VIEW HEADLINES ONLY

Battlefront Dispatches

Activities in the Darwin-vs-Design controversy continue generating national news: War of the museums:  The Sternberg Museum in Kansas is trying to reinforce arguments for evolution, according to Voice of America news.  Proud of his T. rex display, curator Greg Liggett claims that “if the school curriculum changes to include theories such as Intelligent Design, critical […]

Reports Differ on Kansas Evolution Debates

How is the debate over evolution in Kansas going?  It depends on whom you ask.  MSNBC News focused on personal attacks between board members (see also the Lexington Herald-Leader).  The Discovery Institute, by contrast, focused on the content of the new proposed standards that allows a “common-sense” approach for teaching all the science about evolution, […]

Virginia Teacher Chastened for Making Optional Creation Material Available

A highly-respected and well-liked high school biology teacher in Bristol, Virginia almost lost his job recently.  His crime?  Making an optional notebook of supplementary material called “Creation Battles Evolution” available to his students.  The notebook, printed at his own expense, included evidence for creation and against evolution, from “sources ranging from the Internet to scholarly […]

NAS Enters the Evolution Web Wars

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) […]

Scientists Confess Their Sins

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 […]

Smithsonian Reversal Over ID Noticed by Big Science

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 […]

Who Wins and Loses in the Darwin Wars?

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, […]

Kansas Debate Over ID Reverberates in Holland

“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 […]

ID Film To Be Aired at Smithsonian

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 […]

SETI Researcher Joins NG Imagination Fest

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 […]

Can the Courts Define Science?

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 […]

Battlefield Dispatches

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 […]

Stem Cell Headlines

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 […]

Intelligent Design and the Nature of Science

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 […]

Heat and Light Emitted in Collisions of Darwin vs ID

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 […]
All Posts by Date
[archives type="yearly" cat_id="11"]