News

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 ›

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.)

Columbia South Carolina’s The State newspaper had a preview piece this morning about today’s hearing held by the state’s Education Oversight Committee (EOC) to hear from experts about teaching evolution.

State reporter Bill Robinson spoke at length with CSC policy analyst Casey Luskin last week in order to get more information on the overall debate, and also to better understand Discovery’s position on the issue. Unfortunately his article doesn’t reflect that.

Robinson, through an error of omission, misrepresents Discovery’s science education policy position, which we’ve been consistently clear about. The article, which completely misses the point that the debate in SC has nothing to do with intelligent design, only mentions Discovery once, but like this:

“Casey Luskin said Keller and Sternberg are scientists known to the Institute, which he said takes the position that “intelligent design is a scientific theory that is a good explanation for many aspects of life.”

By not explaining that our position is that we’re opposed to mandating intelligent design Robinson leaves his readers with the impression that is what we’re supporting in SC. Of course, as we’ve made clear, that isn’t true. It remains to be see if The State will do the right thing and issue a clarification. I’ve contacted Robinson but as of yet have not received a reply.