Biology Teacher Neglects to Airbrush Darwin

Public high school biology teacher and Seattle area resident Doug Cowan has a fine piece in today’s Christian Science Monitor discussing how he encourages his students to think critically by exposing them to both the strengths and weaknesses of modern evolutionary theory. He begins: I am a public high school biology teacher, and I do an unusual thing. I teach my students more than they have to know about evolution. I push them to behave like competent jurors – not just to swallow what some authority figure tells them to believe – not even me – but rather to critically analyze, with an open mind, the evidence set before them. The full essay is here. And there’s more on how Read More ›

New York Times Should Screen “Privileged Planet” for Its Staff

Rob Crowther blogged earlier about the New York Times article on the upcoming screening of “Privileged Planet” at the Smithsonian. The Times article is pretty fair and balanced, but it starts off with a big blooper in the headline and first sentence: Smithsonian to Screen a Movie That Makes a Case Against Evolution Fossils at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of Natural History have been used to prove the theory of evolution. Next month the museum will play host to a film intended to undercut evolution. In fact, Privileged Planet is not about biological evolution. It makes the case for intelligent design in the universe based on astronomy and cosmology. It doesn’t deal at all with the Darwinian account of Read More ›

Smithsonian Institution Makes News for Agreeing to Show The Privileged Planet

Some bloggers (here, here, and here to start) and media are taking notice of the forthcoming premiere of The Privileged Planet at the Smithsonian (June 23). A story in the New York Times today by John Schwartz has some bloggers seething, imagining that the film is a propaganda piece that should be banned from right-minded science institutions. Obviously, the Smithsonian staff that actually screened the film thought differently, and they happen to be right. Randall Kremer, a Smithsonian spokesperson was quoted in the Times’ piece saying that that the film was vetted by the Smithsonian:

… big hair, big gut, fat butt, holy-rolling …

In the new issue of The American Spectator, Dan Peterson provides this sober analysis of the media’s handling of intelligent design: Among certain sectors of the media, for example, it is an article of faith that those who believe in God, or advocate principles supporting that belief, are just a mob of Bible-thumping, knuckle-dragging, Scripture-spouting, hellfire and brimstone-preaching, rightwing, gun-toting, bigoted, homophobic, moralistic, paternalistic, polyester-wearing, mascara-smeared, false-eyelashed, SUV-driving, Wal-Mart shopping, big hair, big gut, fat butt, holy-rolling, snake-handling, Limbaugh-listening, Bambi-shooting, trailer-park-dwelling, uneducated, ignorant, backwater, hayseed, hick, inbred, pinhead rubes, mostly from the South, or places no better than the South, who voted for Bush. So, many of the news stories refer to intelligent design theory as “creationism” and ignore the Read More ›

Baylor Professors Take a Stand for Academic Freedom & Integrity

Supporters of intellectual engagement in academia and a public marketplace of ideas would do well to check out the latest edition of Academe, which features letters from philosopher and legal scholar Francis J. Beckwith and distinguished Mechanical Engineer Walter Bradley. (See the bottom quarter of the page, here). The two Baylor University professors set the facts straight and defend the continuing debate over intelligent design theory in the academy. The letters come in response to earlier ad hominem attacks and wild-eyed conspiracy theories thrown their way by Barbara Forrest and Glen Branch — previously blogged about here. t would be one thing if Forrest and Branch chose to vigorously argue for neo-Darwinian evolutionary theory based upon the scientific merits. That Read More ›