Science and Culture Today | Page 1451 | Discovering Design in Nature

If you are CNN commentator Bill Schneider you think that intelligent design is just another name for creationism and that creationism is what schools are considering teaching. Now, ID is not creationism and, in any case, schools — with few exceptions — are only considering whether students will be exposed to the scientific evidence for and against Darwin’s theory, not whether to teach ID. But mere reality didn’t stop Schneider from warping the issue with polls that pit evolution against creationism during his Inside Politics news report on President Bush today.

The Washington Post printed Discovery Institute President Bruce Chapman’s short op-ed in today’s “Free For All” section of the Post.

More and more we’re seeing ridiculous charges from Darwinists that CSC scientists, and scientists skeptical of Darwinism in general, are religious zealots and right-wingers with theocratic leanings. It reminded me of Giuseppe Sermonti’s comment about Darwinism being the only politically correct science. So, now you have dogmatic Darwinists seeking to discredit anyone who speaks out against Darwinism in order to protect a politically correct scientific viewpoint.

American Spectator editor George Neumayr has an insightful op-ed titled “The Monkey Wrench” on the efforts by dogmatic Darwinists to stifle any criticism of Darwin’s holy writ.

Treat critics of evolution no more seriously than segregationists, Darwinists urge the media and school boards. Just as segregationists, whose views are manifestly irrational, don’t deserve “equal time” in discussions, the critics of evolution don’t deserve equal time either, Darwinists plead.

In a media forum aired on C-SPAN a while back, Slate ‘s Jacob Weisberg in effect said this to New York Times executive editor Bill Keller, upbraiding him for running stories about a school board controversy in Kansas that had quoted critics of evolution. Why did you give them equal time? Weisberg asked Keller. Would you give segregationists their say? Keller found Weisberg’s criticism too radical and unfair, but assured him that anybody who read the Times ‘s Science section would know that the paper was in the tank for Darwin.

A Darwinist blog is trumpeting a quote by George Gilder in yesterday’s Boston Globe which they have taken out of context in an attempt to make him look bad.

“Intelligent design itself does not have any content.”

First, it would be helpful to see the quote in context of what was being discussed, namely Discovery Institute’s position on education policy.

“I’m not pushing to have [ID] taught as an ‘alternative’ to Darwin, and neither are they,” he says in response to one question about Discovery’s agenda. “What’s being pushed is to have Darwinism critiqued, to teach there’s a controversy. Intelligent design itself does not have any content.”

If you listen hard enough you can hear the “I told you sos!” already. “Wedge II” Discovery at Discovery Dumpster Reveals Theocracy Plan

The Boston Globe continues to report on the debate over evolution with nary a care for anything resembling a basic understanding of what’s being debated. Today they have an interesting interview with Discovery co-founder and senior fellow George Gilder, “The Evolution of George Gilder.”

Right out of the gate the reporter mischaracterizes the issue by giving some terrible definitions to three key terms.

A couple of letters to the editor caught my attention this last weekend, one in the Salt Lake Tribune and another in The Advocate in Baton Rouge, LA.

The Salt Lake Tribune letter is interesting because the writer takes the Tribune to task for the editor’s unwillingness to have the paper’s editorial pages engage in a dialogue.

In the wake of a libel lawsuit, NCSE, Inc. Director Eugenie Scott has a published a letter retracting her prior false statements concerning California parent Larry Caldwell. The letter is published in California Wild, the magazine of the California Academy of Sciences — and the same magazine that published her earlier article containing her false assertions about Caldwell. (Available online, here.) Caldwell’s letter in response to Scott was also published in California Wild.

John West has previously blogged about Scott’s defamatory article and attacks on Caldwell (here, here, and here). As Caldwell noted in a press release from last month:

It’s a shame it took a lawsuit to get Scott, the author of the article, to retract some of the more outrageous factual misstatements in her article.