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Bias Front and Center at Houston Chronicle
Finding bias in MSM newspapers like the Houston Chronicle is like finding design in nature, not at all hard to do. Sunday, The Chronicle decided to publish Michael Behe’s op-ed that appeared last week in The New York Times. The headline the Chronicle perched atop Behe’s column nicely illustrates the petty biases of the paper’s editorial board: “Intelligent design: Creation explained or quackery?” This didn’t surprise me. Two years ago in the midst of the Texas controversy over error-ridden biology textbooks a Chronicle editorial board member sent us one of the tackiest letters we’ve received from the media. We approached the Chronicle and asked them to meet with us to talk about textbooks and challenges to Darwinian evolution — much Read More ›
Barb’s at it Again!
Barbara Forrest is at it again. In her latest review of Meyer & Campbell’s Darwinism, Design & Public Education Forrest substitutes strident affirmation for science and scorn for reasoned argumentation. Forrest never chooses to engage the arguments of design theorists but rather questions their qualifications: “John Angus Campbell, who also serves on the journal’s editorial board, is a rhetorician. Stephen C. Meyer is a philosopher.” What pray tell was your Ph.D. in Barbara? And why is it you don’t apply that same standard to Robert Pennock when he deigns himself fit to comment on evolution? What Forrest more often than not fails to comprehend is that merely asserting that “there is no argument” and “ID is not science” doesn’t settle Read More ›
Washington Times reports on Richard Sternberg’s complaint
The Washington Times today ran with a straight news piece on the plight of evolutionary biologist Richard Sternberg, who has been under fire recently for allowing a pro-ID paper to be published in his former journal the peer-reviewed “Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington.” The Times reports that there is now an investigation underway:
Derbyshire II: Of Bones and Beads
John Derbyshire recently rebutted a series of objections against Darwinism and, in the process, leveled a series of objections against intelligent design. He dismisses design by ignoring the actual arguments of its theorists and shadowboxing with letter writers instead. He shows, thereby, a lack of seriousness on his own part by trivializing and demeaning scholars whose views he apparently has not really bothered to understand. One problem is that Derbyshire’s objections against design theory often state the positions of leading design theorists–in other words, he agrees with leading design proponents without even realizing it. For instance, one of his blog visitors tried to refute Darwinism by asserting, “The fossil record is incomplete.” Derbyshire responded, “Well, duh. Fossilization only happens under Read More ›
Derbyshire Protects Darwinism from Dissent
John Derbyshire keeps reburying the design argument over at The Corner, with evidence he assures us is elsewhere. By assembling a host of misconceptions about design theory into a single, compact essay (generally unencumbered by supporting evidence), Derbyshire has done us a great service, providing us a forum to respond to each misconception in a series of posts over the next several days. I’ve never met John Derbyshire. I love his name. It makes me think of England and Middle Earth. I imagine him wearing a stylish derby and living in a tasteful shire somewhere, an articulate conservative with strong opinions — but who just might stop and take a second look at a position with a much older pedigree Read More ›