Education
News Media
Has the Kansas AP hired the NCSE?
The Associated Press (AP) in Kansas must have hired the National Center for Science Education to edit news reports on that state’s evolution controversy. Why else would the Kansas AP continue to pass off the following biased and inaccurate definition of intelligent design theory as an impartial description of the differences between design and Darwinian evolution:
Evolution says species change in response to environmental and genetic factors over the course of many generations. Intelligent design, a form of creationism, holds there’s evidence of an intelligent design behind the origin of the universe, the formation of the Earth and biological change.
There are at least two things egregiously wrong with the above paragraph. First and foremost, intelligent design is NOT “a form of creationism.” While some Darwinists certainly try to categorize design theory in this way, intelligent design proponents vigrously disagree. (For some of the reasons why, read my article here.) By presenting the Darwinists’ biased assertion about ID being a form of creationism as a fact (and ignoring what the proponents of design say about their own theory!), the Kansas AP has left the realm of impartial reporting and entered spin zone of the NCSE.
Second, the AP implies that intelligent design rejects the idea that “species change in response to environmental factors over the course of many generations.” FALSE. Intelligent design rejects the idea that all biological complexity can be explained as the product of an undirected material cause such as random mutations and natural selection. It does not deny that species can change and adapt in response to environmental factors.