Saturday, the Albuquerque Journal ran a staff editorial chastising PBS affiliate KNME for its decision to ban UMOL. The Journal correctly pointed out that KNME’s censorship is nothing more than viewpoint discrimination writing, “refusing to air a program supporting the less popular point of view looks like a close cousin to censorship.” The Journal notes that KNME should have taken the high road and aired the film as an educational service to viewers. “Consumers are best served when given a full range of viewpoints and allowed to decide for themselves what is fact and what is fiction.” It’s obvious now that had KNME just aired the program the whole issue would be over and done with now and they wouldn’t Read More ›

The Oakland-based NCSE has a recent online article about the Grantsburg, Wisconsin, School Board’s revised policy on the teaching of evolution. CSC’s press release on the Grantsburg policy is located here.) The policy states: Students are expected to analyze, review, and critique scientific explanations, including hypotheses and theories, as to their strengths and weaknesses using scientific evidence and information. Students shall be able to explain the scientific strengths and weaknesses of evolutionary theory. This policy does not call for the teaching of creationism or intelligent design. The Grantsburg Board acted wisely in adopting a policy based in part on language from an existing Texas education standard. The policy is carefully crafted so as to keep the focus upon the scientific Read More ›

PBS station KNME is lying today in an effort to shrug off claims of censorship because of their banning of Unlocking the Mystery of Life. Today the station manager, Chad Davis, is claiming that it is a lie that PBS.org sells the video. It isn’t a lie that the video was available on the PBS.org and ShopPBS.org websites up until yesterday. Suddenly, PBS is joining their affiliate in an effort to censor science. (Calls to PBS for comment have been ignored.) Here’s the proof. Here is a PDF that shows a scan of a page we printed out on Tuesday of this week that clearly shows UMOL was available for purchase on the PBS web site. Even better is this Read More ›

The ACLU has embarrassed itself (again) concerning the scientific controversy over chemical and biological evolutionary theories, as Pennsylvania ACLU lawyer Witold Walczak has now compared skeptics of neo-Darwinian evolutionary theory to Holocuast deniers. (See my earlier blog on this here.) In an Associated Press story from January 5 (found here), Walczak stated: The parallel I would draw would be, if a social-studies teacher teaching World War II would talk about the Holocaust and make a statement – just a couple paragraphs – that there are gaps in the historical records of the Holocaust, and you should know an alternative theory that the Holocaust never happened. That the ACLU now finds itself trivializing the horrors of the Holocaust for some sort Read More ›

Kudos are in order for the media covering PBS station KNME’s ill-advised decision this week to ban Unlocking the Mystery of Life from their airwaves. First on Wednesday, Albuquerque’s ABC affiliate KOB aired a story that correctly reported this censorship of science. Their coverage was very good, although they did mistakenly identify Discovery’s Center for Science & Culture as the funder of the film, which is not true. The film was produced by Illustra Media and funded by a group of foundations and organizations. CSC Fellows were prominently featured in the film and CSC Director Steve Meyer worked closely with Illustra in the scripting of the film, but CSC did not fund the film. Still KOB’s coverage was balanced, and Read More ›