Access Research Network's top ten media-related intelligent design stories for 2009 #4

4. The Darwin Bicentennial Bust.

One of the biggest media stories of 2009 was actually a non-story. Apart from the special issues of several science magazines and a couple TV programs celebrating the Darwin’s 200th birthday and the 150th anniversary of the publication of his theory, there was little true public adulation of Darwin. Some of the big planned media events such as the Ida fossil, turned out to be a scientific bust and left Darwin’s theory with a black eye (again). Rumors of revolutions in biology and a post-Darwinian world began to appear in the scientific literature in a year in which we were supposed to be celebrating Darwin’s theory. Even Simon Conway Morris said in the journal Current Biology that some in his contingency were suffering from “Darwin fatigue.”

For links, you must go here.

["True public adulation"? But what was there to adulate? This was a guy who thought black people were closer to gorillas than white people were. And, make no mistake, that was part and parcel of his theory. So I should nominate him for a posthumous Order of Canada? How about, as the Brits say, the Order of the Boot, finally? A right to his materialist opinion about how humans evolved, yes.* Adulation, no! ]

Here's the #5 story.

Here are the previous three years' top ten stories:

2008 Darwin and design

2007 Darwin and design

2006 Darwin and design

ARN also offers "top ten" resources that are worth checking out if you follow the controversy.

*As a free speech journalist, I am strongly in favour of people having the right to say what they think without fear. For one thing, if someone hates me, I want to know about it. Might come in handy. Public policy is another matter. But that should be governed by, for example, the Constitution. That is why free societies have constitutions.

Find out why there is an intelligent design controversy: