ID in Canada? Toronto Star: O'Leary is a "fundamentalist"

Periodically, someone at the Toronto Star attempts to understand the intelligent design controversy, and this effort was better than most, but smack in the middle, reporter Stuart Laidlaw, who did not ask me about my religious affiliation, refers to me as a "fundamentalist."

[Update: The problem has been fixed! As a kind poster noted below, it now reads, correctly, "Roman Catholic" in the online version. Now I won't spend years putting out fires - plus, I can send all those snakes back to Petco and get a refund before something terminally stupid happens.]

Regular readers of this blog (to both of you, much thanks) will know that I am a Roman Catholic of the worst and most pernicious sort. Anyway, I sent this note to the Star's accuracy bureau:

In this story,
I am incorrectly referred to as a "fundamentalist" author.

I have never belonged to a religious denomination that is normally described as fundamentalist. I was an Anglican most of my adult life, but became a Roman Catholic in 2005.

I would appreciate a correction at your earliest convenience. You need only say that I should not have been described as a "fundamentalist" but as a "Roman Catholic."

May I suggest that, in general, when reporting subjects' religious affiliation, it would be a sound practice for reporters to ask them to self-identify? The Canada Census does that, and it saves a lot of trouble.

Thank you for your attention to this matter. If the correction appears on the Internet, I would appreciate notification, so I can link to it. That will minimize any inconveniences created by the error.

Now, we will see if a correction happens. If I find it, I will link to it.

If you want to understand why the intelligent design controversy cannot go away, read By Design or by Chance?.

Not funding an anti-ID campaign means that a social science body is "infected with post-modern drivel"?

Dan Adelman at New Republic thinks that rejecting a grant for Brian Alters means that Canada's Social Sciences and Humanities Research council is infected with "post-modern drivel" . Ironically, the Council is actually trying to preserve social science standards in denying a grant to a man who is a combatant in the controversy, which means that - whatever his other merits - he is of little value as a researcher.

As I have said elsewhere, if the Council is forced by pressure to cave and give Alters the money, it won't be the biggest waste of funds or the first time such things have happened. Activist research has been the curse of social science in Canada for some time. People are given money all the time to go out and prove all kinds of propositions in which they obviously have a vested interest. It was nice to see the Council taking a stand, however briefly, against an egregious example.

Incidentally, Canadians will recall that the Canadian government has also eliminated the Court Challenges program, by which leftists were given money to challenge traditional values, but the upholders of traditional values had to raise cash from the meagre leftovers from steep taxation.

If you like this blog, check out my book on the intelligent design controversy, By Design or by Chance?. You can read excerpts as well.