Intelligent Design
News Media
British Newspaper Corrects the Record on Mistake About Intelligent Design Column
Richard Buggs, a member of Truth in Science, an organization in the U.K. which supports teaching intelligent design in schools, recently published an editorial in the Liverpool Daily Post. Truth In Science reports that the headline above the original editorial originally read: “Should religion be part of science teaching? YES: Dr Richard Buggs is on the Scientific Panel of Truth in Science.” Yet Truth in Science does not advocate putting religion into science teaching, and in fact the question which Dr. Buggs was asked to answer by the newspaper was actually “Should Intelligent Design be taught in school science lessons?”
It should be obvious that Buggs, a botanist with a special interest in the ecology and evolution of plants, firmly does not believe intelligent design is religion, as he writes, “Because intelligent design is a logical inference, based on data gathered from the natural world, it is firmly in the realm of science. That’s where it should be taught.” Thankfully, the Liverpool Daily Post has done a good job of correcting their mistake, as they fixed the heading so that it now reads more accurately: “Should Intelligent Design be part of science teaching?” If only more newspapers in both the United Kingdom and United States would correct non-neutral characterizations of this debate.