Issues – Page 239

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NAS Enters the Evolution Web Wars

June 13, 2005

MSNBC News reports that “Scientists take evolution fight online: National Academies sets up Web site to defend theory.” (See also Wired News.) The Evolution Resources website of the National Academy of Sciences, nationalacademies.org/evolution, contains online books and articles, but the most recent entry is an address by outgoing NAS president Bruce Alberts (see 03/24/2005 entry) […]

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 […]

Intelligent Design

Smithsonian Reversal Over ID Noticed by Big Science

June 9, 2005

Both Nature1 and Science2 noticed the Smithsonian’s flip-flop over co-sponsoring The Privileged Planet at their Natural History Museum this month (see 06/01/2005 entry). Both noted the quandary that the Smithsonian found itself in. They could not back out because of a contract, but under pressure from evolutionists, did not want to appear to endorse intelligent […]

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, […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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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