The Discovery Institute accuses PBS of airing false facts

Transcript of today's show:

A day after PBS aired a documentary on the court trial that indicted intelligent design as "creationism in disguise", advocates of the theory are crying foul play. [See our previous show]. A report published on the web claims that the documentary contains at least ten blatant misrepresentations. The report, which offers detailed rebuttals to the false information, calls the film nothing more than "inaccurate propaganda".
[source: The Discovery Institute]

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from the blog WindowView Press:

Public Broadcasting (PBS) on November 13, 2007, aired their best shot at dogmatizing evolution in the name of countering the concept of Intelligent Design (ID). The television show is based on the Kitzmiller versus the Dover Board of Education trial that was concluded by the decision written by Judge Jones in 2005. The trial is over, the debate is just beginning. NOVA, in the episode entitled “Judgement Day - Intelligent Design On Trial” shows examples of evolution without critique, but in cases where examples of ID are illustrated, the show adds a negative or a rebuttal spin. As a scientist with a doctorate, as the author of this piece you are now reading, I’ve learned to be more the detective, more discerning, than what PBS has done with their programming. If I were to give ID a chance to be known for what it is, I’d engage in a more objective review. Which NOVA did not do … to the detriment of us all.... [more]

from Pharyngula, the blog of biologist PZ Myers:

[The Discovery Institute's rebuttal] misses the point of the program entirely. If you've seen it, think back. What was the story it told? It has two parts. First, it made the case that Intelligent Design is not science…. Second, it showed that Intelligent Design is religion in disguise…. These are the premises that were tested in the court case, and these were the ideas illustrated in the documentary. The Discovery Institute "rebuttal" doesn't even touch these issues; their objections don't address the thrust of the court decision, which was accurately portrayed. The story is very simple, and this is all we need to say: Intelligent Design is not science, and Intelligent Design is a religious idea. That's the message, and that's the decision of a major court case, and that's what the scientists have been saying for years. And now, in the desperate gasp of the creationists, they've failed to even touch these conclusions.

from the blog Uncommon Ground:

P.Z. Myers points out that the Discovery Institute has its predictable “rebuttal” of Judgment Day. Their eight-point rebuttal is, as he says, picking nits. But I think he's wrong about it missing the point of the program entirely.

Basically, the Discovery Institute's Center [for Science and Culture] was in the business of marketing--not research. It had a product to sell - intelligent design -- and was focused on doing whatever it could to sell that idea. (Conservatism's Unintelligent Design, Greg Anrig, Jr.)

The Discovery Institute's “rebuttal” isn't intended to rebut the arguments against intelligent design. It's intended to rebut arguments that they aren't very good at marketing. They aren't in the business of doing science. They're in the business of marketing, and they're trying to protect their business – ineffectively.... [more]

from a comment posted on the blog Darwinian Fundamentalism:

John Stuart Mill had some very good advice for evaluating arguments:

"He who knows only his own side of the case, knows little of that. His reasons may be good, and no one may have been able to refute them. But if he is equally unable to refute the reasons on the opposite side; if he does not so much as know what they are, he has no ground for preferring either opinion…. Nor is it enough that he should hear the arguments of adversaries from his own teachers, presented as they state them, and accompanied by what they offer as refutations. This is not the way to do justice to the arguments, or bring them into real contact with his own mind. He must be able to hear them from persons who actually believe them; who defend them in earnest, and do their very utmost for them. He must know them in their most plausible and persuasive form; he must feel the whole force of the difficulty which the true view of the subject has to encounter and dispose of, else he will never really possess himself of the portion of truth which meets and removes that difficulty. ... So essential is this discipline to a real understanding of moral and human subjects, that if opponents of all important truths do not exist, it is indispensable to imagine them and supply them with the strongest arguments which the most skillful devil's advocate can conjure up."

Intelligent Design on trial

Transcript of today's show:

The PBS program NOVA brings the historic Dover trial to light in a two-hour documentary, titled "Judgment Day: Intelligent Design on Trial". The Dover trial exploded in a tiny Pennsylvania town in 2005 when parents sued their school board for introducing intelligent design into the science curriculum. To see the show online, visit pbs.org. And see our stories about the Dover trial at evominute.com.
[source: NOVA/PBS]

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excerpt from Judge Jones' verdict:

TThe evidence at trial demonstrates that intelligent design is nothing less than the progeny of creationism. What is likely the strongest evidence supporting the finding of intelligent design's creationist nature is the history and historical pedigree of the book to which students in Dover's ninth-grade biology class are referred, Of Pandas and People. Pandas is published by an organization called FTE, as noted, whose articles of incorporation and filings with the Internal Revenue Service describe it as a religious, Christian organization. Pandas was written by Dean Kenyon and Percival Davis, both acknowledged creationists, and Nancy Pearcey, a Young Earth Creationist, contributed to the work.

Both Defendants and many of the leading proponents of intelligent design make a bedrock assumption which is utterly false. Their presupposition is that evolutionary theory is antithetical to a belief in the existence of a supreme being and to religion in general. Repeatedly in this trial, Plaintiffs' scientific experts testified that the theory of evolution represents good science, is overwhelmingly accepted by the scientific community, and that it in no way conflicts with, nor does it deny, the existence of a divine creator.

It is unconstitutional to teach ID as an alternative to evolution. We do not question that many of the leading advocates of intelligent design have bona fide and deeply held beliefs which drive their scholarly endeavors. Nor do we controvert that intelligent design should continue to be studied, debated, and discussed. As stated, our conclusion today is that it is unconstitutional to teach intelligent design as an alternative to evolution in a public school science classroom.... [more]

from an interview with Phillip Johnson, a key proponent of intelligent design:

What if the Darwinian mechanism doesn't have the creative power claimed for it? Then something else has to be true. It's two sides of the same coin as I look at it, and that's why I've always devoted my energies to making the skeptical case about Darwinism. Others have evidence of a positive nature—irreducible complexity and complex specified information are part of that.

To understand the positive evidence I think we have to realize that Darwin was writing a long time ago. He didn't understand anything about complex specified information or the irreducible complexity of the cell. In Darwin's day it was thought that cells were simply globs of a kind of jelly-like substance, a protoplasm. So it didn't seem to be very difficult to imagine how you could get a blob of some substance like mud at the bottom of a prehistoric pond, lake, or ocean. But since Darwin's day an enormous amount has been learned about the cell.

This is why my colleague Michael Behe's famous book is titled Darwin's Black Box. The point there is that to Darwin the cell was a black box. It did something, but you didn't know how it did it. So the cell was a black box in Darwin's day, and now it's been opened. Thanks to the work of biochemists and molecular biologists since that time, we know that the cell is so enormously complex that it makes a spaceship or a supercomputer look rather low-tech in comparison. So I think the cell is perhaps the biggest hurdle of all for the Darwinists to get over. How do you get the first cell?

It's not just that if they get the cell then everything else will be easy. But it was thought in Darwin's day that the cell was no problem at all. The only problems came after that. How do you get from cells to complex animals and then to apes, and from apes to human beings? That's the story that he told. Now, I don't think that story will hold water when you look for proof rather than just accept it as an inevitable, logical consequence of a naturalistic philosophy that you're starting out with.... [more]

from an interview with Dr. Kenneth Miller, professor of Biology at Brown University:

Evolution is tested every day in the laboratory, and it's tested every day in the field. I can't think of a single scientific theory that has been more controversial than evolution, and when theories are controversial, people devise tests to see if they're right. Evolution has been tested continuously for almost 150 years and not a single observation, not a single experimental result, has ever emerged in 150 years that contradicts the general outlines of the theory of evolution.

Any theory that can stand up to 150 years of continuous testing is a pretty darn good theory. We use evolution to develop drugs. We use evolution to develop vaccines. We use evolution to manage wildlife. We use evolution to interpret our own genome. Every one of these uses of evolution is a test, because if the use turns out to be inadequate, we would then go back and question the very idea of evolution itself. But evolution has turned out to be such a powerful, productive, and hardworking theory that it's survived that test of time.

Evolution has great strengths in that it unifies biology and gives us a coherent explanation. Its only weakness is that it hasn't explained everything yet. Evolutionary theory has never been more active in terms of an area of inquiry and an area of scholarship than it is right now. Evolution as an idea has never been more useful than it is right now, because we use evolution everyday to interpret genomes, to develop drugs, to prolong the useful lifetime of antibiotics, to grow genetically modified crops—all these things have components of evolution in them.

If you look at the major scientific societies in the United States and around the world, not a single scientific society has made a statement or claim in support of intelligent design, in support of scientific creationism. In fact, quite the contrary. Every major scientific organization that I'm aware of that has taken a position on this issue has taken their position four-square in favor of evolution. So the notion that evolution is in some sort of crisis is just not true.... [more]



from a news release issued by Discovery Institute:

More than 50 years ago two playwrights penned a fictionalized account of the 1920s Scopes Trial called "Inherit the Wind" that is now universally regarded by historians as inaccurate propaganda. Last night PBS aired its "Judgment Day: Intelligent Design" documentary, which similarly promotes propaganda about the 2005 Kitzmiller trial and intelligent design (ID). Most of the misinformation in "Judgment Day" was corrected by ID proponents long ago.... [more]

Shelley on Dembski, Judge Jones, and loving the friends you've got

"How many honorary doctorates does Judge Jones have now?" So begins a fine piece of investigative journalism by William Dembski, posted today at his blog Uncommon Descent. Judge Jones, of course, levelled a mighty judicial blow at Dembski and fellow intelligent design propagators with his infamous Dover decision in December '05.

Clearly lacking a more intelligent strategy to get ID into public schools, Dembski and friends have spent the better part of a year throwing stones at Jones and other allies of science education. Verbal bashing of evolution sympathizers has become a hot pasttime over at the Discovery Institute. But is this a reasonable and meaningful strategy, given an increasing general disinterest in ID? When you're loosing the few friends you've got, do you really want to put energy into pumelling your enemies?

Dembski summed up his frustration about the growing lack of support that's been nipping ID at the heels:

ID is often presented as a “conservative thing.” But conservatives and liberals alike are intent on pleasing and being rewarded by the pro-Darwin lobby (witness the Republican Judge Jones — I expect the biggest worry weighing on him in Kitzmiller was how to justify a pro-ID decision to his golf buddies at the country club).....

Ron Numbers informs me that over 100 professional societies have weighed in officially against ID. (Again, I’d like to see this confirmed.) Don’t expect people with a finger in the wind to help ID. ID is the intellectual elite’s equivalent of leprosy. In the present circumstances, we are better off being opposed by liberals and conservatives alike.

My advice to you, William, is to forget about those guys, find the friends you've got, and shower them with some care and attention.


posted by Shelley Greene sgreene@evominute.com

An accusation of plagiary in the Dover court ruling

Transcript of today's show:

Scholars at the Discovery Institute claim that a key section of last year’s influential Dover court decision on intelligent design was plagiarized. Their investigation has revealed that part of Judge John Jones’ ruling was copied nearly verbatim from a document he received from the ACLU a month before the ruling. The Discovery Institute says that this finding seriously undercuts the credibility of the ruling, which abolished intelligent design from Pennsylvania classrooms. [source: Discovery Institute]


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Sound Off: Science & Faith. Our point/counterpoint regulars Shelley (the voice of science) and Peter (the voice of faith), comment on the story.

The Voice of Science: Shelley Greene, Ph.D., comments:
The idea that a Bush-appointed Republican judge would be swayed by an ACLU document in his Dover Court ruling strikes me as ludicrous. I have not seen the ACLU report nor the final ruling, so I cannot comment on the veracity of the Discovery Inst.’s accusations. But for fun, let’s assume that the accusation of plagiary is true. Does that really mean the ruling itself – its intent and meaning - is flawed? Or are the guys at Discovery naive enough to believe that Judge Jones was, in the end, hijacked and brainwashed by the ACLU repPublish Postort, causing him to reverse his original intention in the final ruling he handed down. I think not.

The Voice of Faith: Peter Williamson, M.Div., comments:
The question we must ask ourselves (and Judge Jones particularly), is: Was Judge Jones thinking for himself? A plagiarism of this magnitude can certainly lead one to believe that the judge was influenced by the plagiarized material. This does not appear to bode well for Judge Jones nor for the ruling. Should a mistrial result, I know there will be many Christians who celebrate the opportunity for a second chance on this very important issue.