He Said, She Said: Washington Post vs. Associated Press

Coverage of the Kitzmiller v. Dover trial has been about as could be expected, all over the board. There’s been good, bad, and downright ugly. Here then is a snapshot of how reporters can shape the public’s perception in the way they report a single statement. This example comes from the coverage of Michael Behe’s testimony in the courtroom yesterday.

Biochemist Michael Behe Testifies in Dover Trial

Today biochemist Michael Behe testified as an expert witness for the defendants in the current trial, Kitzmiller et al. v. Dover Area School Board. According to Discovery Institute’s Logan Gage, who observed all of Michael Behe’s testimony today at the Dover trial in Harrisburg, Pa, Behe covered a wide variety of topics. Below is an informal report on some topics covered by Behe’s testimony, based upon Mr. Gage’s report. Links are provided after some of the bullet points to articles where Dr. Behe has discussed these topics outside of today’s testimony. Points Behe made today during his testimony:

Discovery Institute Tells Dover Judge Teaching About Intelligent Design is Constitutional

Today, the Discovery Institute, the nation’s leading think tank researching intelligent design, filed an Amicus Curiae (i.e. “Friend of the Court”) brief in the Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District case urging the judge to rule that it is not unconstitutional to teach about the scientific theory of intelligent design. The filing of the brief coincides with the beginning of the defense offered by the Dover School Board, which has required students to be notified about the existence of the theory of intelligent design as an alternative to Darwinian theory. “The ACLU is claiming that no matter how carefully intelligent design is presented, and no matter what good educational reasons there might be for teaching it, doing so is just Read More ›

Will Robert Pennock Become the Next Michael Ruse?

If you’ll give me the Mic, I won’t Rob much of your time while Penning this short Ruse. In the Dover trial, Robert Pennock is the Plaintiffs’ expert on the philosophy of science, and Pennock pushed hard for a definition of science which is essentially “methodological naturalism.” This is eerily similar to the 1982 case, McLean v. Arkansas Board of Education, 529 F.Supp. 1255 (E.D. Ark) over the teaching of young earth creationism, where Darwinist Philosopher of Science Michael Ruse testified that science was defined as follows: Ruse’s definition incorporates the precise methodological naturalism advocated by Pennock in Ruse’s requirements (1) and (2). Ruse’s definition was also subsequently accepted by Judge Overton and etched into Eastern Arkansas law. But we Read More ›

Dembski’s Expert Testimony in Dover Trial

Design theorist William Dembski reports that “last spring The Thomas More Law Center (TMLC) hired me as an expert witness in the Dover area school district case regarding ID (Kitzmiller v. Dover)” and that “because the focus of that case and trial is a book titled Of Pandas and People and because I am the academic editor for the publisher of that book (i.e., The Foundation for Thought and Ethics [FTE]), when FTE tried to intervene in the case, TMLC decided to drop me as an expert witness, citing a conflict of interest.” Before that occurred, however, Dembski prepared “an expert witness report as well as a rebuttal of the opposing expert witness reports.”