Author: John G. West
San Antonio Express Article Misstates Facts on Texas Board of Education and Kansas
An article in the San Antonio Express misstates some facts in its coverage of this week’s upcoming Texas Board of Education vote on evolution. The article isn’t all bad: It allows Discovery Institute’s Casey Luskin to offer an opposing view, and Luskin’s views are described accurately. But the article also states that the Texas Board of Education “voted with the science experts in January to remove the ‘strengths and weaknesses’ standard” from Texas science standards. The Board did indeed vote to do this (to its shame). But in repealing the strengths and weaknesses language, Board members did not vote “with the science experts.” The Board appointed six science experts to review the draft standards. Three of the experts opposed the Read More ›
University of Vermont President Engages in Double-Speak and Double-Standards When It Comes to Disavowing Pro-Intelligent Design Commencement Speaker Ben Stein
Let your voice be heard: If you think it was wrong for Ben Stein to be pushed out as this year’s commencement speaker at University of Vermont, send a message to University President Daniel Fogel at Daniel.Fogel@uvm.edu or 802-656-3186. Apologizing for inviting gifted actor and writer Ben Stein to be commencement speaker at the University of Vermont, University President Daniel Fogel has highlighted what he called Stein’s “highly controversial views” about “evolutionary theory, intelligent design, and the role of science in the Holocaust.” Fogel went on to express penance for inviting Stein by claiming that “Commencement should be a time when our community gathers inclusively, not divisively.” I guess inclusivity is why in 2007 Fogel chose as commencement speaker Democratic Read More ›
Surprise of the Week: New York Times Gets the Real Story on Texas Evolution Standards
Kudos to the New York Times for filing a story on the actions of the Texas State Board of Education that actually describes what happened last week. Unlike much of the rest of the newsmedia, the Times doesn’t tell only half of what happened or play up the hysterics. The story’s even-handed title is telling: “Split Outcome in Texas Battle on Teaching of Evolution.” Of course, being the Times, pro-Darwin bias does creep in at points, most egregiously in the ludicrous “definition” offered of intelligent design (“the notion of a divine hand guiding creation”). It used to be common courtesy for reporters to allow supporters of an idea to explain what they mean by it rather than rely on an Read More ›
Texas Story Evolves: First It Was “Critics of Evolution Defeated!”; Now It’s “The Sky Is Falling!”
It was as predictable as soggy weather in Seattle in November. First, reporters insisted that the Texas State Board of Education dealt a body blow to supporters of the critical analysis of evolution by dropping language in their existing science standards that call on students to examine the “strengths and weaknesses” of scientific theories. Of course, these same reporters neglected to inform the public that the Board also passed several amendments to the evolution standards requiring students to “analyze and evaluate” the main concepts of evolution such as common ancestry, natural selection, and mutations. Once evolutionists began to complain about some of the changes to the evolution standards, the reporters apparently changed their mind. Now the Texas story is quickly Read More ›
Pro-Darwin Crowd Starts Smear Campaign on Texas Board of Education’s Evolution Changes
According to a reporter who contacted me earlier today, the Darwin-only crowd in Texas is now smearing the State Board of Education for adopting amendments to the proposed science standards on evolution that promote “creationism,” and young earth creationism to boot. So what else is new? In reality, there is nothing in the amendments adopted that promote creationism, yet alone young earth creationism. But the Darwin-only crowd automatically attacks anything they don’t like as creationism. It’s a reflex action. They can’t help themselves. Yet in this case they just look plain silly. For example, how does it promote creationism to insist that students “analyze and evaluate” all the major parts of evolutionary theory? “Analyze and evaluate” is language they earlier Read More ›