Month: November 2006
From the Archives: How the New York Times Lets A Reporter Blur the Distinction between Editorials and News
Yesterday I blogged about my correspondence with New York Times reporter Cornelia Dean, who covers the evolution debate for the Times. Today I thought I would remind readers that this is not the first time we’ve reported about editorializing by Ms. Dean on the evolution issue. Last year, Dean wrote an op-ed advising evolutionists on what they should do to win the public debate over evolution. But the Times still assigns Ms. Dean to cover the evolution debate. Question: Would the Times assign a reporter to cover the abortion debate who had written an op-ed advising the pro-life movement on what it needed to do to in order to prevail? Conflicts of interest apparently don’t matter when the issue is Read More ›
Inside the Mind of the New York Times: My Exchange with Cornelia Dean, Evolution Partisan
A few days ago, I took New York Times reporter Cornelia Dean to task for putting words in the mouth of Ohio Board of Education member Deborah Owens Fink. According to an article by Dean, “Dr. Owens Fink…said the [Ohio] curriculum standards she supported did not advocate teaching intelligent design, an ideological cousin of creationism.” But as I pointed out, Dr. Owens Fink did not call intelligent design “an ideological cousin of creationism,” even though Dean’s wording makes this appear to be the case. Those words represent Dean’s own editorial evaluation (in what was supposed to be a news article, not an editorial). According to Dr. Owens Fink, “the reporter… put words in the article that may represent her view Read More ›
Who is writing anti-ID articles in the UK?
As we recently discussed here, there was a factually challenged article against intelligent design in a UK newspaper, The Independent. Given the anti-ID motive-mongering in the article, it is not surprising to find that the British Center for Science Education (BCSE) helped put the article together. The BCSE’s Roger Stanyard admits that “[s]ome of you are aware that I helped in putting it together” and gives the URL, saying the article is “based n [sic] material and advice supplied by BCSE.” (see here) So how closely is this “British Center for Science Education” tied to the “National Center for Science Education” (NCSE) based in the United States? It’s not entirely clear, but recently the NCSE’s Nick Matzke explained that “Roger Read More ›
New Review of Politically Incorrect Guide to Darwinism and Intelligent Design
The Denver Post published a very good review of two important new books about the debate over Darwinism and intelligent design, earlier this week. Doug Groothuis reviews both CSC Senior Fellow Jonathan Wells’s new book, The Politically Incorrect Guide to Darwinism and Intelligent Design, and the new book by professional skeptic Michael Shermer, Why Darwin Matters: The Case Against Intelligent Design.
Should Conservatives Champion Darwin?
Later this month Discovery Institute Press will publish a new book examining the misguided attempts of some conservatives to embrace Darwinism and champion it as compatible with conservative views. Most conservatives are presumed to be critical of Darwin’s theory, yet a number of thinkers on the right, such as George Will, James Q. Wilson, and Larry Arnhart, have mounted a vigorous defense of Darwinism. Discovery Institute Senior Fellow John West will explain in Darwin’s Conservatives: The Misguided Quest that the attempts to reconcile conservatism and Darwinian biology ultimately misunderstand both.