (and particularly to scientists) as an untestable and unscientific appeal to the supernatural. This is despite the fact that ID proponents understand the nature of scientific inquiry and have formulated their theory to respect its boundaries. The dubious tactics of Type I critics are effective because it results in many people thinking Read More ›

On September 8, 2005, Wesley Elsberry wrote a response entitled “Who Operates ‘The Misinformation Train?’” to my prior post on the Evolution News blog entitled “The Darwinist Misinformation Train.” I have now responded to Wesley with a full response posted here. Here is a brief excerpt from the beginning of my full response: Firstly, I’d like to thank Wesley Elsberry for writing a more-or-less gentle and kindly worded response to my “Darwinist Misinformation Train” article on antievolution.org. I’d also like to say that on a personal level, I have met Wesley and I think he’s a nice guy with some very interesting hobbies. Wesley is the only guy I’ve ever met who owns a bird of prey and takes it Read More ›

Author Chris Mooney made a politicized attack in today’s Seattle Post Intelligencer that intelligent design bucks the scientific method. Mooney, who is speaking in Seattle about something he calls the “Republican War on Science,” appears to not understand intelligent design theory. Mooney was quoted saying to the reporter: “Your buddies there at the Discovery Institute in Seattle, for example (an organization that favors “intelligent design” over standard evolutionary science), are not arguing about evidence that can be tested,” Mooney said. “They are attacking the entire scientific method.” (Chris Mooney, quoted in Author says GOP is waging war on scientific inquiry, by Tom Paulson) The funny thing is that whenever I hear this objection made, very rarely does the challenger provide Read More ›

Darwinists are up in arms over the fact that The Guardian had the gall to do an interview with CSC senior fellow, biochemist Michael Behe and then publish it without letting Darwinists attack him. The MSM’s standard operating procedure is to interview a design theorist and then quote a whole slew of Darwinist “rebutting” him in the very same article. Darwinists are rightly upset that the rules were changed and they weren’t informed. By all means they should be kicking and screaming and writing nasty letters to The Guardian for this dispicable display of bias. Imagine letting a pro-design scientist speak for himself. What is the world coming to? On the other hand, you might write your own letter to Read More ›