News

Charles Krauthammer’s syndicated essay against intelligent design ran opposite mine in today’s Seattle Times. The piece is full of problems, which Tom Gilson and Lawrence Seldon explore in loving detail here and here.

Now I would have framed a couple of points in their otherwise fine analysis a little differently. In one place,

Ignorance is apparently bliss for Wayne Carley, head of the National Association of Biology Teachers (NABT). On Wednesday, he issued a statement to members of his group blasting the Kansas State Board of Education for “removing the mention of evolution from their state science education standards.” The most notable problem with Carley’s statement is that the Kansas Board of Education did not remove “the mention of evolution” from its state science standards. Indeed, the terms “evolution” or “evolutionary” appear more than thirty times in the new Kansas Science Standards, most importantly in the following benchmark:

Benchmark 3: The student will understand the major concepts of the theory of biological evolution.

Either Carley has a problem with reading comprehension, or he never bothered to read the Kansas Science Standards before condemning them. Yesterday I e-mailed Carley about whether he had actually read the Kansas standards before issuing his denunciation. I also sent him the text of the benchmark on evolution and asked whether he was going to issue a corrected statement. He responded that a corrected statement had been issued. But he didn’t answer my question about whether he had read the standards before issuing his initial statement.

Much of the reporting on the new science standards adopted by the Kansas Board of Education this week has been remarkably thin on substance. For one thing, the reports have all but ignored the Kansas Board’s own statement as to why its new science standards cover the scientific debate over evolution. As a public service, I thought I’d reprint here the excellent explanatory statement the Board included at beginning of the standards:

Finally a mainstream media organization–and would you believe it is NPR?–is covering the glaring cases of viewpoint discrimination on America’s campuses, and even at the Smithsonian Institution. The report on contemporary abuses of academic freedom aired today on All Things Considered and in it NPR’s Barbara Bradley Hagerty describes the way Eugenie Scott and the National Center for Science Education have organized attacks on scientists known to harbor sympathies for intelligent design and to doubt Darwinism.

On Tuesday the Kansas State Board of Education adopted new science standards. According to the Board, these new standards “call for students to learn about the best evidence for modern evolutionary theory, but also to learn about areas where scientists are raising scientific criticisms of the theory.” These standards do not require the teaching of intelligent design. That fact didn’t stop some major media outlets, including Bloomberg News and the Washington Post, from erroneously claiming otherwise. The Bloomberg story began: Kansas State Board Votes to Teach Intelligent Design in Schools Nov. 8 (Bloomberg) — The Kansas State Board of Education approved a proposal to teach intelligent design along with evolution as a scientific explanation of how life began. The Washington Read More ›

In order to cash in on the nation’s current interest in the debate over evolution — thanks to Kansas’ adoption of new science standards and the Dover school board trial — this evening ABC’s World News Tonight strung together disparate clips and previous footage to once again spin out the old yarn that this is just a religious issue. Yawn. (If you’re still interested see our report on the original airing of this story back in September.) But, if you’re interested in seeing a report that truly delves into the issue — from both sides — check out CBS’s News Sunday Morning with Charles Osgood. Here’s an objective report from a crew that took the issue seriously and rather than Read More ›