Category: Education
Darwinists Continue Smear Campaign against Ohio Grad Student
Just in time for the anniversary of the Scopes trial, the folks over at Panda’s Thumb are continuing their unseemly crusade against Ohio State doctoral candidate Bryan Leonard. Even though these Darwinian fundamentalists don’t support academic freedom for teachers and scientists who are skeptical of Darwin, you’d think they might draw the line at going after students. Apparently, however, their bigotry and intolerance knows no bounds. Unhappy that Leonard’s dissertation committee has effectively refuted the misinformation spread by Panda’s Thumb and others, blogger Richard Hoppe has responded with even more smears. Here are replies to some of the new disinformation put out by Hoppe:
Evolution & 2005 State Legislation, In a Nutshell
Many news stories and editorials from hyper-Darwinists and/or opponents of the theory of intelligent design (ID) have claimed that 12, 15 or even 20 states are considering legislation to MANDATE the teaching of ID in schools. This is completely false. Most of the stories and op-eds making these claims have lumped together local school board, state school board and state legislative activity relating IN SOME WAY to the teaching of evolution, misrepresenting the situation by lumping them all together as “states considering the mandating of ID.”
Columnists Need Schooling on Textbook Definition of ID
Mark Franek had a piece in today’s Philadelphia Inquirer showing off his ignorance on intelligent design. Here’s his attempt to describe ID: “The basic tenet of intelligent design takes about five seconds to teach – the mechanisms of life are so complex that they could have only been orchestrated by a supreme power – but the implications of this belief are better taught and served in a religion or philosophy class, or better yet, in a place of worship.” He’s right, his definition of ID would be better suited for a religion class. But, that’s not the standard definition of ID and is in fact a definiton that we reject outright.
Flunking Journalism Ethics 101: NYT Allows News Reporter to Write Op-Ed on Evolution Controversy
You’d think that after the Jayson Blair scandal, the New York Times would be exceptionally careful about questions of journalistic ethics. Why, then, is the Times allowing a reporter who regularly covers the evolution controversy on its news pages to ALSO write opinion articles on the same subject? Cornelia Dean has written a number of news stories for the Times about the the controversy over evolution, including one about the Kansas science standards and another one last weekend about the Catholic church and evolution. But the day after Dean’s news piece appeared about Catholics and evolution, a commentary by her promoting evolution appeared on the op-ed page of the York Daily Record in Pennsylvania! In this op-ed, Dean advised evolutionists Read More ›
New Info about Ohio Grad Student Persecuted by Darwinists
Over the past month, Darwinists have been waging a vicious campaign of defamation against Ohio State University science education doctoral candidate Bryan Leonard. (For more information about Leonard’s situation, see here.) Mr. Leonard’s doctoral dissertation defense has been put in limbo after certain Darwinist professors alleged that his research was “unethical” because it involved teaching students about scientific criticisms of Darwin’s theory, an approach called for in Ohio’s official science standards! Darwinists have variously claimed that members of Leonard’s doctoral committee were improperly selected, that Leonard engaged in “unethical” research, or that he taught his students intelligent design. According to members of Leonard’s dissertation committee, however, all of these charges are false. Two members of the committee have just issued Read More ›