Science and Culture Today | Page 1483 | Discovering Design in Nature

With nearly two months since closing arguments in Selman vs. Cobb County School District (North Atlanta, GA), the public awaits the decision of United States District Judge Clarence Cooper.

At issue in the case is the school board’s adoption of the following sticker (drafted by the school district’s attorney):

This textbook contains material on evolution. Evolution is a theory, not a fact, regarding the origin of living things. This material should be approached with an open mind, studied carefully, and critically considered.

This seemingly innocuous, lawyer-drafted disclaimer may not be a satisfying statement about the scientific controversy over biological evolution and the chemical origin-of-life from a technical standpoint, yet it is bizarre to think that the sticker would amount to an evil and sinister threat to American liberty. But leave it to the ACLU: they sued the school district over it.

I enjoy John Derbyshire’s posts on National Review Online &’s Corner when he’s talking within his area of expertise. Unfortunately, intelligent design isn’t that area. Instapundit blogger Glenn Reynolds today quoted Derbyshire from his criticism of ID yesterday at The Corner:

John Derbyshire’s article from yesterday’s National Review Online, offered another interesting criticism of ID: It is therefore possible that some un-religious scientist might become convinced, on scientific evidence, of the existence of Intelligent Design, while remaining perfectly open minded about any of the truths of religion. When that scientist shows up, I shall begin [sic] to take Intelligent Design seriously. What about Antony Flew, one of the English-speaking world’s most prominent atheists? Flew has recently said that he’s become a minimal theist. More specifically, he’s said that he’s done so on the basis of evidence for intelligent design, and without converting to any religion. He’s very well studied on the relevant issues. He’s been debating related issues for fifty years, Read More ›

Saturday, the Albuquerque Journal ran a staff editorial chastising PBS affiliate KNME for its decision to ban UMOL. The Journal correctly pointed out that KNME’s censorship is nothing more than viewpoint discrimination writing, “refusing to air a program supporting the less popular point of view looks like a close cousin to censorship.” The Journal notes that KNME should have taken the high road and aired the film as an educational service to viewers. “Consumers are best served when given a full range of viewpoints and allowed to decide for themselves what is fact and what is fiction.” It’s obvious now that had KNME just aired the program the whole issue would be over and done with now and they wouldn’t Read More ›

The Oakland-based NCSE has a recent online article about the Grantsburg, Wisconsin, School Board’s revised policy on the teaching of evolution. CSC’s press release on the Grantsburg policy is located here.)

The policy states:

Students are expected to analyze, review, and critique scientific explanations, including hypotheses and theories, as to their strengths and weaknesses using scientific evidence and information. Students shall be able to explain the scientific strengths and weaknesses of evolutionary theory. This policy does not call for the teaching of creationism or intelligent design.

The Grantsburg Board acted wisely in adopting a policy based in part on language from an existing Texas education standard. The policy is carefully crafted so as to keep the focus upon the scientific arguments for and against evolutionary theory, rather than any alternative scientific theory such as intelligent design (or creationism, for that matter). The Grantsburg Board’s approach thus mirrors the “teach the controversy” approach to chemical and biological evolution that has been adopted at the state level in Ohio, Minnesota and New Mexico.

Oddly enough, the nay-saying NCSE went to great lengths to promote an effort by a group of pastors in Wisconsin who opposed the sound policy. The pastors wrote a two-paragraph public letter opposing the Grantsburg Board’s decision (available here). After a sermon-esque first paragraph, the pastors go on to declare that a person’s rejection of evolutionary theory amounts to “a rejection of the will of our Creator.” Apparently, raising scientific criticisms of chemical or biological evolutionary theories places people’s souls in mortal peril! Fortunately, for the citizens of Grantsburg, the will of their popularly-elected school board prevailed over such sectarian, theological objections.

PBS station KNME is lying today in an effort to shrug off claims of censorship because of their banning of Unlocking the Mystery of Life. Today the station manager, Chad Davis, is claiming that it is a lie that PBS.org sells the video. It isn’t a lie that the video was available on the PBS.org and ShopPBS.org websites up until yesterday. Suddenly, PBS is joining their affiliate in an effort to censor science. (Calls to PBS for comment have been ignored.) Here’s the proof. Here is a PDF that shows a scan of a page we printed out on Tuesday of this week that clearly shows UMOL was available for purchase on the PBS web site. Even better is this Read More ›

The ACLU has embarrassed itself (again) concerning the scientific controversy over chemical and biological evolutionary theories, as Pennsylvania ACLU lawyer Witold Walczak has now compared skeptics of neo-Darwinian evolutionary theory to Holocuast deniers. (See my earlier blog on this here.)

In an Associated Press story from January 5 (found here), Walczak stated:

The parallel I would draw would be, if a social-studies teacher teaching World War II would talk about the Holocaust and make a statement – just a couple paragraphs – that there are gaps in the historical records of the Holocaust, and you should know an alternative theory that the Holocaust never happened.

That the ACLU now finds itself trivializing the horrors of the Holocaust for some sort of rhetorical advantage or cheap public debating points is not only sad, but a sign of desperation. Clearly, the Walczak puts very little stock in his own outlandish claim, or else he might have bothered to insert that claim in the complaint he filed with the federal court in Pennsylvania. Nowhere does his laughable charge appear in his complaint to the court.

It now appears to be ACLU policy to compare people who disagree with them to Holocaust deniers. Apparently, academic freedom is something they support, so long as academics agree with them.

Kudos are in order for the media covering PBS station KNME’s ill-advised decision this week to ban Unlocking the Mystery of Life from their airwaves.

First on Wednesday, Albuquerque’s ABC affiliate KOB aired a story that correctly reported this censorship of science. Their coverage was very good, although they did mistakenly identify Discovery’s Center for Science & Culture as the funder of the film, which is not true. The film was produced by Illustra Media and funded by a group of foundations and organizations. CSC Fellows were prominently featured in the film and CSC Director Steve Meyer worked closely with Illustra in the scripting of the film, but CSC did not fund the film. Still KOB’s coverage was balanced, and otherwise accurate.

Today, the Albuquerque Journal published a front page story (paid subscription required) by Rick Nathanson that was more accurate than many articles on intelligent design have been.
The paper reports KNME’s Joan Rebecchi as saying:

“The funders of this program have a clear and specific agenda they openly promote. …
KNME has no position regarding this agenda, but we must guard against the public perception that editorial control might have been exercised by the program funders.”

Lad Allen of Illustra Media spoke with KNME program manager Chad Davis and told him point blank that none of the funders had any input into the film, or any control over the content.

Rebecchi is later quoted as saying:

“‘KNME follows PBS production funding standards and practices,’ which are design to promote fairness, balance and impartiality, …”

How fair and balance has KNME, or PBS really been?

Indeed, PBS stations, including KNME, ran the Evolution series in 2001, which was solely funded and produced by billionaire Paul Allen’s Clear Blue Sky Productions. Now there is a clear instance of a funder controlling editorial content, and yet KNME didn’t squelch that film

Josh Gilder wrote in his critique of the Evolution series:

Channel 4 Eyewitness News in Albuquerque, New Mexico is the latest media outlet to pick up on KNME’s decision to ban Unlocking the Mystery of Life that we first reported earlier this week. They have a video clip of their live coverage of the story on Wed. night’s 10pm news on their website www.kobtv.com. It is refreshing to see a major, if local, media outlet actually getting the story right, and focusing on the irrational decision to try and censor a science debate. The even give intelligent design its due as a scientific theory. There is likely to be a media storm tomorrow when the story breaks in Albuquerque’s print world. It will be interesting to see if reporters at Read More ›

When a news reporter doesn’t bother to accurately and fairly report the small issues, is it any wonder when they fail to accurately and fairly report the big issues? Take the recent, un-credited article by an AP reporter entitled “Lawmakers draft bills to address debate over evolution,” concerning two legislative proposals in the state of Montana concerning the teaching of evolutionary theory in their public schools.

AP REPORTER’S PROBLEMS WITH THE FACTS ON DARBY

The AP reporter discusses two legislators from Big Sky Country who are considering two very different legislative approaches to the issue. According to the AP reporter, these respective proposals were

“driven by curriculum changes in Darby schools earlier this year that mandates the discussion of ‘intelligent design’ theory in science classes.”

Seeing as the AP reporter identifies the actions of the Darby school board in 2004 as the impetus for such legislation, one would think the AP reporter would be sure to get the facts right about what happened in Darby. But the AP reporter got the facts wrong.