Science and Culture Today | Page 1462 | Discovering Design in Nature

The letters section of today’s Los Angeles Times is titled “Point and Counterpoint on ‘Intelligent Design.’” But if you actually read the five letters posted, there are four letters attacking intelligent design versus one letter defending it. Then I remembered that today was April Fools’ day. Perhaps the Times decided to play a prank on its readers?

Discovery Institute fellow David Berlinski has a delicious response to UC Berkeley Dean Holub’s frantic worrying about the demise of Darwinism amongst his colleagues. Appearing in today’s Berkeley student newspaper, the essay begins, “Wearing pink tasseled slippers and conical hats covered in polka dots, Darwinian biologists are persuaded that a plot is afoot to make them look silly. At Internet web sites such as The Panda’s Thumb or Talk Reason, where various eminences repair to assure one another that all is well, it is considered clever beyond measure to attack critics of Darwin’s theory such as William Dembski by misspelling his name as William Dumbski.” Read on.

In his fictional Los Angeles Times op-ed, arch ID-hater Michael Shermer asserted that “Nine states have recently proposed legislation that would require” providing “equal time” for intelligent design in public school science classes. This claim has been popping up elsewhere on the internet as well (see here and here.) But the claim is sheer fantasy on the part of hyperactive Darwinists. In the interest of bringing out the truth, I hereby issue Mr. Shermer the following challenge: Provide proof for your outlandish claim. Identify the nine states that are supposedly considering legislation to mandate equal time for intelligent design, and cite the legislative language that would actually do this. If you can prove your claim, I will send you a Read More ›

As Jonathan Witt noted in an earlier post, Michael Shermer in his Los Angeles Times opinion piece pretty much made up the comments he attributes to Stephen Meyer in a recent debate. But that’s only one example of the science fiction in Shermer’s essay. Here are some others.
Consider Shermer’s mangled description of intelligent design (ID):

In a recent LA Times op-ed, Michael Shermer distorts the facts of a recent video-taped debate between him and design theorist Stephen Meyer. Dr. Meyer offers a different view of their conversation here.

The Seattle Times has turned its eye to the CSC, sensing a chance to localize the story on the national debate over how to teach evolution.

It was good to see that reporter Linda Shaw included several things that are often left out or misreported: Specifically I was happy to see that she reported Steve Meyer’s credentials (which rarely happens), portrayed him personally in a positive light, her tone was not histrionic or conspiratorial, she referenced our dissent list, she acknowledged that Darwinists see the Cambrian explosion as a problem (also rarely reported) and distinguished us from young-earth creationists.

The biggest problem I have with the story is that she inaccurately defines the theory of intelligent design. She simply uses the definition that design critics like to use. For them it’s a straw man they put up so they can easily tear it down.

“an opportunity for the Discovery Institute to promote its notion of intelligent design, the controversial idea that parts of life are so complex, they must have been designed by some intelligent agent.”

Never mind the demeaning way she describes it as a “notion” — this definition is just flat out inaccurate. Her description — one commonly used by the ACLU and other such Darwinian groups — treats the theory of intelligent design as if it were an argument from ignorance. Things are so complex, they must have been designed, or so they posit. In actuality, it is a positive and robust scientific theory based on what we do know, that examines the natural world for empirical evidence of design.

Senior Fellow William Dembski put it this way in The Design Revolution:

Last year the producers of The Newshour with Jim Lehrer were seeking out the people hunkered down at ground zero in the debate over evolution: the National Center for Science Education.
As soon as the call to the Darwin defenders at the NCSE was placed and the interviews booked the Newshour turned their sites on the NCSE’s counterparts, the anti-Darwin scientists at the Center for Science Culture. But not without scheduling a lot of interviews and camera time with biblical creationists — and their dinosaur theme parks — in between.

After months of discussion with the producers of the Newshour about whether or not they would fairly represent the theory of intelligent design, and the larger debate over how to teach Darwin’s theory of evolution, Dr. Stephen Meyer agreed to an interview . He spent several hours with Jeffrey Brown as PBS rolled up nearly two hours worth of tape. The Newshour with Jim Lehrer said they were going to do a story on intelligent design and we tried to help make it accurate. Needless to say our legs are tired from pushing uphill.

(ASIDE: The upshot of all this is a lesson to anyone who deals with the media. Meyer got not quite 30 seconds of airtime in a report that lasted 14:32 seconds, or about 13 minutes longer than your average network news segment. To get that thirty seconds he traveled several thousand miles and spent hours preparing and then conducting the interview. Enter into media relations at your own risk.)

Why did Dr. Stephen Meyer, arguably one of the central figures in the national debate over origin of life issues and what we teach in high school biology classes, get only a handful of seconds and a few measly sound bites?

The answer isn’t all that hard to fathom — it is as simple as alt-ctrl-scopes. That’s the universal macro for journalists reporting on the debate over evolution. Alt-ctrl-scopes brings up the old trope about evolution, that this is just religion vs. science.

If you’re a journalist writing about this issue what more needs to be said than was said at the Scopes Monkey Trial almost a hundred years past? Alt-ctrl-scopes, fill in the names and you’re done.

Apparently, for many modern journalists, nothing in the debate over evolution makes sense except in the light of the Scopes Trial. What was the case then in 1925, must be the case now. Too many reporters stick to this tried and true trope, and unfortunately The Newshour’s Jeffrey Brown did as well.

That’s not to say that Brown didn’t try to do a good story. I don’t think he set out with a nefarious agenda to undermine the theory of intelligent design, or to criticize the Center for Science & Culture. I think he was just incapable of getting past the inordinate amount of misinformation and propaganda that is being thrown at members of the media such as himself each and every day they deal with this story.

Early on in the story he says: “Students learn that natural selection is the key mechanism by which evolution takes place.” What he didn’t do was to define his terms so that viewers knew exactly what he was talking about when he says “evolution” or even natural selection.

The story moves quickly to the typical stereotype of religion vs. science saying that is an issue mostly focused on religion and faith. To bolster that they have lots of high school students who express their doubts about Darwinism in overtly religious terms. The story leaves no doubt that evolution is under an attack led “mostly by religious conservatives.” Interesting. David Berlinski would be surprised to hear that. So would Stanley Salthe. Or, Giuseppe Sermonti. Or any number of other non-religious scientists skeptical of the claims of Darwinism. Contrary to the Newshour’s premise at the outset, doubting Darwinism is not solely a consequence of religious belief.

The next step — after making sure the viewer is aware it’s purely a religious issue — is to use the political environment to keep the focus off of the scientific evidence and instead on peripheral things like the “red state rampage.” Or in this case where historian Ed Larson explains this is all just a part of the typical pattern of evolutionary discontent that arises with the election of a republican presidents.

The Newshour with Jim Lehrer will have Stephen Meyer as one of several taped guests during their story on the evolution debate tonight on PBS. In most markets The Newshour is aired at 6pm on the local PBS affiliate. You can check stations and schedules at www.pbs.org/newshour/. Already the Newshour is off to a rock start focusing on the media’s threadbare creation vs. evolution storyline. It will be interesting to see if reporter Jeffrey Brown is as “straightforward” with the viewers as he presented himself to us more than a month ago when he taped his interview with Dr. Meyer. Creation ConflictCorrespondent Jeffrey Brown investigates how some biology teachers are handling the hot button debate over the theory of evolution, Read More ›

CSC senior fellow Jonathan Wells e-mailed me to point out that in the March issue of BioScience (the magazine of the American Institute of Biological Sciences, not available without subscription), a pro-Darwin/anti-ID article by Oksana Hlodan has provided us with the silliest item of the month.

Well’s writes: