Fair and Balanced

This he-said she-said debate needs to be resolved immediately. Therefore I am setting up a far-reaching experiment to prove once and for all the mechanisms of creation - Evolution, or something-intelligent-that-must-remain-unnamed. My experiment is set to begin next month, and will last a year. You can read more about it's genesis on my website here: a modest experiment.

...the political correspondents Elisabeth Bumiller at The New York Times and Peter Baker and Peter Slevin at The Washington Post ... also referred to ID as a "theory," lending an implicit sense of scientific legitimacy to a religiously motivated political movement.

...unlike other social controversies --- over abortion or gay marriage, for instance --- the evolution debate is not solely a matter of subjective morality or political opinion.

I come here to learn biology. More of that and less scientism-vs-religion pissing contests. Please.

ID advocates love the shallow reporting. Consider the difficulties they'd have if even half of Americans knew Mayr's "five observation" model of Darwinian evolution. ID doesn't touch any part of the model.

I come here to learn biology. More of that and less scientism-vs-religion pissing contests. Please.

The Panda's Thumb is the virtual pub of the University of Ediacara. The patrons gather to discuss evolutionary theory, critique the claims of the antievolution movement, defend the integrity of both science and science education, and share good conversation. (Bolding added)

Re "and not devote a single paragraph to what the evidence is for the scientific view of evolution?"

Yeah, at least mention the nested hierarchy of species living at the same time. Or the branching tree arrangement of species over geologic time. Or clustering of genetically related species by geographic barriers. All of those are implied by descent with change from common ancestry. None of them are implied by deliberate engineering of life or some aspect of it.

Henry

Ah, here's the rub, though. Evolutionary theory is so complex and takes a long time to learn. One of the problems I see is that it is difficult to convince anyone whose sole experience in biological science was high school biology, 10, 20, 30 or more years ago, in which the teacher skirted the subject to avoid objections. I am a seconday school eduactor. My degree is not in biology but in chemistry, my graduate degree involves lots of geology, I read as much as I can on various topics related to evolution, and my husband is a primate behavior research scientist, and he helps me understand a lot of anthropoid taxonomy and evolution. Our household discussions center on science.(yes, we are geeks; I hardly think our household is typical) Even so, a lot of the interchange on PT is very technical, WAY over my head. How much will people whose background in science is so minimal really understand a lengthy explanation? People believe the most outrageous things about medicine, UFO's, ESP, the supernatural, etc., yet may not understand basic scientific methodology that has been used to shed doubt or even debunk what they believe on these topics. ID's biggest advantage is that it is easy to understand.(You know, "we don't know so goddidit") To state the scientific stance on evolutionary theory (or any theory) is simple. It is the paradigm used by the vast majority of scientists, that it is well supported by a vast amount of data and observations, and it is the best explanation for those data and observations to date. To really convince anyone with details, well, that's much more difficult. A columnist can answer to the misconceptions by ID or psuedoscience in a page or two, but to educate the reader on evolutionary theory? Wow, that's a pretty big task.

If I have learned anything at all, it is that some columnists will commit huge errors because they haven't done their homework.(See Pat Buchanan in the Washington Times in August, Rush Limbaugh's brother in the same issue, Cal Thomas in many of his columns) It has made me suspicious of columns written about issues about which I am not well versed. If they make blatant errors on topics I am familiar with, then all topics are suspect.

My experiment is set to begin next month, and will last a year.

— Bob Davis

While I feel Mooney and Nisbet's pain, I think that most journalists should say as little about evolution as possible. If they must describe and defend evolution, they should provide references (Talk Origins Archive is a good start) and let them do the talking. There is just too much misinformation out there; too many misleading colloquial definitions of terms, conflating of concepts (e.g. evolution with abiogenesis), and general misunderstanding of the nature of science. That, plus the intense pressure to sensationalize everything, is often a recipe for disaster. When sensationalism is an option, pseudoscience almost always wins.

I think that the best that a journalist can do is expose the ID strategy for what it is. The focus should be on how, unlike classic creationists, IDers are retreating from stating their own potential alternatives, and trying to downplay the mutual contradictions among creationist alternatives, in order to round up a concerted effort against mainstream science. Journalists should take every opportunity to remind everyone that mainstream science, mainstream religion, and science-literate people of all political persuasions, are all unimpressed with the ID strategy, as well as the creationist accounts, whose scientific failures the ID strategy is trying to cover up.

Case in point: On September 3, Dr. John Sergent wrote a column taking Senator Frist to task on ID in the Nashville Tennessean. Today, a letter to the editor appeared, titled: "'Evolutionary theory' takes a lot of faith to believe". In the letter, the writer says Sergent implies that evolution is a scientific fact. He says, "I am not a "scientifically literate" person, but the last time I checked, it was called the theory of evolution." I am sure that this person is educated; his thoughts are well articulated. However, he is willing to form an opinion on a complicated idea that he admits he knows little about. As an science educator, I would never make judgements on what should be taught in the classrooms of other academic disciplines, much less how to do the work in other professions entirely. Our public distrusts experts in many fields, but education seems to be a common area of concern (perhaps we bring it on ourselves).

Alternatively, don't just hire journalism graduates but people with scientistific training. In the UK (and probably most of the rest of Europe, only a small fraction of journalists have journalism qualifications (I'm a reporter myself, and I'm only an English graduate). The only qualification you need for journalism is to be able to write good English (or French, German etc). Everything else can be taught on the job in a matter of months. In addition to not wasting a year or more of the potential journalists' life, this approach ensures a much more diverse range of candidates. Imagine if only political science graduates were allowed to become politicians.

That's "scientific" training. The other qualification journalists need is the ability to spellcheck.

One of the big problems in explaining evolutionary theory to a layman is that it is a lot like "Rocket Science" --- the term generically used for "it's too complicated for me to understand".

In fact, ToE is even more complicated than Rocket Science (with all due respect to rocket scientists, especially my sister). What we need is an "Evolution for Dummies" pamphlet/book/web site that we can give to journalists and others. While sites such as the Talk Origins Archive are excellent resources, they really are too intensive for an introduction to ToE for most people.

Another advantage is that it would give us the same page to talk to people about, instead of directing them all over God's green earth. This would especially be useful in the definitions of terms.

We certainly have the talent here at PT (and at Talk Origins) to do this. Any ideas on where we could get the funding?

Shenda

ToE may appear to be rocket science but, ID is not...and that's the beauty. Anyone with a brain, who wishes to use it, can see thru the scam.

Those who cannot are predisposed by either religious beliefs or ignorance.

We certainly have the talent here at PT (and at Talk Origins) to do this. Any ideas on where we could get the funding?

— shenda

A problem I have just run across is one of editing. My local newspaper (in Scotland) has had a couple of articles critical of ID in it recently, provoking the usual kind of replies. One of my replies was published today, critisising a previous correspondent who said there was no evidence for speciation. However in order to make the letter fit into the small space alloted for it, the newspaper edited out the sentence about speciation. That was the central, scientifically based point in my letter, and one that the pro-Ider had made clear in theirs, yet the newspaper cut it out.

So next time I shall have to make my letters even less cuttable. Normally they do a good job in redacting letters to make them fit, but this time they failed miserably. Let it be a lesson to edit your letters carefully.

Frank J wrote:

"TO is run by volunteers"

I am aware of this. That is why I am wondering if there are any organizations willing to pay people to write it.

Frank J: "If I had more time and better writing skills, I'd be submitting FAQs. But I agree that, with more non-technical people accessing the web, that more "Evolution for Dummies" type articles are needed. Hyperlinks could be added to access more "in depth" articles.""

While web articles and hyperlinks are good ideas, an actual physical booklet/pamphlet would be great to have to hand out to people at events like the Kansas Kangaroo Kourt. A matching web page(s) with drill down links to increasing levels of detail would be a good complimentary source.

Steverino wrote:

"ToE may appear to be rocket science but, ID is not...and that's the beauty. Anyone with a brain, who wishes to use it, can see thru the scam."

If you rephrased that as "Anyone with a brain, who "has been taught/educated how" to use it, can see thru the scam." I would agree, but with the caveat below.

If a person has never been taught what ToE is, how can they differentiate between ToE and ID? That would be the purpose of "Evolution for Dummies" ("EfD")

The assumption that anyone who passively supports ID is not smart is a fallacious one. Smart and Ignorant are not mutually exclusive. "EfD" should be written for the smart but ignorant. Please note that in this instance, I am using the definition of ignorant as "Uninformed or Unaware on a Specific Issue", not as "Uneducated or Illiterate".

Shenda

THATS IT!...we need an "Evolution for Dummies" book!...Just like the kind that one might purchase to learn a software language.

It would take major tenants of the theory and break them down to understandable speak.

Hell, with the "contraversey" raging, it might be a good way to raise funds for other ToE projects or battles.

THATS IT!...we need an Evolution for Dummies book!...Just like the kind that one might purchase to learn a software language.

hhhhmmmmmm....did I miss the meeting?

"It's been done: The Complete Idiot's Guide to Evolution."

Thanks! Have you read the book? The reviews were mixed.

Shenda

It would take major tenants of the theory and break them down to understandable speak.

— Steverino

hhhhmmmmmm....did I miss the meeting?

— Steverino

Evolutionary theory is so complex and takes a long time to learn. One of the problems I see is that it is difficult to convince anyone whose sole experience in biological science was high school biology, 10, 20, 30 or more years ago, in which the teacher skirted the subject to avoid objections.

---

Evolution in 5 observations Observation 1: Species have great fertility. They make more offspring than can grow to adulthood. Observation 2: Populations remain roughly the same size, with modest fluctuations. Observation 3. Food resources are limited, and are constant most of the time. Inference A: In such an environment there will be a struggle for survival among individuals. Observation 4: No two individuals are identical. Variation is rampant. Observation 5: Much of this variation is heritable. Inference B: In a world of stable populations where each individual must struggle to survive, those with the "best" characteristics will be more likely to survive, and those desirable traits will be passed to their offspring. This is natural selection. Inference C: Natural selection, if carried far enough, makes changes in a population, eventually leading to new species. (I cribbed these from Ernst Mayr's 1982 book, The Growth of Biological Thought, and from Donald Johanson and Maitland A. Edey in Blueprints. I like the formulation because it tends to make a lot of sense to hunters, conservationists, and anyone who really pays attention to environmental issues. Carrying capacity is something that intelligent design formulators rarely want to discuss --- I don't think they can explain it.

Isn't this supposed to be the layman's guide to evolution?

http://evolution.berkeley.edu/

Or is it really just for educators and students?

aaahhhhh....another person who feels the needs to correct spelling.

If it makes you feel better. Hmmmmm....Laszlo..hey that rhymes with....

There are quite a few simple explanations of evolution around. One thing I've found hard to find, however, is a simple pencil and paper test to assess how much adults know about evolution. I've looked around the Internet for such an instrument. If somebody knows about one, please let me know.

aaahhhhh....another person who feels the need to correct spelling.

If it makes you feel better. Hmmmmm....Laszlo..hey that rhymes with....

Thanks! Have you read the book? The reviews were mixed.

I liked "The Idiot's Guide to Stupidity" pretty well, but I thought the problem sets were too hard.

I am not sure it is the basic "rules" or "paradigm" that is too complicated; what I think people have trouble with is how the evidence supports it, and how it does not support ID or "creation science". Talk about the Cambrian and you get looks like, "maybe I've heard that word before but...", mention therapsids or Ambulocetus or prosimians, and you've already lost them. I read about these things, but understand them from a background of geology, earth time, and stratigraphy learned in undergraduate and graduate university courses. My point is that one someone asks what the evidence is for evolution, there is no short, easy answers. I hate to revert back to "scientists all agree", and other general statements but sometimes that's all I have.

Re "My point is that one someone asks what the evidence is for evolution, there is no short, easy answers."

Well, a starting point would be simply that living species can be arranged in a nested hierarchy, and where enough data is available different ways of determining that hierarchy, the results mostly agree with each other. Evolution via descent with change from common ancestry implies that. I.D. doesn't imply that since it would be consistent with a lack of hierarchical relationships.

Henry

If a person has never been taught what ToE is, how can they differentiate between ToE and ID? That would be the purpose of "Evolution for Dummies" ("EfD")

— shenda

In fact, ToE is even more complicated than Rocket Science

1. The members of any particular biological population differ from each other in minor ways and will each have slightly differing characteristics in construction and behavior. This is the principle of "variation". In darwin's time, nothing was known about genetics, and scientists then had no idea how or why the observed variations within species occurred. Today, we know that they are caused by copying errors ("mutations") within the cell's DNA. 2. These variations can be passed on from one generation to the next, and the offspring of those organisms possessing a particular type of variation will also tend to have that same variation. This is the principle of "heritability". 3. Some of these variations will give their possessor an advantage in life (or help it to avoid some disadvantage), allowing that organism to obtain more food, escape predators more effectively, and so on. Thus, those organisms that possess such a useful variation will tend, over the long run, to survive longer and produce more offspring than will other members of the population. These offspring, moreover, will also tend to possess this advantageous variation, and this will have the effect, over time, of increasing the proportion of the population that possesses this variation. This is the principle of "natural selection". These three basic principles are combined to form the basic Darwinian model of the evolution of life. The traditional Darwinian outlook holds that small incremental changes in structure and behavior, brought about by the natural selection of variations, will produce, after a long period of time, organisms that differ so greatly from their ancestors that they are no longer the same organism and must be classified as a new species. This process of speciation, repeated over the 3.5 billion year span of time since life first appeared on earth, explains the gradual production of all life's diversity.

Here is Ernst Mayr's description

— Ed Darrell

Hmmmmm....Laszlo..hey that rhymes with....

— Steverino

Hey, can we keep this civil and on topic? I really need answers to this issue, as it has already come up in my workplace, it won't be long before discussion will occur statewide, (I live in TN, the buckle of the Bible Belt) given Senator Frist's pronouncement in support of ID.

Don't begrudge Steverino the implied slur, Laszlo.  It's probably the most sophisticated concept in this whole thread that he can understand fully.

Frank J: Didn't realize that the "more are born than can survive" comes from Mayr himself. Still, I can't help thinking that starting with that concept turns more students off than on.

I suspect using the "s" word in a TN public school classroom would not go over well. (I made that mistake 25 years ago while student teaching, covering the newly emerging diseases such as HIV/Aids and Toxic Shock, and couldn't get a job in that county!) On the same note, I was told by a colleague, who is a former public school teacher from a nearby county system, that creationism is alive and well in the high school science classes. Now, I haven't checked this out, but apparently if 100% of the parents want this and there is no one to complain to the ACLU or similar organizations, this goes on unchallenged. The public brouhaha in Dover, or Kansas, or Cobb Co. GA may not reflect the extent of the problem.

Jason Rosenhouse has a good takedown of Paul Nelson's attempt to spin the Mooney/Nisbet article.

RBH

"Don't begrudge Steverino the implied slur, Laszlo. It's probably the most sophisticated concept in this whole thread that he can understand fully."

Yes, that's exactly it. I'm guessing you're not stranger to the term "swirly"

I have only an academic understanding of it, in the sense that you mean.

On the other hand, your grammar indicates that you are a stranger to academics.  Are you expecting us to take you as an exemplar of those who refuse to accept the data and the science of evolution?  Quoting a few folks like you would be a great way for a reporter to "show balance" while utterly discrediting everything you're attempting to promote, and shoring up what you're trying to attack.

Keep up the good work.

Here's a thought out of left field.

The original article shows how journalists treat this as a political and social issue (which it is) and avoid the technical stuff with which they are less familiar. As a result they help spread the inaccurate perception that there is also a scientific controversy.

We can approach this phenomenon from another direction. The major objection to evolution, no matter how it is expressed, is coming from religious believers who see conventional evolutionary biology as a threat to their view of how God creates the world. This is a theological perspective. Yet how much journalism gives a well informed background from theology?

This is a more difficult task, since Christians don't have the same level of unanimity on this matter as scientists. Yet even so, journalists focus on advocacy groups that are not driven by experts in theology. Theology is a technical subject. It's not merely a matter of different people believing what they feel like. Outsiders and unbelievers often underestimate the subject or dismiss it as not genuine scholarship. Believers can also underestimate the subject, confident that they've got a solid handle on the truth of deep issues in theology without needing all that book learning stuff.

I wonder what would happen if a journalist made a serious attempt to seek out and learn something from a range of professional theologians, on biblical exegesis, on creation, and on the implications they see both of and for science.

Please; no responses about how theology is bunk. Whether people think it is bunk or not, it still has a technical literature and professional scholars. No matter our views on its soundness, I'll bet it would be illuminating to have some technical theological input on the subject from scholars with postgraduate academic qualifications in theology.

That would be an interesting approach; it is surprising that people in large numbers feel that science and religion conflict in spite of the fact that most major Christian denominations have issued statements declaring evolution NOT to be in conflict with church teachings. In our area, the faithful are from Baptist, Church of Christ (not "United") and other fundamentalist or biblical literalist traditions. A number of their churches teach that the rest of us are wrong and must be made to "see the light" or are doomed to hell. I'm not sure how a theological discussion would be interpreted by them.

That would be an interesting approach; it is surprising that people in large numbers feel that science and religion conflict in spite of the fact that most major Christian denominations have issued statements declaring evolution NOT to be in conflict with church teachings.