The National Center for Science Education has finally acknowledged the libel lawsuit filed against its director Eugenie Scott for statements she made in a recent article about California parent and attorney Larry Caldwell. In a brief posting on its website, the NCSE states that it “believes the lawsuit against Dr. Scott has no merit.” But the NCSE continues to engage in stonewalling by failing to address any of the specifics of Caldwell’s complaint.

As first reported on this blog, Scott claimed that Caldwell was trying to inject the teaching of creationism into his school district. To be specific, she stated that he tried to get his school board to adopt two prominent creationist books as part of the school district curriculum. Caldwell says this claim is absolutely false. In fact, he says he did not even know about the books cited by Scott. When Caldwell wrote Scott a letter asking her to correct the record, she failed to respond. So Caldwell had to file a libel lawsuit to clear his name.

Why is it so hard for Scott and the NCSE to clear the record and print a retraction? Or if they have evidence that Caldwell isn’t telling the truth, why don’t they publish that?