Darrow-Mencken Syndrome: closely associated with delusions of grandeur, this pathology infects many in the media and the advocacy profession by convincing them that they can be as great as Darwinist attorney Clarence Darrow or as brilliant as journalist and religious skeptic H.L. Mencken if they merely cast intelligent design arguments as a recapitulation of the Scopes Monkey Trial. Signs & Symptoms Darrow-Mencken Syndrome most often manifests itself in attorneys and reporters and usually prevents them from actually investigating the evidence and arguments of design theorists. One tell-tale symptom of Darrow-Mencken syndrome is the chronic use of simplistic or inaccurate definitions of intelligent design. Many aren’t consciously trying to misrepresent intelligent design. They have just been disabled by the delirium often Read More ›

In her recent LA Times column, Patt Morrison spent half her essay pummeling a strawman: creationists who think the Smithsonian is hiding Noah’s ark. The other half she spent fear mongering: The creationist “brain snatchers,” the essay warns, “could be in anybody’s backyard tomorrow.” Like an aging boxer, Darwinism has taken to dodging the real challenger, intelligent design–according to which, certain features of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, not an undirected process like natural selection. Morrison eventually mentions intelligent design, but only to erect another strawman. “ID is a canny tactic,” she explains, ” . . . in which the Bible is an encoded science text.” Her column attacked the creationist museum but also the ID Read More ›

While the rest of the country worries about terrorists who try to blow up people here and abroad, the editorialists at the Boston Globe worry about an invasion by… American creationists. Today the Globe is running an overwrought editorial with the hysterical title “Creationists at the gate” — conjuring up images of stampeding hordes of vandals and visigoths about to overrun civilized society. It is becoming harder and harder to lampoon the liberal newsmedia on the evolution issue, because their hysteria apparently knows no bounds. If the liberal media want to be taken more seriously by the majority of Americans, they might start by trying to base their opinions on facts rather than fantasies. For example, the Globe repeatedly warns Read More ›

As noted in a previous post, Time’s recent article about intelligent design reads more like an editorial than a news report. Here is an itemized list of some of the ways Time slanted and misreported its story: