Category: News Media
AP: “ID backer knocks Tuskegee deletion from Kansas standards”
The Associated Press is reporting on the Kansas State Board of Education’s proposed deletion of the Tuskegee experiment, eugenics, and other abuses of science from the state’s existing science curriculum standards. The only complaint I have about the article is that it does not make clear that the existing history of science standard, which I favor, asks for students to study the positive achievements of science as well as the abuses of science. The purpose is to give students a balanced understanding of the history of science. It is the supporters of Darwinian evolution who are trying to suppress the coverage of both sides, not intelligent design (ID) proponents. It is interesting to look at the tortured explanations offered by Read More ›
Un-natural Selection: Ms. Dean Invites Us to Justify Academic Discrimination
In Monday’s New York Times (“Believing Scriptures but Playing byScience’s Rules”), Cornelia Dean joins Eugenie Scott of the Darwin lobbyNCSE (National Center for Science Education) in raising the tantalizingthought that (as “some say”) maybe scientists who have earned legitimatedoctorates in scientific fields, but are known to hold private views thatquestion Darwinism, should be denied their professional degrees. Take thatin: Perhaps doctoral candidates whose personal views deviate from anideological party line should be punished professionally. Presumably, ifthey are in a later stage in their career, you can thwart their applicationfor tenure; or later still, a promotion to full professor.
Happy Darwin Day
Now that Darwin Day is finally here, we have cause to reflect on the occasion with two articles out today. John West has a brief history of the anti-religious bias of The Gospel According to Darwin in NRO, where he notes that Darwin Day celebrations are fascinating because they expose a side of the controversy over evolution in America that is rarely covered by the mainstream media. Although journalists routinely write about the presumed religious motives of anyone critical of unguided evolution, they almost never discuss the anti-religious mindset that motivates many of evolution’s staunchest defenders.
Is Edward Humes, Monkey Girl Author, a Partisan? (Part II): The Evolving FAQ
[Editor’s Note: For a full and comprehensive review and response to Edward Humes’ book, Monkey Girl: Evolution, Education, and the Battle for America’s Soul, please see A Partisan Affair: A Response to Edward Humes’ Inaccurate History of Kitzmiller v. Dover and Intelligent Design, “Monkey Girl.] In Part I, I discussed how in the spring of 2006, I was contacted by a reporter named Edwards Humes who was writing a book on the Dover trial. He claimed to be supremely neutral, fair, and non-partisan. (Humes now refuses to grant me permission to directly quote his emails where he made these claims of neutrality.) But I had reasons to be suspicious. Reporters who go out of their way to claim to be Read More ›
Filmmaker Randy Olson Backtracks on False Claim in Film, Admitting: “apparently there are a few textbooks that have traces of Haeckel’s embryos….”
The documentary Flock of Dodos depicts biologist Jonathan Wells as a fraud for claiming in his book Icons of Evolution (2000) that Haeckel’s bogus embryo drawings were used by modern textbooks to misrepresent the evidence for Darwinian evolution. But at a screening last Wednesday night at the Pacific Science Center in Seattle, Olson essentially admitted that it was his film that was wrong, not Wells. In answer to an audience question about whether he still maintained that “there are no Haeckel’s embryos in modern textbooks,” Olson replied: