Thursday, January 12, 2006
Focus on Intelligent Design
The January 2006 issue (No 159) of Focus Magazine, published by the BBC, carries a two-page cover story, by Dr David Whitehouse (science editor for BBC News Online) on ‘the intelligent design furore’. The article is highlighted as ‘Darwin vs God’ on the front cover and entitled ‘Teacher vs Preacher’ (pp. 20-21). These titles should be enough to forewarn informed readers of the kind of treatment ID receives. The article manages to get just about everything wrong, primarily by misrepresenting the claims of ID.
ID is confused with young earth creationism, in the teeth of quotes to the contrary. Purple prose abounds. The article incorrectly reports that the recently adopted Kansas Education Board science standards insist on the teaching of intelligent design theory in class alongside the theory of evolution, and is so confused that it manages to present the recently finnished court case concerning the Dover School Board in Pennsylvania as giving the verdict on the Education Board in Kansas (where there are no court cases, at least as of December)!
Ironically, this article on the intelligent design controversy claims that there is no controversy concerning evolutionary theory. Surely the controversy about ID is a controversy about evolution?!
I've written a longer article reviewing the Focus magazine coverage of ID which will eventually end up on my arn author's page.
ID is confused with young earth creationism, in the teeth of quotes to the contrary. Purple prose abounds. The article incorrectly reports that the recently adopted Kansas Education Board science standards insist on the teaching of intelligent design theory in class alongside the theory of evolution, and is so confused that it manages to present the recently finnished court case concerning the Dover School Board in Pennsylvania as giving the verdict on the Education Board in Kansas (where there are no court cases, at least as of December)!
Ironically, this article on the intelligent design controversy claims that there is no controversy concerning evolutionary theory. Surely the controversy about ID is a controversy about evolution?!
I've written a longer article reviewing the Focus magazine coverage of ID which will eventually end up on my arn author's page.
