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Politics and Ethics

Scientists Confess Their Sins
June 9, 2005
One-third of scientists engaged in unethical behavior over the last three years, according to a report in Nature.1,2  These include falsification, fabrication and plagiarism as well as a host of questionable research practices.  It’s not so much a problem of high-profile cases of fraud as much as everyday, mundane, “corrosive” ethical lapses that are endangering […]
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Education

Who Wins and Loses in the Darwin Wars?
June 3, 2005
Sandra Lilley, writing in MSNBC News, pictures sad-faced students, whose scientific inquisitiveness has been stifled by the controversy over evolution.  The article starts with a touching photo of a young girl, a look of wonder in her eyes, examining a toy human skeleton.  “Science is becoming a political ‘hot potato’ for some students,” she describes, […]
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Education

Kansas Debate Over ID Reverberates in Holland
June 3, 2005
“Is Holland becoming the Kansas of Europe?” asked Martin Enserink in Science this week.1  All that education minister Maria van der Hoeven wants to do is have some public debate about intelligent design, but the suggestion has caused an uproar among scientists who claim she wants to take Holland back to the Dark Ages.  On […]
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Intelligent Design

ID Film To Be Aired at Smithsonian
June 1, 2005
The intelligent-design film The Privileged Planet will be shown at the Smithsonian on June 23.  See story on The Ames Tribune.  Pam Sheppard at AIG has a report also.  Following the showing at the National Museum of Natural History, the film will air on PBS stations around the country. Update 06/02/2005: The Smithsonian appears to […]
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Media

SETI Researcher Joins NG Imagination Fest
May 31, 2005
Space.Com writer Tariq Malik reviewed the National Geographic TV series Extraterrestrial that envisions flying whales, giraffe-like predators and flesh-eating tadpoles on a mythical world undergoing its own evolution.  “Using computer models and armed with basic evolutionary theory, the scientists imagined not only what conditions might exist on their theoretical planets,” writes Malik, “but also how […]
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Education

Can the Courts Define Science?
May 27, 2005
Last December, the ACLU and Americans United for Separation of Church and State filed a lawsuit in Pennsylvania against the Dover Area School District that was considering adding intelligent design material to the curriculum.  The lawsuit attempts to define intelligent design as “inherently religious” and therefore unacceptable in science classrooms.  The move appears aimed at […]
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Education

Battlefield Dispatches
May 24, 2005
Reports from the evolution wars continue to come in.  Here are more recent stories about the conflicts over the teaching of evolution and intelligent design: The race card:  Fiona Morgan on Salon.com trashes those who try to link Darwin to racism.  The cartoon shows Darwin with a dunce cap sitting in the corner, but Morgan […]
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Cell Biology

Stem Cell Headlines
May 23, 2005
Research on embryonic stem cells is proceeding apace without an ethical anchor, and no clue where it will lead.  News coverage of the debate accelerated with an announcement from South Korea. Match point:  The BBC News and many other news sources published South Korea’s announcement that stem cells matched to the individual have been tailored […]
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Education

Intelligent Design and the Nature of Science
May 18, 2005
John Hanna’s Associated Press article, “Kansas debate focuses on defining science,” has fingered a basic issue: what is science?  The Darwinists argue that ID by its very nature cannot be scientific.  Rob Crowther on Evolution News counters that Kansas is the only state that does not have a traditional definition of science, such as Science […]
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Education

Heat and Light Emitted in Collisions of Darwin vs ID
May 13, 2005
Rhetoric over evolution is increasing in the media largely because of the school board debates in Kansas (see 04/29/2005 entry and previous Education links).  The largely pro-Darwin press seems to be giving a little more coverage to the ID side; the anti-Darwin alternative media are getting more bold about asserting their views. MSNBC News says […]
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Education

Darwinians May Be Their Own Worst Enemy, Says Darwinist
May 6, 2005
Evolutionists have only themselves to blame for the rise of anti-Darwinian sentiment, says Michael Ruse in a new book, The Evolution-Creation Struggle (Harvard, 2005).  Peter Dizikes reviewed this premise in The Boston Globe.  By portraying evolution in overtly atheist terms with religious fervor, certain individuals like Richard Dawkins are creating a backlash, says Ruse.  “This […]
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Education

World Press Eyes Kansas Evolution Battle
May 5, 2005
The “Un-Scopes” trial of the decade is underway in Kansas, and the world press is watching.  Unlike the 1925 Scopes trial, this time evolution is the leader and intelligent design is the contender: actually, not even that – the leaders of the ID movement are not asking for ID to be taught, but only for […]
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Dinosaurs

Toothy Dinosaur Goes Vegan
May 4, 2005
The news media all pounced on a dinosaur fossil discovery reported in Nature this week.1  Dinosaur finds are ever popular, and reporters especially like it when an artist’s rendition is available.  Some outlets reporting the discovery of Falcarius utahensis, a previously unknown species “in the process of converting to vegetarianism from a rather more bloodthirsty […]
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Education

Media, Journals Alarmed at Rise of Intelligent Design Movement
April 29, 2005
The number of articles in the news about the Intelligent Design (ID) Movement is rising, partly because of the upcoming hearings before the Kansas school board.  National Geographic news asked, “Does ‘Intelligent Design’ Threaten the Definition of Science?” in an April 27 article, but at least author John Roach got the definition of ID correct, […]
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Education

Evolutionists Plan Secret Weapon for Kansas Debate
April 21, 2005
Pro-evolution scientists have changed their mind and decided to join the hearings about the Kansas science standards, but haven’t released a list of witnesses.  Those in favor of the new standards, which call for critical thinking about evolution, have published a complete list.     On March 31, Geoff Brumfiel in Nature1 reported, “Biologists snub […]
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