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Today’s Wall Street Journal news section features an article that should be read carefully at the American Museum of Natural History in New York. “How Pygmy Ota Benga Ended Up in Bronx Zoo as Darwinism Dawned,” by Cynthia Crossen, is an example of the embarrassing history you will not see acknowledged at the AMNH’s self-congratulatory Darwin retrospective — or anywhere else that Darwinists are in charge. Darwinism helped perpetuate and justify racism, as the Ota Benga story makes clear. It also produced the eugenics movement, where Darwinists (including, please note, the American Museum of Natural History) were the leaders. Eugenics was “science” and anyone who dissented was considered benighted. (See Richard Weikart’s “From Darwin to Hitler” for the eugenics story Read More ›

It appears that evolution is not as popular as many would expect in Darwin’s home country. The BBC reports, Britons unconvinced on evolution. Less than half responded that evolution best described their view on the origin of life. Furthermore, more than 40 percent believe that intelligent design should be included in science lessons.

While not directly relevant to the debate over intelligent design in the United States, the results are interesting, and came as a surprise to many scientists in Briton, including the President of the Royal Society.

In a 7700 word article, Shankar Vedantam writes in the Washington Post about Caroline Crocker’s treatment at George Mason University. Some Darwinists I’ve known — who have never experienced what it is like to be a scientific minority in today’s climate — argue that she was not fired from her job. “Her contract was simply not renewed for reasons unrelated to ID” they claim. True: her contract was not renewed, and technically speaking, she was not “fired.” But from information I have heard, the non-renewal of her contract had much to do with her views and the fact that she mentioned ID in a biology classroom. It seems to me that Crocker’s account in the Washington Post is very accurate. Read More ›

Congressman John A. Boehner of Ohio, who was instrumental in assuring that the report language of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 contained a strong recommendation that scientific evidence for biological evolution–and also scientific evidence against evolution — should be taught in science class, was elected Majority Leader of the U.S. House today. Boehner, as chairman of the House Education Committee and co-chairman of the Conference Committee that completed work on the landmark No Child Left Behind Act, fended off efforts to remove the so-called “Santorum language” from the final report. The Act’s report provides that “Where topics are taught that may generate controversy (such as biological evolution), the curriculum should help students to understand the full range Read More ›

Last week Stephen Meyer had a piece published in the Daily Telegraph in London, “Intelligent design is not creationism.” As sometimes happens with the appearance of a an article advocating intelligent design, there was a flurry of anti-ID letters. However, there were also two letters worth noting.

Great is the power of steady misrepresentation; but the history of science shows that fortunately this power does not long endure. — Charles Darwin, Origin of Species

The Seattle Weekly’s Roger Downey has labored and produced a mouse. And, his mouse is a laughable, funhouse-mirror distortion of reality. But what else can you expect when you realize that he didn’t actually do any research, but essentially just cuts and pastes crazy assertions and outrageous claims from our critic’s blogs. Even though in the constellation of Seattle journalism and news publications the Weekly is (generously) seen as a lesser light, this piece demands a response.
“The Plot to Kill Darwin” is a rehash of old reports from other publications and blogs. There is nothing new, or original, in this article. Even the title and cover art seem to be ripped off from Wired magazine’s more sophisticated yarn of 2004. Most of the “news” reporting here is actually Downey just regurgitating oft repeated charges fringe Darwinists have lobbed at us for years. We’ve responded to all of this in the past.

The Weekly Standard has run John West’s response to Adam Wolfson’s recent article about intelligent design (which we blogged about here and here.)