Dallas Morning News Offers Alternate Reality on Texas Science Standards

One has to wonder whether the Dallas Morning News reporter even attended today’s meeting of the Texas State Board of Education. It’s hard to tell from the garbled account the paper just published, which pretty much claims that the evolution dogmatists won everything. Of course, the truth is almost exactly the opposite. The article is a classic example of either sloppy or selective reporting. For example, the piece talks about the removal of the “strengths and weaknesses provision” from the Texas science standards, but neglects to mention the adoption of even stronger language that requires students to “critique” and examine “all sides of scientific evidence”! The article likewise talks about the removal of Chairman Don McElroy’s extra provisions on common Read More ›

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 ›

Associated Press Corrects Misreporting on Iowa Evolution Academic Freedom Bill

The Associated Press has corrected an inaccurate article about the Iowa Academic Freedom bill which had stated that “The bill asserts that teaching religious theories of evolution falls under academic freedom. It would let teachers at all education levels teach religious theories as science and forbid them from discounting non-science based answers from students.” The bill, of course, says precisely the opposite, as it expressly states: “This section shall not be construed to promote any religious doctrine, promote discrimination for or against a particular set of religious beliefs, or promote discrimination for or against religion or nonreligion.” Thankfully, after being shown the actual text of the bill, the AP realized that it was erroneous to claim that the bill allows Read More ›

MSNBC’s Birthday Present to Charles Darwin: Puff-Pieces on Evolution (Part 4)

In Part 3 of this series, I discussed a recent article published on MSNBC titled, “Fossils reveal truth about Darwin’s theory” that puffs the fossil evidence for evolution. In that installment, I discussed the fact that the article relied entirely upon evolutionary scientist Donald Prothero touting various examples of alleged transitional forms — but that Prothero’s arguments didn’t disclose the real history of the fossil record, and included much speculation and assumption-laden evolutionary interpretation. One of the showcase fossils in the article is the alleged “frogamander,” which is supposedly a transitional form between frogs and salamanders. Frogs and salamanders are of course both amphibians, and indeed the article admits that the fossil is simply “a toothed amphibian” (nothing extraordinary), and Read More ›

MSNBC’s Birthday Present to Charles Darwin: Puff-Pieces on Evolution (Part 3)

In Part 1 and Part 2, I discussed two of MSNBC’s recent puff-pieces promoting evolution that they’ve published to celebrate Darwin’s 200th birthday. The final article, which pushed evolution much harder than the others, was titled, “Fossils reveal truth about Darwin’s theory” (also posted on Foxnews) and gloated, “Events and press releases are geared, in part, to combat false claims made by some who would discredit the theory. One frequently cited ‘hole’ in the theory: Creationists claim there are no transitional fossils, a.k.a. missing links. Biologists and paleontologists, among others, know this claim is false.” The initial glaring problem with the MNSBC puff-piece is that so-called “creationists” are by no means the only ones discussing a lack of transitional fossils Read More ›