British Media Continue Misinformation Campaign on Evolution and Intelligent Design

It looks as if the reporting on evolution and intelligent design is even worse in the UK than it is here in the US. I was just forwarded this article from last week’s Independent titled “Does Creationism Have a Place in the Classroom.” Right off the bat the lead of the article makes unsupported assertions, editorializing in a manner that even some of the most agenda-driven reporting in the US has yet to do.

Winter Chill Comes Early to Quebec

The whole point of independent schools is that they are supposed to be independent! The whole point of the media is to report the news, not distortions. Yet in the story from The Ottawa Citzen (“Teach sex and evolution or close, Quebec evangelical schools told“), we discover by reading the whole story carefully that the schools under attack do teach evolution. They also teach the scientific evidence against it and they teach intelligent design. And that additional teaching is the state’s real beef.

Everyone’s Talkin’ about Dawkins’ Crusade Against Religion

The NCSE’s Nicholas Matzke wrote last summer, “We don’t need the anti-creationists going and mixing their views on religion into their science. In fact, this is probably the surest path to disaster politically and in the courts. Anyone who wants to do this has the right to do it, but it ain’t helpful or particularly smart.” Richard Dawkins apparently didn’t get Nick’s memo. In a recent BBC News interview, Dawkins said that “America is ready for an attack on religion. … Britain always has been.” He explained that he wrote his book The God Delusion to convince “vaguely religious people” that “[t]he religion of their upbringing is probably nonsense” and explained to viewers that “the living world … comes about Read More ›

Response to Barbara Forrest’s Kitzmiller Account Part IX: The Kitzmiller Double-Standard for ID and Evolution on Peer-Review

[Editor’s Note: A single article combining all ten installments of this response to Barbara Forrest can be found here, at “Response to Barbara Forrest’s Kitzmiller Account.” The individual installments may be seen here: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8, Part 9, Part 10.] In her Kitzmiller account, Barbara Forrest writes that leading ID proponents have “blustering cowardice … who must capture support with brazen deceit and sarcastic punditry.” Ironically, she later attacks Discovery Institute’s critique of the Kitzmiller ruling, claiming it had “nastiness.” In response to her inconsistent argument, Dr. Forrest would likely respond that her attacks are justified based upon the evidence she presents in her article. (I’m not Read More ›

Thoughtful Comments from All Over

* The estimable cultural commentator Joseph Epstein writes in The Wall Street Journal Thursday about those “Ugly Thorny Things” called facts that have a way of undercutting “velvety and suave” things called ideas. The piece (by subscription only here) makes a fascinating observation about the way that big ideas decay in the presence of factual reality. “Not only have the past 50 or so years been largely bereft of grand ideas, but much of the best intellectual work of the period has been devoted to eliminating the major ideas, or idea system, of the previous 100 years or so: notably Marxism and Freudianism, with Darwinism perhaps next to tumble.”