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Altered Reality: Newsweek Pundit Displays Own Ignorance in Column on ID

It’s been interesting to watch this past week as media pundits have weighed-in on the debate over intelligent design in the wake of President Bush’s pro-ID comments. Most of the pundits denouncing intelligent design have simply demonstrated how little they actually know about ID and what it proposes. A good example is Jonathan Alter’s snooty anti-ID column in this week’s Newsweek. Alter says a lot of ignorant and inaccurate things, but I will focus on just one:

The scholarly articles [by ID proponents] are often well written and provocative. But the science within these papers has been demolished over and over by other scientists.

After paying a back-handed compliment to ID scholars, Alter claims that their scientific arguments have been “demolished” by other scientists. How the heck would Alter know? Has he read ANY of the publications written by pro-ID scientists, including their responses to critics? In fact, “the science within these papers” has NOT been demolished. Rather than trust Alter’s unsubstantiated assertion, you can read for yourself some of the responses to the so-called critiques of ID. If you do, you’ll be better informed than 99% of the pundits who are pontificating on the subject right now.

John G. West

Senior Fellow, Managing Director, and Vice President of Discovery Institute
Dr. John G. West is Vice President of the Seattle-based Discovery Institute and Managing Director of the Institute’s Center for Science and Culture. Formerly the Chair of the Department of Political Science and Geography at Seattle Pacific University, West is an award-winning author and documentary filmmaker who has written or edited 12 books, including Darwin Day in America: How Our Politics and Culture Have Been Dehumanized in the Name of Science, The Magician’s Twin: C. S. Lewis on Science, Scientism, and Society, and Walt Disney and Live Action: The Disney Studio’s Live-Action Features of the 1950s and 60s. His documentary films include Fire-Maker, Revolutionary, The War on Humans, and (most recently) Human Zoos. West holds a PhD in Government from Claremont Graduate University, and he has been interviewed by media outlets such as CNN, Fox News, Reuters, Time magazine, The New York Times, USA Today, and The Washington Post.

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