How to get moderated for making a polite request at Fox News

A friend tells a familiar story:

I see in today's FOX science/tech section, there's a blurb about how creationism is still being advocated in H.S. biology classes. Predictably, the author has equivocated creationism with ID. I sent the author of the article this very brief message, and also posted it on the comments section, but somebody flagged my message and all future attempts to post were thwarted by a moderation notice. [emphasis added]

Here’s the offending notice:

Ms/Mrs Jennifer Welsh, if you will kindly look at the definition of Intelligent Design put forth by its main proponents (www.intelligentdesign.org is a good place to start), you will see that ID does not depend on any religious narrative (as found in the Bible) and thus has no religious premise. In contrast, creationism is a creation account that depends on some religious creation narrative (like in the Bible) and begins with a religious premise (God created). As you can see, ID is distinct from creationism, and is thus not religious or creationism.


Please, stand up for intellectual and journalistic integrity. Please correct your article to reflect the actual definition of Intelligent Design.

My friend misunderstands the nature of popular media. Ms. Welsh and colleagues have zero interest in knowing that design no more means creation, than painting a picture means creating the paint and canvas from thin air before one begins. Evidence of design is not evidence of creation, but it is real and detectible because it adds high levels of information.

But a whole generation was raised on elephant art, chimpanzee trample art, food fight art, “whatever he did is art”. No wonder they wouldn’t understand that design is not creation, just as art is about design, not making a “creative” mess.

Common sense distinctions that seem evident to my friend are way above the pop science media IQ grade.

For example, here’s a generic story: "Origin of life scientist says final answer expected in next decade" (= recycle the story from 1980, 1990, 2000, 2010 ..., same schtick, new white coats)

Success in the pop science business depends critically on either not being smart enough to ask the obvious question or - as I suspect - being smart enough not to ask.

Just go elsewhere for your news.

Find out why there is an intelligent design controversy:

Social changes that may impact the intelligent design community: Media

American scholar Victor Davis Hanson recently pointed out that the university as a standard setter of any kind is coming under well-deserved scrutiny, along with its instruments, such as peer review and tenure.

But he also mentions the obvious,

Americans no longer count on their news to be filtered and shaped by the Associated Press or the New York Times. Nor do millions have it read to them in the evening by CBS, ABC or NBC anchorpersons -- not with the Internet, cable news and talk radio. Matt Drudge's website, "The Drudge Report," reaches far more Americans than does CBS anchor star Katie Couric.

That’s true, but a broader way of looking at it is, today the news audience decides what is news. When I was young, there were only a few established news sources other than rumour. Now there are hundreds. If CBS anchor star Katie Couric isn’t today’s Huntley-and-Brinkley, it’s because her audience is limited to those who agree with her interpretation of news. Those who don’t can find the basic facts, but differently interpreted, elsewhere.

There was a time when, if you wondered whether the multiverse or the Big Bazooms theory of human evolution or “you’re nothing but a pack of neurons” view of the mind make any sense, you would not have had access to the scholarly literature that provides another look. Or only with considerable effort. So it just sunk in. Now, alternative viewpoints are easy to find.

Put simply, the mere fact that pop science rags are smitten with ultra-Darwinists, cosmology cranks, and mind-is-mud zealots no longer means you can’t find an informed alternative perspective on these issues.
There was never a better time for constructive takedowns of nonsense.

But Hanson warns,

... we also are seeing the waning of an old established order. And the resulting furor suggests that the old beneficiaries are not going quietly into that good night.

No indeed. True to form, they want the government to fund and protect them. Which amounts to saying that old media want the people who pointedly don’t watch , listen, or read them to pay for the right to ignore them.

Lighter Moment: We turn the lights on the dark corners of tenure and the fever swamps of peer review, and what do we find?

We are agents of endarkenment ...

Nowadays, in thrall to constituencies of unreason, zealots of all stripes are chipping away at evolutionary science. In our own country, 'creationism' and 'intelligent design' are now considered suitable topics for instruction in science, as if these notions were as testable as the perfect gas laws of Boyle (pV = nRT) or the Hardy-Weinberg equation (p2 + 2pq + q2 = 1) of population genetics. (p. 10)

Of course, evolutionary theory may be only one of several explanations for life on our planet, but it's the only theory that has held up against disproof. And however much we think we know of evolution today, it must be a minute faction of what remains to be discovered tomorrow. Finally, I'd argue that the facts of evolution impose a kind of necessity on the chance of our imagination, they cut short many a tall tale. Experimental science is our defense - perhaps our best defense - against humbug and the Endarkenment. (p. 12)

- Gerald Weissmann from his book, Galileo's Gout (Science In An Age of Endarkenment)

Hat tip: Stephen E. Jones.

Find out why there is an intelligent design controversy:

Read it here now! ID’s MOST dangerous innovation

At Bounded Science: No Free Lunch for Intelligent Design, computer guy Tom English pinpoints what, to him is “The most dangerous innovation of ID creationism” (January 11, 2011),

So what is the most dangerous innovation of ID creationism? The movement stopped trying to overturn methodological naturalism, and adopted a new perspective on the nature of nature. The physical Universe is now comprised not just of matter and energy, but also of information. There is conservation of mass-energy, but not of information, which is created (only) by non-material intelligence. Six years ago, the design inference was to non-natural (i.e., supernatural) cause, and mainstream scientists were denigrated as naturalists. Now intelligent design is a non-material, though natural, cause, and mainstream scientists are denigrated as materialists.

The change in ontology makes IDC much more slippery than it was in Kitzmiller. On a verbal level, IDC has stepped entirely within naturalism. It does not obviously appeal to supernatural explanations. Many physicists accept the notion that information is in some sense physical. Thus it is much harder today than it was six years ago to argue that IDC is not science and that teaching of IDC as science does not serve a secular purpose.

Oh, so now you must focus on the issues, Tom? Can Darwinism create information?

Better go back to “It’s all a plot,” I suppose.

English’s understanding seems to be all mixed up but never mind. He got half of one thing right; I keep missing which half.

At this time of night? You really want another cup of coffee?

It’s so hard to keep up with the way ID concepts zip around popular culture now. Doesn’t matter what people think of them, it seems they do.

So load up on something a friend noticed:

There was a TV programme in the UK over Christmas called 'Unintelligent Design'. It was nothing to do with ID - in fact, it was a documentary about a situation comedy! - but it's encouraging that the makers clearly assumed that most viewers would be familiar with the term.

As I said, logging another find,

I can remember googling “intelligent design” a decade ago and coming up with the Web sites of firms selling non-walloping window blinds.

Now I am practically drowning in relevant info. The reality is, no one person can keep up.

Meanwhile, here’s a fun snark: A gelaskin featuring that fast food god we had to fire ...

Materialist philosopher “disconcerted” by medical students’ assumption of design

A friend writes to say that in a forthcoming article in Biology & Philosophy, materialist philosopher Daniel Dennett recounts:

"I was disconcerted to overhear some medical students talking in a bar recently. One exclaimed: ‘How could anybody believe in evolution after learning about the intricacies of the DNA replication machinery?' To the extent that well-meaning evolutionists had inadvertently convinced them that Darwinians are eager to gloss over or deny these facts, this is evidence that the political tactic of denying teleology root and branch is apt to be self-defeating.

Okay, so what now? It looks like design but current philosophy can’t accept that, so Dennett's solution, outlined in his essay review of Peter Godfrey Smith's 2009 book, Darwinian Populations and Natural Selection
(Oxford U Press) “is to argue that design does not always need a designer, i.e., that selection can play the role of faux designer. Yes, that’s been the Darwinist creed for years, and it couldn’t even be demonstrated in Lenski’s bacteria and even people uninterested in a design hypothesis acknowledge that, insofar as they are prepared to discuss actual problems with current theory (as opposed to faux problems).

The friend adds,

But I think Godfrey Smith has the stronger naturalistic intuition: never let a hint of design waft through the window. Once it does, any curious person (such as the medical student in the bar) is going to follow the hints where they lead."

Where they lead? For now, but not forever, ask the Expelled.

A friend writes with this stop-the-presses news:

Philosopher Keith Parsons, from the University of Houston, has given up doing philosophy of religion.

According to Julia Galef, writing at Religious Dispatches, Parsons found the case for God to be insupportable.  As Parsons wrote on the website The Secular Outpost:

"I have to confess that I now regard “the case for theism” as a fraud and I can no longer take it seriously enough to present it to a class as a respectable philosophical position—no more than I could present intelligent design as a legitimate biological theory. BTW, in saying that I now consider the case for theism to be a fraud, I do not mean to charge that the people making that case are frauds who aim to fool us with claims they know to be empty. No, theistic philosophers and apologists are almost painfully earnest and honest… I just cannot take their arguments seriously any more, and if you cannot take something seriously, you should not try to devote serious academic attention to it"

If a guy does not know the difference between fraud and self-deception, I am glad he is no longer in the philosophy of anything.

I wonder if he is giving up his salary as ill-gotten gains. Oh well, in such cases one makes no such serious requirement.

Another friend offers this interpretation:

I find the choice of the word "fraud" in respect to an argument most interesting. Notice Parson's doesn't say he considers that the arguments for theism have been soundly refuted. No...rather he just can't take them "seriously" anymore. So, by implication then, Parson's would consider, say, Plantinga's evolutionary argument against naturalism a fraud...even though it has never been refuted, despite many attempts. Parson's just couldn't take that "seriously" any more.

I wonder if what he really means is he's tired of trying to defend atheism against all these arguments and coming up empty, so he's just going to cling to his atheism and leave the game.

This just in, with coffee: “Vast knowledge” brought to bear on the ID controversy

Alternative headline: The mountains labor and bring forth a mouse. - Horace

Here, we learn From Stephen M. Feldman, Jerry W. Housel/Carl F. Arnold Distinguished Professor of Law and Adjunct Professor of Political Science, University of Wyoming, via Amazon, that

ID advocates insist that public school teachers should be required to teach ID whenever they teach evolution. Frank Ravitch brings his vast knowledge of these debates to bear in Marketing Intelligent Design and leaves the ID argument in tatters. With incisive arguments and historical understanding, Professor Ravitch demonstrates that the ID position is no more than an imaginative marketing campaign that repackages previous attacks on the teaching of evolution. But the substance of the attack is the same, and Ravitch shows why it must fail.

Frank who shows what? The best ID literature available today is the slowly accumulating - and unwilling - support for the central ID contention that Darwinism is not a magical process that produces high levels of information from nothing.

I can’t think why students mustn’t be allowed to know. Wait, I can. They are being indoctrinated into a culture where something really can come from nothing, and all publicly approved beliefs must support that.

Find out why there is an intelligent design controversy:

Coffee!!: Caught up in the conspirazoid ramblings of the anti-Christian lobby?

A fellow hack phoned me the other night to advise that I am a minor feature in a Canadian book called Armageddon by one Marci McDonald. The book makes me out to be vastly more important than I am, in the intelligent design controversy. This is, of course, in the cause of insisting that traditional Christians pose a major threat to Canada.

Apparently, if you go to church, you have no business voting or running for office.

I was called in from weeding the garden by my mom, due to my friend's call, and later listened, bewildered, at the prose written about me, portraying me as a much more important figure than I am - all in the cause of tales of a conspiracy.

Briefly, I am a hack journalist who follows the intelligent design controversy as my major beat. I started to do so because no one else was following it, and I noted an inverted news funnel. People were proclaiming ID dead every day, but the number of news stories about it was growing.

I broke some key stories, but only because no one else was interested. Go here and here.

Now, I realize that if you were born and raised on political correctness and rote Darwinism, you will not get this, but - essentially - this situation means that the claims about me cannot be true, and are only made in order to influence you in a politically (not factually) correct direction..

The book is from Random House Canada. I am not linking to it, because - according to reliable sources - it features basic factual errors that I would not want propagated.

In these times, when so many people are looking for someone to blame for problems we created for ourselves, these conspirazoid growths are inevitable. But we need not encourage them.

Go here if you want to know the real reasons why there is an intelligent design controversy.

Biologý's ‘Skeleton In The Closet’: The Broken Bones Of Origins Science

Robert Deyes writes:

Review Of Chapter 13 of Stephen Meyer's Signature in the Cell (Harper One, 2009), by Stephen Meyer, HarperOne Publishers.

I never would have suspected that the literary sensation Dr Seuss’ The Cat In The Hat Comes Back would be used to make a point about the devastating shortcomings of origin of life theories (1). But when I read one of the later chapters of Meyer’s Signature In The Cell which in one foul swoop discredited Hermann Muller’s fortuitous origins of DNA, Henry Quastler’s DNA self replication hypothesis and Manfred Eigen’s ideas on hypercycles I could not help but be fascinated by his use of this children’s classic in his exposition. Of course in their own unique ways each of these scientists became steadfastly convinced that they were onto something of great significance that would lead to fruitful avenues on the all important question of how life had begun. Muller drew inferences from his own work on viruses, in particular bacteriophages (‘bacteria eaters’), equating these simple organisms to “a gene that copies itself within the cell” (2). He envisioned these as being somehow analogous to primitive DNA floating around in the chemical-rich soup of the early earth (2). Quastler on the other hand suggested that polynucleotides could act as templates for replication through complementary base pairing (3). And Eigen chose to assume that ‘self-reproducing molecular systems’ involving RNA molecules and basic enzymes could somehow supply an early form of transcription and translation, later forming hypercycles that would have preceded the arrival of the earliest cells (4).

So how is the Cat in the Hat relevant? Crucial aspects of the above mechanistic propositions, writes Meyer, parallel the antics of our feline friend as he unwillingly redistributes the mess he has created in the house of his none-too-happy hosts. Origin of life scientists have similarly been trying for decades to “clean up the problem of explaining the origin of [biological] information” only to find that they have “simply transferred the problem elsewhere- either by presupposing some other unexplained sources of information or by overlooking the indispensable role of an intelligence” (1). And their modern day brethren, with the apparent sophistication of computer-housed evolutionary algorithms, have fared little better. Meyer’s unearthing of the reality behind Ev, for example, described by its author Thomas Schneider as “a simple computer program” that attempts to evolve the information content of DNA binding sites in a hypothetical genome, is a case in point (5). In Ev Schneider ‘specifies’ the sequence of these DNA binding sites and incorporates the code for the binding site ‘recognizer’ (protein) into the genome (5). The relative penalties for mis-binding or non-binding of the recognizer to sequences are pre-set into the program (5).

Read the rest (with references) here.

Professor Antony Flew dies at 87

Roy Varghese has just notified me of the death of Professor emeritus Antony Flew, the rationalist philosopher who died on April 8 aged 87, spent much of his life denying the existence of God until, in 2004, he dramatically changed his mind.

Here is Britain’s Telegraph’s obituary.

I feel lonely now. I remember sitting in the window seat at the U rez in about 1968, studying Flew. He really made people think.

Varghese is kind enough to thank me for contributions I have made to the discussion - essentially defending Flew.

For the record, here are some of them:

Flew calls Dawkins a bigot - and I would say he has a pretty good case. On that point, also here.

New atheists vs the ex-atheist

Response to hit review of Flew’s “There IS a God” in The New York Times.

Antony Flew: Is emotion really better than reason in religious matters?

Antony Flew: The authorship controversy

Antony Flew: Author or puppet?

Antony Flew: Is he too old to believe in God?

Why lifelong atheist Antony Flew decided there must be a God

Contest Question 23: YOU rank order the Top Ten ID media stories of the year

The Top Ten Darwin and Design Media News Stories for 2009 are here, and my comments on the latter are here.

Note, these are media stories.

But why should ARN do it all? We're not wizards; we just put our heads together once a year.

For a free copy of Stephen Meyer's Signature in the Cell (Harper One, 2009), the top rated 2009 ID resource, courtesy the Discovery Institute, explain:

1. How would you have rated the stories differently?

Or

2. Are there stories that should have been on the list that are not?

Don't bother with my comments if they may influence your judgement. They won't influence mine. I probably forgot what I said anyway. So much stuff rolls through the system now ...

Let me put it like this: I can remember when ID only ever meant that card teenagers fake up, to buy beer.

In under 400 words. You can link at the comments box, so no need to reproduce swatches of copy if you don't want to use up your word count.

Go here to enter.

Here are the contest rules.

Also, a question I would welcome some help in answering: Why can’t regular media actually grapple with the issues around design? It’s like a nonsensical broken record endlessly replaying a commercial, of which the sponsors are in bankruptcy protection.

Find out why there is an intelligent design controversy:

Top Ten Darwin and Design resources for 2009: #1

The biggest news, in my view, is that there is even a Top Ten. I myself cannot keep up with all the people who want me to look at their intelligent design projects. It's not that I don't care, but I am only one little old hack, and there are only so many hours in a day.

It's been difficult to keep journalists in this area; they tend to get scared off by aggressive Darwinists fronting their tax-funded, establishment line. And every weekend "relationships" news editor has endless time for "evolution" nonsense.

But word leaks out. As executive director Dennis Wagner comments, “I would never have predicted that an atheist [Thomas Nagel] would name a book about intelligent design as one of the top books of 2009, while another atheist [Bradley Monton] would write a book defending intelligent design? This is a sign that open minds in the academic and scientific communities are beginning to take the evidence for intelligent design seriously.”

Mind you, these two above mentioned are intelligent atheists. Nagel, for example, wrote the brilliant paper, "What is it like to be a bat?", exploring the mystery of animal minds. They restore my faith in human nature; I used to think all atheists were the sort of people who fill my In Box with vitriol - I had good reasons for thinking that, but it is not necessarily true as a consequence.

It's one thing not to believe in God; quite another to believe in the selfish gene, the Big Bazooms theory of human evolution, or how "evolution" explains why people vote for Sarah Palin or Al Gore.

So - ta-DA!! - here is the winner:

1.Signature in the Cell: DNA and the Evidence for Intelligent Design by Stephen C. Meyer (Harper One, 2009). Stephen Meyer forcefully outlined the positive case for design and refuted arguments that ID isn't science in his seminal book, Signature in the Cell, published by HarperCollins in June of 2009. The book was named one of the top books of 2009 in the prestigious Times Literary Supplement (TLS) annual "Books of the Year" issue. The selection was made by prominent philosopher (and noted atheist) Thomas Nagel at New York University. A companion three minute animated video, Journey Inside the Cell was released providing a stunning visual illustration of Meyer's points.

[From Denyse: To me, the most significant thing about the book is that Harper One thought it worth taking a chance on. Harper One is a pretty big publisher and assumes that the books it signs have a wide audience. Clearly, lots of people are beginning to guess that Darwinism is the General Motors of biology. Yes, it is big, but today only government bailouts keep it going. The challenge for design theorists today is not to keep one step ahead of the Darwin inquisition or even to gain a hearing but to explain what design offers.

PS: Harper One also published The Spiritual Brain by Beauregard and - ahem - O’Leary, a comprehensive survey of the dead end of materialist neuroscience. I regularly get letters from people thanking us for helping them understand, in a publishing universe where two-neuron you-neuron nonsense had become the normal fare.]

The #2 pick is here.

(Note: These are the key books, not science or media news. The Top Ten Darwin and Design Science News Stories for 2009 are here, and my comments are here, the Top Ten Darwin and Design Media News Stories for 2009 are here, and my comments on the latter are here. Also, to get the links, you must go here.)

Top Ten intelligent design news stories for 2009

I have appended comments to these stories, chosen by a vote among knowledgeable people.

Please note that this year, the stories were divided into science and media and culture, as there was too much happening to keep the two lists together any more.

So I will only comment on the media stories and leave the science stories to others. This version does not include the links, for which you must go here.

Here's #1.

Access Research Network's top ten media-related intelligent design stories for 2009 #1

1. Texas Requires Critical Analysis of Evolution.

In a huge victory for those who favor teaching the scientific evidence for and against evolution, the Texas State Board of Education voted in March 2009 to require students to “critique” and examine “all sides of scientific evidence” and specifically required students to “analyze and evaluate” the evidence for major evolutionary concepts such as common ancestry, natural selection, and mutations. "Texas has sent a clear message that evolution should be taught as a scientific theory open to critical scrutiny, not as a sacred dogma that can't be questioned," said Dr. John West, Senior Fellow at Discovery Institute. The Texas board was influenced by the testimony of multiple Ph.D. scientists and academics who spoke in favor of objective evolution education, including Charles Garner, Ralph Seelke, Stephen Meyer, Ray Bohlin, Donald Ewert, Sara Kolbe Hicks, and others. This debate is not over, as Darwinist textbook publishers are already defiantly declaring that they intend to “abide by the letter, but not the spirit” of the new standards. ARN’s Kevin Wirth documents over forty media stories that offer a multitude of “cultural spins” on this key decision.

For links, you must go here.

[Yeah, really. It has been obvious for a century and a half that Darwinism is the creation story of an atheist cult, first originating in Darwin's fans' X club, and that the only important question is whether a government is prepared to front it using tax money or whether a court can force that outcome. Under the circumstances, considerable cultural confidence is required to just say no. Or, as I like to put it - a religion that cannot responsibly be denied cannot responsibly be believed either.

Make way, however, for the useful idiots who help the Darwin cult along. You know, Cave Guy bopped his squeeze, and that helped evolution. Oh wait, he didn't bop her, and that helped evolution too. Is there no end to the folly that counts as science in this area?

When is an adult going to show up? Oops. I meant "when is an adult going to evolve?" Or maybe I didn't mean that either.

Maybe I really meant ... how about this: Just grow up. Let's be the adults ourselves. Humanity forces moral choices on us. No escape. The right to ask reasonable questions is part of learning to be an adult. That's why the Texas decision is important.]

Here is the #2 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.

Find out why there is an intelligent design controversy:

Access Research Network's top ten media-related intelligent design stories for 2009 #2

2. Louisiana Implements Academic Freedom Act. The Louisiana Board of Elementary and Secondary Education (BESE) voted unanimously on January 15, 2009 to adopt rules implementing the Louisiana Science Education Act (LSEA), the landmark academic freedom bill passed the previous summer. The Louisiana Darwin-lobby didn’t give up, and it was not until September, 2009 that rules respecting the intent of the law were finally safeguarded. The rules approved by the BESE allow teachers to use supplementary materials to teach controversial scientific theories without threat of recrimination. According to Discovery Institute education policy analyst Casey Luskin, “This is another victory for Louisiana students and teachers academic freedom to learn about scientific controversies over evolution and other topics in the curriculum.” Several Louisiana scientists testified in favor of academic freedom of evolution-education, including biologist Wade Warren, biochemist Brenda Peirson, and chemistry professor Joshua Williams. Meanwhile published protests against the vote exposed the intolerance of some scientists who oppose the use of critical thinking skills on controversial scientific theories such as evolution, the origin of life, global warming, and human cloning in public schools.

For links, you must go here.

[Again, we must ask to what extent science classrooms are used to teach cult membership. I remember reading a textbook, years ago, that assured me that scientists were sure to discover the origin of life because scientists have often discovered things in the past when they really tried. If I were a child, I might have been convinced.. As a middle-aged person, I was on my guard. It all depends on whether the question is even researchable.

What makes this a problem is that many cultural assumptions can be conveniently concealed in minimally researchable or unresearchable questions. In fact, they are the ideal place to conceal them. In this case, the "scientism" was evident. And, as for critical thinking skills, shall we leave them to consumer education alone? So critical thinking only helps us buy a better stove or fridge? What does it say for science if critical thinking skills are not needed there?]

Here is the #3 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.

Find out why there is an intelligent design controversy:

Access Research Network's top ten media-related intelligent design stories for 2009 #3

3. Polls Show that Americans Overwhelmingly Support Academic Freedom in Evolution Education.

A nationwide Zogby poll taken in January 2009 indicates that support for the freedom to teach the controversy about Darwinian evolution cuts across religion, party affiliation, political ideology, and educational levels. A large majority of respondents (80%) agree that teachers and students should have academic freedom to discuss both the strengths and weaknesses of evolution as a scientific theory, with more than half (54%) saying they strongly agree. Only 16% disagree. Says Dennis Wagner, ARN’s Executive Director, “Although some media consistently portray support for the freedom to discuss both sides of the evolution debate as the view only of conservative Christians, these poll results paint a very different picture. They shatter some preconceptions about who supports letting students hear a balanced presentation on Darwinian evolution – and who doesn’t.” It turns out that: Democrats (82%) support freedom to discuss Darwinism’s “strengths and weaknesses” even more overwhelmingly than Republicans (73%); Self-identified liberals (86%) favor it more than conservatives (72%); College graduates (84%) support it more than those without a college degree. Individuals identifying with no Christian or Jewish denomination support it by nearly 82%.

For links, you must go here.

[I'm not surprised. One of the greater disservices the dying legacy media have done the public in the last few decades is to front the idea that only a crackpot would doubt Darwinism. Doubts about Darwin have been mainstream for many years, including doubts originating with people whose views would hardly qualify as orthodox among Christians or Jews, and people who are not registered Republicans. However, generations of profs have made their living fronting Darwinism's myths and nostrums to students who needed to graduate, and were - in many cases - well aware of the persecution visited on those who threatened to break or bend the profs' Iron Rice Bowls, as the Chinese say.

But all rackets peter out eventually. This is not, in principle, an unusual situation. It happens all the time in education, for example. A completely unworkable idea is shoved down everyone's throat for years, causing more and more parents to take their kids and run to the private sector or to homeschooling, even though they are also forced to pay through their taxes for failed public education at the same time. (E.g., the "classroom without walls" sounds great, doesn't it? Until you realize that a child with a hyperactive disorder can disrupt a whole school, not just a whole class, by ranging freely through his now wall-less environment ... "Kid, you want to learn in peace? Fuggedabouddit. Your job is to understand young Smoth's needs. He has a "disorder," you see, so even though you are only six years old, you are responsible for helping solve his problem, and the administration isn't responsible for helping you learn your times tables in peace and quiet ... " )

The difference with Darwinism is that it isn't just some spaced out education prof's crackpot idea but the linchpin of an atheist cult, fronted by legislators and judges at public expense.]

Here is the #4 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.

Find out why there is an intelligent design controversy:

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:

Access Research Network's top ten media-related intelligent design stories for 2009 #5

5. Discover Magazine Names Forrest Mims to Top 50 Brains in Science List. While Ben Stein and Michael Behe were “expelled” for pursuing intelligent design concepts, Discover Magazine stood by its decision to name ID sympathizer, Forrest Mims III, to its 50 Most Important, Influential, and Promising People in Science list in the December 2008 issue. Known for his work in atmospheric research and publications in 70 magazines and science journals, Mims once lost his columnist job at Scientific American because he was not a Darwin sympathizer. According to Dennis Wagner, ARN Executive Director, “Perhaps this is a sign of progress in the Darwin and Design debate when a scientist is recognized for his achievements, rather than expelled for his opinions.”

For links, you must go here.

[I would have put this story higher, myself, because I think it signals a focus in science on real achievement, rather than touching one's cap to approved public nonsense. I had some correspondence on the choice with the editors. I pointed out in passing at Uncommon Descent that the problem with political correctness is as follows: Let's say, we remove ten scientists from the top 50 because they have politically incorrect opinions (as Darwin certainly did). With whom will we replace them? Ten scientists we had formerly thought to be lesser achievers. This is the classic recipe for the mediocrity in which all politically correct systems crash land.]

Here's the # 6 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.

Find out why there is an intelligent design controversy:

Access Research Network's top ten media-related intelligent design stories for 2009 #6

6. California Science Center Sued over Cancellation of Darwin’s Dilemma Film Showing.

Amid allegations that they were pressured by colleagues at the Smithsonian Institution, the University of Southern California, the Huntington Library and elsewhere, California Science Center cancelled the October 25th IMAX showing of Darwin’s Dilemma, then refused to disclose public documents in the matter. In November 2009 the American Freedom Alliance, a non-profit group, filed a lawsuit in Los Angeles against a state science museum for cancelling the event exploring topics of evolution and intelligent design. The group says its free speech rights were violated when the CSC abruptly reversed its decision to allow the showing of the pro-intelligent design documentary, Darwin’s Dilemma: The Mystery of the Cambrian Fossil Record. The program was also scheduled to screen a pro-evolution film but, the lawsuit alleges, museum officials feared discussion of intelligent design in any context. A second lawsuit filed in December by the Discovery Institute claims the California Science Center unlawfully refused to disclose public documents regarding the decision that were sought under the California Public Records Act.

At issue is the fact that the California Science Center is a government agency, not a private organization. As a part of California state government, the Science Center is required to abide by the First Amendment’s guarantee of free speech. “Unlike private groups or individuals, a government agency is obliged to treat all citizens equally regardless of their viewpoint,” says Casey Luskin, an attorney at Discovery Institute. “In this case, once the California Science Center decided to rent its auditorium to the public, it couldn’t discriminate against groups whose viewpoints it might not favor. The Science Center’s refusal to grant pro-ID groups equal access to its facilities is viewpoint discrimination, and a clear violation of the right to free speech guaranteed by the First Amendment” concluded Luskin.

For links, you must go here.

[Good luck getting that across at Arrogance Central, Luskin. You might as well try asking Marie Antoinette to serve cake to her "let them eat cake" public. That wasn't supposed to be the point of her wisecrack, right? I keep saying this - and will keep saying it until people get it - Darwinism is now a publicly funded cult, so the Darwinist flips the bird at you or me or anyone else forced to fund him. He has the support of legacy media, including legacy science media, science museum curators, curriculum writers, and all sorts of people best described as all huff and no curiosity, in my experience.]

Here's story #7.

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.

Find out why there is an intelligent design controversy: