Friday, July 23, 2010
Media This Morning's Jesussean: The 'Trojan Horse' of Intelligent Design Gets Inside 1100 Broadway
Posted by Bruce Barry on Fri, Jul 23, 2010 at 9:20 AM
Reporter Bob Smietana's article on evolution and creationism in this morning's Tennessean begins innocently enough with the charming story of a woman named Rachel Evans who grew up in Dayton, Tenn., where the 1925 Scopes Monkey Trial took place. But by the fifth paragraph Smietana quickly loses interest in cruising down the highway of journalism, taking an exit to religious Crazytown:
Evans is part of a movement of mostly Protestant writers and scientists trying to reconcile faith and science, 85 years after the trial ended. Instead of choosing sides, some prefer the middle ground of intelligent design, which claims God designed how life evolved. Tennessee gubernatorial candidates Ron Ramsey, Zach Wamp and Mike McWherter all advocate teaching intelligent design in schools.
Earth to Bob: Intelligent design is not "a middle ground" between science and faith. That is the propaganda that creationists would like feckless school boards and undereducated science teachers (not to mention gullible journalists) to believe. In fact, ID is no less pure religiosity than good old Genesis-flavored creationism. The well-known biologist and evolutionary geneticist Jerry Coyne sums it up (these are snippets from a lengthy essay detailing the scientific case against intelligent design):
Intelligent design is simply the third attempt of creationists to proselytize our children at the expense of good science and clear thinking. Having failed to ban evolution from schools, and later to get equal classroom time for scientific creationism, they have made a few adjustments designed to sneak Christian cosmogony past the First Amendment. And these adjustments have given ID a popularity never enjoyed by earlier forms of creationism....Insofar as intelligent-design theory can be tested scientifically, it has been falsified. Organisms simply do not look as if they had been intelligently designed....The reliance of ID on supernatural intervention means that the enterprise cannot be seen, strictly speaking, as scientific....Intelligent design did not arise because of some long-standing problems with evolutionary theory, or because new facts have called neoDarwinism into question. ID is here for only one reason - to act as a Trojan horse poised before the public schools: a seemingly secular vessel ready to inject its religious message into the science curriculum.
The fatal flaw in Smietana's piece in the Tennessean is use of the reporter's voice to frame intelligent design as a mainstream scientific alternative, a position that carries significant weight only among true-believer creationists. A piece of genuine journalism would accurately reflect scientific experts' views of the proper role of ID in science education (that role being nil) rather than legitimize the perspective of religious zealots (and gubernatorial candidates!) who seem to neither understand nor value science.
Comments (23)
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Why would anyone who had real faith need a middle ground? If your faith is that fragile, the problem is your faith, not your science.
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The comments section is even better than the article.
I am a scientist. I think the best approach to the ID people is to ignore them. ID isn't science. They can teach it all they want in divinity school but it will never be compatible with a scientific curriculum.
When will science finally get around to using their powerful microscopes to determine exactly how many angels can dance on the head of a pin? These are the questions that need answering.
Scott,
You ask a valid question for the churchhouse, NOT the schoolhouse. No real faith would ever be threatened in any way by the science of evolution.
I think three of our candidates for governor ( 1 D & 2 R's) probably understand evolution but suffer from moral cowardice leading to shameless pandering. Ramsey does not appear to have the look of any intelligence in his eyes designed or otherwise.
Bruce, I'm glad you picked up on that. I read the article and had exactly the same reaction. It's suprising that someone with Smietana's background and experience is not aware of the "intelligent design" sham. From reading the rest of the article, it's apparent that he thinks "intelligent design" is just a catch phrase used by scientists who attend church and not a well established, nationwide movement established by creationists.
Were you to chart the intersection of faithful and belief in some sort of God directed evolution, the intersection would not encompass the whole. Assuming the faithful all believe in the historical accuracy of Genesis, or in ID, is as sloppy a piece of thinking as ID itself.
There are a lot of people of faith who understand that the two distinct stories of creation in Genesis were never intended to be a scientific explanation of how we came to be. In fact, we can all take in what Genesis has to teach us without having to give up our understanding of evolution, science, or the scientific method.
Physicists now say the universe, before the Big Bang was a piece of matter smaller than a pinhead. That sounds far more preposterous than intelligent design. Other scientists have stated that all life on Earth begin as something similar to rock-like stumps of prehistoric algae growing in an Australian lagoon. That, too, sounds more preposterous than intelligent design.
Henry, I wonder if you are actually familiar with Smietana's "background and experience," as you put it. Something tells me that you may have assumed that he is a trained reporter -- that is, someone who covers an assignment with an open and inquiring mind and objectively reports the news. Au contraire! When the Tennessean hired their "religion guy," they got a real pro. Smietana is a recruit from Christianity Today and a former (and possibly current) blogger on something called god-of-small-things.com. He is also a member of a sect called the Evangelical Covenant Church, which on its web site describes its central tenets as follows:
"When new members join a Covenant church, they are asked two questions about belief: 'Do you confess Jesus Christ as your Savior and promise to follow him as Lord?' and 'Do you accept the Holy Scriptures, the Old and New Testaments, as the word of God and the only perfect rule for faith, doctrine, and conduct?'"
Here's my point. In spite of the incredible amount of front page space Smietana is given, this is not your usual newspaper reporter, who cuts his teeth as a cub on the police beat, moves up to city hall and, if good at what he does, eventually finds himself in the capital press room. In fact, this isn't a news reporter at all, in the sense that you and I think of it. This is instead a propagandist, a journalistic wolf-in-sheep's-clothing plain and simple, who files stories about God like God was an actual entity who makes periodic stump speeches and could be subjected to an interview.
I'd be willing to bet that Bob Smietana's byline appears on more front-page and second-front stories than any other writer currently at the Tennessean. And if you inquire about it, you will be favored with a screed explaining that the great majority of the Tennessean's readers are regular church-goers, etc., etc., etc. It's the newspaper's journalism-by-focus-group principle at its most blatant.
YouTube: Vatican Astronomer: "There is no Science in the Bible!"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VAM-1FbxFXc
Bill Maher discussing both religion and science with Father George Coyne, PHD of The Vatican Observatory, who makes a clear distinction between the Bible which was written thousands of years ago and then advent of modern science only a few hundred years ago.
Burrito, the flaw in your reasoning is that "the facts speak for themselves." Data doesn't speak; people speak. If you don't tell people the truth, it won't just appear. If scientists ignore ID, don't tell the truth about it, don't educate people about evolution, then ID will become the accepted truth among the people. ID undermines science and rational thought, and at the end of the day you don't want to do research in a culture that equally embraces alchemy and science.
So, I suggest you rent and watch Cosmos, read Phil Plait's blog, take a couple of public speaking classes if you feel like you need to, and then go tell people about evolution and why ID doesn't work. I promise we'll be better off than if you stay in the lab and trust in curriculum to save us.
The clergy is hiding from the laity the fact that it does not understand the Genesis text, and is willing to let the people die in ignorance, rather than to learn the truth from scripture. Ask (or rather demand) your minister to schedule and host the PowerPoint presentation called the "Observations of Moses". It is the correct opposing view to the evolution theory, not creationism. Creationism misrepresents the scriptures.
If your minister says that they already "teach the truth of Genesis", they are telling a lie.
Herman Cummings
ephraim7@aol.com
Any woman who has been through childbirth, menopause, and life in general knows the female human is not intelligently designed.
Likewise, any man who has been through childbirth, menopause, and life in general with a wife also knows the female human is not intelligently designed.
Body, honey.
The male is set to expire, genetically speaking. (The check is on the male.) That may be intelligent design, though.
Wait! The sun revolves around the Earth! We know it! We were right about that, weren't we? That's why we had to throw Galileo in jail, so he would stop misrepresentin'!
"Intelligent Design" does help explain why Tennessee is a breeding ground for unicorns...
The Skeptic's Annotated Bible - Absurdity in the Bible
http://skepticsannotatedbible.com/abs/long…
"It is full of interest. It has noble poetry in it; and some clever fables; and some blood-drenched history; and some good morals; and a wealth of obscenity; and upwards of a thousand lies."
--- Mark Twain, Letters From the Earth.
SAB: Genesis
God creates light and separates light from darkness, and day from night, on the first day. Yet he didn't make the light producing objects (the sun and the stars) until the fourth day (1:14-19). 1:3-5
God spends one-sixth of his entire creative effort (the second day) working on a solid firmament. This strange structure, which God calls heaven, is intended to separate the higher waters from the lower waters. 1:6-8
Plants are made on the third day before there was a sun to drive their photosynthetic processes (1:14-19). 1:11
In an apparent endorsement of astrology, God places the sun, moon, and stars in the firmament so that they can be used "for signs". This, of course, is exactly what astrologers do: read "the signs" in the Zodiac in an effort to predict what will happen on Earth. 1:14
"He made the stars also." God spends a day making light (before making the stars) and separating light from darkness; then, at the end of a hard day's work, and almost as an afterthought, he makes the trillions of stars. 1:16
"And God set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth." 1:17
(more at hyperlink)
It seems to me that if "Intelligent Design" is to be taught in Tennessee's public schools, that science classes are not the counterpoint to ID, but rather classes in critical thinking and classes
Gast: Actually, I was aware that Smietana formerly worked for a religious publication and does not have a traditional journalism background, but I been generally impressed with his articles and knowledge of religious traditions (which is why this screw up suprised me). As for the placement of his stories, I think it's appropriate. Religion is a passionate topic here in the Bible Belt and the paper deserves credit, not criticism, for reporting more about it. If Smietana's evangelical views (of which I was not aware but will assume you are correct) are the reason he didn't know the context of the "intelligent design" debate, that's a blind spot he needs to fix.
I saw zack wamp's new ad this a.m.
This one desperately pandering to the bible thumpers because he is losing the primary race.
Now I hope he loses even worse. LOL!!!!
wamp and ron ramsey - going down if flames!!!!!!! Bigtime!!
REAL journalism? WITHOUT the writer's own bias injected into the presentation of the "news"? Oh, the way the Scene does it, right? What a joke.
I didn't read Smietana's article, but do personally know him and don't think terribly highly of him. However, I think it's hysterical that the Scene is attempting to say they are the only true unbiased journalistic voice in Nashville.
Sell that line to the tourists because locals know better.
"There are a lot of people of faith who understand that the two distinct stories of creation in Genesis were never intended to be a scientific explanation of how we came to be. In fact, we can all take in what Genesis has to teach us without having to give up our understanding of evolution, science, or the scientific method."
That was well said.
"So, I suggest you rent and watch Cosmos, read Phil Plait's blog, take a couple of public speaking classes if you feel like you need to, and then go tell people about evolution and why ID doesn't work. I promise we'll be better off than if you stay in the lab and trust in curriculum to save us."
I've seen Cosmos and could easily public-speak your ass to the curb, Captain. Ask anyone who knows me. But thanks for the blog. I like the lab just fine, and have no plans to campaign against ID past the occasional digital swipe. We ran the ID people out of the Biology dept at Vandy back in 02 and that was enough for me.
