First Things editor scolds New York Times over Dawkins's review

Apparently, in the most recent edition of First Things, Fr. Richard Neuhaus defends Mike Behe, author of Edge of Evolution. It's not on line yet, but Fr. Neuhaus says, among other things,

You usually know that somebody is losing the argument when he loses his cool and resorts to bluster, abuse, caricature, and the invocation of authorities who agree with him.

He is referring, of course, to Richard Dawkins's attempt to trash Behe's book in The New York Times. He notes the curious fact that the Times should never have given the book to Dawkins to review anyway, without giving Behe the right of reply (which it would never dare to do):

It is hard to know what purpose is served by the Book Review in having Dawkins review Behe, except, possibly, to ostracize anyone who presumes to raise questions about prevailing Darwinist orthodoxies and, perhaps, to pander to the smug prejudices of the presumed readership of the Times. That does not instill confidence in the Darwinist materialism that they are so desperately defending.

This is all particularly interesting because Neuhaus is not especially one of the ID think tank Discovery Institute fans.

Rather, it sounds (especially when you read the whole thing) as though he is beginning to get the same picture as so many of the rest of us: Darwinism is the Enron of biology. The fact that he scolds the New York Times over Dawkins's review is interesting in view of the question raised by some about whether Dawkins had actually read Behe's book.

Also: Cameron Wybrow, who got an honest review of Mike Behe's Edge of Evolution published in the Philadelphia Enquirer, found himself taking to task a completely silly review in the Winnipeg Free Press. Put it this way: It is impossible for U of Winnipeg molecular biologist Janice Dodd to consider the possibility that Darwinism might not be true. So she doesn't. Read her review, then Wybrow's comment.

I was travelling on a Toronto streetcar today with a fellow journalist who was musing about the sheer gullibility of Darwinists. Learned in history, he pointed out that Darwinists had originally attacked Mendel because Mendel cited statistics for genetics - instead of the vagueness the Darwinists so love. He and I believe in a traditional religion, but the Darwinists believe in magic.

Media watch: New York Times profiles/targets young earth creationist who received geology PhD

Marcus Ross, a young earth creationist who seems to be a sharp geologist, received his PhD in the same - and Cornelia Dean of the New York Times has gone to considerable lengths to try to dig up dirt about him, without success. Apparently, many people were surprised that all he had to do was complete the requirements for his PhD, not profess a materialist creed. I wonder when the witch hunt will start in earnest? Ross tells me he is no longer a member of the American Scientific Affiliation, a group of about 2000 allegedly Christian US scientists that sponsors a list on which he is attacked here.

If you are interested in the intelligent design controversy, check out my book, By Design or by Chance?

A mistake in shorthand?

New York Times reporter Elisabeth Bumiller now thinks that her error in substituting “biblical” for “biological” (when reporting the comments of an ID theorist) was caused by a mistake in reading her own shorthand under deadline pressure.

Fair enough; that can certainly happen, but it also suggests a lack of familiarity with the issues. Bumiller went into the interview expecting to hear that Meyer was trying to ram the Bible into public schools and had not picked up on what he was actually saying, that much biological evidence casts doubt on Darwin’s theory, but it can’t be presented. Meyer should know some of the reasons, based on his own experience. In my view, the Times needs to give its reporters more time to familiarise themselves with the issues. That way, when the Times wants to distort the issues, it can do a professional quality job.

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.

Blog service note: Did you come here looking for any of the following stories?

- the California Academy of Sciences agreeing to correct potentially libellous statements about attorney Larry Caldwell, who thinks that students should know about weaknesses as well as strengths of Darwinian evolution theory, click on the posted link and check the current daily post for any updates. UPDATED!: The retraction and Caldwell’s response have now been published in California Wild.

- The op-ed by Catholic Cardinal Schonborn in the New York Times? Note also the Times's story on the subject, some interesting quotes from major Darwinists to compare with the Catholic Church's view, as expressed by the Cardinal, and an example of the kind of problem with Darwinian philosophy that the Cardinal is talking about.

- the Privileged Planet film shown at the Smithsonian, go here for an extended review. Please do not raise cain about an "anti-evolution" film without seeing it. If your doctor forbids you to see the film, in case you get too excited, at least read my detailed log of the actual subjects of the film. If you were one of the people who raised cain, ask yourself why you should continue to believe the people who so misled you about the film's actual content ...

- the showing of Privileged Planet at the Smithsonian, go here and here to start, and then this one and this one will bring you up to date.

Blog policy note: This blog does not intentionally accept fully anonymous Comments, Comments with language unsuited to an intellectual discussion, URLs posted without comment, or defamatory statements. Defamatory statement: A statement that would be actionable if anyone took the author seriously. For example, someone may say "O’Leary is a crummy journalist"; that’s a matter of opinion and I don’t know who would care. But if they say, "O’Leary was convicted of grand theft auto in 1983," well that’s just plain false, and probably actionable, if the author were taken seriously. Also, due to time constraints, the moderator rarely responds to comments, and usually only about blog service issues.

The spin cycle: New York Times changes “biological” to “biblical”

As reported over at Evolution News & Views, a Discovery Institute blog,
a New York Times story, "Bush Remarks Roil Debate Over Teaching of Evolution",
" mangled a quote from Steve Meyer, who said,

We interpret this as the president using his bully pulpit to support freedom of inquiry and free speech about the issue of biological origins.

and was reported as saying,

We interpret this as the president using his bully pulpit to support freedom of inquiry and free speech about the issue of biblical origins.

The Times has indicated that it would post a correction, but the site is rejecting my password so I can't get into it to find out just now. I'll update this when I can.

Some have asked whether these errors are accidental. Well, yes and no.

Every newspaper is governed by a mind set, and there are certain stories that it "wants." Liberal papers want different stories from conservative papers and religious papers want different stories from secular ones.

In any event, journalists know when they are writing a story the editor really wants - and when they aren't. I've written plenty of both types, and have sometimes been dumped for writing the second kind when no facts I reported were disputed. So it is quite possible that Bumiller thought that she heard "Biblical" for "biological." Her bosses' voices are ever humming in her ears, and she knows that they desperately want Meyer to have said "biblical".

We can guess as much from the headline of the news article itself: "Bush Remarks Roil Debate Over Teaching of Evolution." The assumption is that Bush is only causing trouble by expressing the view that students should hear both sides and learn to think for themselves.

It tells you everything you need to know about the Times and the Darwinists that Bush's opinion would be controversial. Like most good card players, Bush allows people to snooker themselves.

Incidentally, Meyer is the author of the paper discussing the Cambrian explosion in the Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington that caused the Darwin lobby to launch a persecution of both author Meyer and editor Sternberg.

(Note: If this is not the story you were looking for, see the stories listed in the sidebar. )

New York Times puzzles over Catholic Church's insistence that life has meaning

The New York Times, in the persons of writers Cornelia Dean and Laurie Goodstein, pretends amazement that the Roman Catholic Church has come out against the meaningless, purposeless universe of life forms advocated by Darwinists, and atheistic materialism generally. (Note: You have to register with the Times to see this, but hey, just do it, and get it over with.)

An influential cardinal in the Roman Catholic Church, which has long been regarded as an ally of the theory of evolution, is now suggesting that belief in evolution as accepted by science today may be incompatible with Catholic faith.

The cardinal, Christoph Schönborn, archbishop of Vienna, a theologian who is close to Pope Benedict XVI, staked out his position in an Op-Ed article in The New York Times on Thursday, writing, "Evolution in the sense of common ancestry might be true, but evolution in the neo-Darwinian sense - an unguided, unplanned process of random variation and natural selection - is not."

In a telephone interview from a monastery in Austria, where he was on retreat, the cardinal said that his essay had not been approved by the Vatican, but that two or three weeks before Pope Benedict XVI's election in April, he spoke with the pope, then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, about the church's position on evolution. "I said I would like to have a more explicit statement about that, and he encouraged me to go on," said Cardinal Schönborn.

He said that he had been "angry" for years about writers and theologians, many Catholics, who he said had "misrepresented" the church's position as endorsing the idea of evolution as a random process.

No wonder outfits like the Times attract the term "legacy media." Why can't they get it? Of course the Catholic Church has never supported anything like the Darwinism mandated for U.S. school systems! And despite a century of indoctrination, most people just do not believe Darwinism, and are not about to start. Even a slow-moving institution like the Catholic Church is waking up to the fact that science, public policy, and education now reflect doctrines that most people doubt — doubt for good reason. They simply do not believe what Darwinists believe - that life is without design, purpose or meaning (see the post below), because the evidence suggests the opposite.

As a Roman Catholic myself, I am glad to see the Church weighing in against Darwinism, but note the following:

Opponents of Darwinian evolution said they were gratified by Cardinal Schönborn's essay. But scientists and science teachers reacted with confusion, dismay and even anger. Some said they feared the cardinal's sentiments would cause religious scientists to question their faiths.

I would suggest to those "scientists and science teachers", on whose behalf the Times worries, that they make up their mind whether they think they are Christians or not.

Thankfully, there is no public penalty for not being a Christian. As a Catholic Christian myself, I cannot imagine anything worse for the faith than invoking secular powers, typically masterminded by idiot mortals, to defend a position that the universe itself properly defends, through its own laws and design.

But if you are or think you ought to be a Christian, you simply cannot be a Darwinist. Don't deceive yourself: Either there is design in nature or there is not. Either the design is evident, as the Bible claims (Rom 1:20, NIV*), or it is not evident, in which case the Bible is obviously untrue, and you shouldn't be a Christian. Don't blame the Catholic Church for making its own position clear. In my view, it should have done that decades ago, but hey, it's an old institution and takes long time to move.

*In the quoted passage, Paul says, " ... men are without excuse" He means that wrongdoers are without excuse for their wrongs. They cannot say, "God botched me, so that is why I lie, cheat, steal, and kill, whenever I think that kind of behaviour will buy me time." Paul maintains that the design of the world is, in principle, good, and that therefore people are responsible for actions that disrupt relationships and society. God did not ordain those wrong actions from the beginning of time.

Blog service note: Did you come here looking for any of the following stories?
- the Privileged Planet film shown at the Smithsonian, go here for an extended review. Please do not raise cain about an "anti-evolution" film without seeing it. If your doctor forbids you to see the film, in case you get too excited, at least read my detailed log of the actual subjects of the film. If you were one of the people who raised cain, ask yourself why you should continue to believe the people who so misled you about the film's actual content ...

- the showing of Privileged Planet at the Smithsonian, go here and here to start, and then this one and this one will bring you up to date.

- the California Academy of Sciences agreeing to correct potentially libellous statements about attorney Larry Caldwell, who thinks that students should know about weaknesses as well as strengths of Darwinian evolution theory, click on the posted link.

- Bill Dembski threatening to sue the Thomas More Law Center in the Dover, Pennsylvania ID case, click on the posted link and check the current daily post for updates. (Note: This dispute has apparently been settled. See the story for details. )

Blog policy note: This blog does not intentionally accept fully anonymous Comments, Comments with language unsuited to an intellectual discussion, URLs posted without comment, or defamatory statements. Defamatory statement: A statement that would be actionable if anyone took the author seriously. For example, someone may say “O’Leary is a crummy journalist”; that’s a matter of opinion and I don’t know who would care. But if they say, “O’Leary was convicted of grand theft auto in 1983,” well that’s just plain false, and probably actionable, if the author were taken seriously. Also, due to time constraints, the moderator rarely responds to comments, and usually only about blog service issues.

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.