CNN Accused of Fictionalizing Account of Texas School Book Hearing

You agree with CNN - liberals !

Even liberals can be right from time to time.

The new warning stickers idea is a good start. Evos hate warnings like abortionists hate adoption, though.

free choice ... one (( abortion // evolution )) --- " only - " total " via patrickbrownshirthenry !!

liberal troll placemaker !

You just keep on kicking lil' vadey retro's buttox around the room and he keeps crawling back for more.

It's life and death for the anti-God crowd.

http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/archive/00001032/02/URAM2.html

But if living organisms, the psychic phenomena, moral and social processes have wholly physical nature, this would mean that the laws of physics would govern live, psychic phenomena, moral decisions and social activity. Harvard Genetics Professor Richard Lewontin, a Marxist expressed his attitude in the followings (Johnson, 1997):

"We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs, in spite of its failure to fulfill many of its extravagant promises of health and life, in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just-so stories, because we have a prior commitment, a commitment to materialism. It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counterintuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is absolute.

free choice ... one (( abortion // evolution )) --- " only - " total " via patrickbrownshirthenry !!

Liberals like ... demand --- population and mind control !

Strange how tricky- tricky they are to get away with it for so much and so long on the fr !

Creationist nonsense placemaker.

First, CNN did fabricate and misrepresent.

Only if you believe "ID is a secular movement within science." Nobody with a brain does.

Next you ridicule Wells. (I will let the gentleman defend himself seeing that he already has…): [Links to Wells's Round Three performance of cafeteria dumb-dumbisms]

I'm not going into Round 3 in detail. Neither, apparently, is Wells. His foray looks nice and long-winded overall, but he simply leaves most of Gishlick unrebutted. Here's a sample. First, just take a quick skim of Gishlick on Miller-Urey. I only ask that you note the topics raised.

These allegations might seem serious; however, Wells's knowledge of prebiotic chemistry is seriously flawed. First, Wells's claim that researchers are ignoring the new atmospheric data, and that experiments like the Miller-Urey experiment fail when the atmospheric composition reflects current theories, is simply false. The current literature shows that scientists working on the origin and early evolution of life are well aware of the current theories of the earth's early atmosphere and have found that the revisions have little effect on the results of various experiments in biochemical synthesis. Despite Wells's claims to the contrary, new experiments since the Miller-Urey ones have achieved similar results using various corrected atmospheric compositions (Figure 1; Rode, 1999; Hanic et al., 2000). Further, although some authors have argued that electrical energy might not have efficiently produced organic molecules in the earth's early atmosphere, other energy sources such as cosmic radiation (e.g., Kobayashi et al., 1998), high temperature impact events (e.g., Miyakawa et al., 2000), and even the action of waves on a beach (Commeyras, et al., 2002) would have been quite effective.
Even if Wells had been correct about the Miller-Urey experiment, he does not explain that our theories about the origin of organic "building blocks" do not depend on that experiment alone (Orgel, 1998a). There are other sources for organic "building blocks," such as meteorites, comets, and hydrothermal vents. All of these alternate sources for organic materials and their synthesis are extensively discussed in the literature about the origin of life, a literature that Wells does not acknowledge. In fact, what is most striking about Wells's extensive reference list is the literature that he has left out. Wells does not mention extraterrestrial sources of organic molecules, which have been widely discussed in the literature since 1961 (see Oró, 1961; Whittet, 1997; Irvine, 1998). Wells apparently missed the vast body of literature on organic compounds in comets (e.g. Oró, 1961; Anders, 1989; Irvine, 1998), carbonaceous meteorites (e.g. Kaplan et al., 1963; Hayes, 1967; Chang, 1994; Maurette, 1998; Cooper et al., 2001), and conditions conducive to the formation of organic compounds that exist in interstellar dust clouds ( Whittet, 1997).
Wells also fails to cite the scientific literature on other terrestrial conditions under which organic compounds could have formed. These non-atmospheric sources include the synthesis of organic compounds in a reducing ocean (e.g., Chang, 1994), at hydrothermal vents (e.g., Andersson, 1999; Ogata et al., 2000), and in volcanic aquifers (Washington, 2000). A cursory review of the literature finds more than 40 papers on terrestrial prebiotic chemical synthesis published since 1997 in the journal Origins of life and the evolution of the biosphere alone. Contrary to Wells's presentation, there appears to be no shortage of potential sources for organic "building blocks" on the early earth.
Instead of discussing this literature, Wells raises a false "controversy" about the low amount of free oxygen in the early atmosphere. Claiming that this precludes the spontaneous origin of life, he concludes that "[d]ogma had taken the place of empirical science" (Wells 2000:18). In truth, nearly all researchers who work on the early atmosphere hold that oxygen was essentially absent during the period in which life originated (Copley, 2001) and therefore oxygen could not have played a role in preventing chemical synthesis. This conclusion is based on many sources of data, not "dogma." Sources of data include fluvial uraninite sand deposits (Rasmussen and Buick, 1999) and banded iron formations (Nunn, 1998; Copley, 2001), which could not have been deposited under oxidizing conditions. Wells also neglects the data from paleosols (ancient soils) which, because they form at the atmosphere-ground interface, are an excellent source to determine atmospheric composition (Holland, 1994). Reduced paleosols suggest that oxygen levels were very low before 2.1 billion years ago (Rye and Holland, 1998). There are also data from mantle chemistry that suggest that oxygen was essentially absent from the earliest atmosphere (Kump et al. 2001). Wells misrepresents the debate as over whether oxygen levels were 5/100 of 1%, which Wells calls "low," or 45/100 of 1%, which Wells calls "significant." But the controversy is really over why it took so long for oxygen levels to start to rise. Current data show that oxygen levels did not start to rise significantly until nearly 1.5 billion years after life originated (Rye and Holland, 1998; Copley, 2001). Wells strategically fails to clarify what he means by "early" when he discusses the amount of oxygen in the "early" atmosphere. In his discussion he cites research about the chemistry of the atmosphere without distinguishing whether the authors are referring to times before, during, or after the period when life is thought to have originated. Nearly all of the papers he cites deal with oxygen levels after 3.0 billion years ago. They are irrelevant, as chemical data suggest that life arose 3.8 billion years ago (Chang, 1994; Orgel, 1998b), well before there was enough free oxygen in the earth's atmosphere to prevent Miller-Urey-type chemical synthesis.

Now note that Wells answers with a feeble swing at the charges in paragraph one, then moves on to the next icon. Nowhere does he answer the bulk of Gishlick's charges on Miller-Urey.

He doesn't answer Gishlick's section on Archaeopteryx at all. A whole icon, skipped.

I assume the rest is of a piece, but I have better things to do.

Wells is out of obfuscations. Are you?

Weaning potty training breakdown placemaker !

Weaning potty training breakdown placemaker !

There you go again.

CNN Reporter LAVANDERA:

LAVANDERA: Today, Texas educators are debating which biology books will be used in the future and that ignites the debate of evolution versus creationism, or intelligent design as some now call it.

The meeting had nothing to do with this. Beckwith and Bohlin only pointed out errors in the textbooks - that's all. Creationism and ID were not discussed.

Futhermore, ID is not creationism. Creationism is a literal Biblical account for all of creation, ID only posits that certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause and not an undirected process such as natural selection. A Buddhist, an Islamic, and even atheists could see and believe this. I personally know an atheist that believes we were 'seeded' here from aliens.
Intelligent Design Creationism

LAVANDERA: Evolution is the theory that all living things have a common ancestor but others say that doesn't explain the beginning of life. They support the idea of intelligent design, that an intelligent being created life on Earth. Supporters of this side want more space textbooks.

Again, Beckwith and Bohlin only pointed out errors in textbooks. They did not request space in the textbooks for ID.

I point this out and you respond with:
Only if you believe "ID is a secular movement within science." Nobody with a brain does.

Now even if one was to grant you that ID is not a secular movement (although I've already shown that it is) what does even matter considering what was discussed? You just say it's guilt by association and ignore the facts. I have seen you call people out many times that you observed doing exactly what you are doing now. Once again, be consistent and remember that on the issue of evolution, the verdict is still out on how God created the Earth.
Note: I could point out the same items from NCSE and the AP.

Now you go on to the Miller-Urey experiment. This is interesting to me because you have argued many times that the origin of life has nothing to do with evolution. So I ask you, is OOL and abiogenesis part of evolution? Be consistant.

Well, regardless Wells points out that it is in many textbooks:

Campbell, Reece and Mitchell’s Biology (5th Edition, 1999), one of the most widely used introductory textbooks for college undergraduates, discusses the Miller-Urey experiment in “Unit Five: The Evolutionary History of Biological Diversity.” Similarly, Mader’s Biology (6th Edition, 1998), Starr and Taggart’s Biology: The Unity and Diversity of Life (8th Edition, 1998), Schraer and Stoltze’s Biology: The Study of Life (7th Edition, 1999), Guttman’s Biology (1999), Audesirk, Audesirk and Byers’s Life On Earth (2nd Edition, 2000), and Purves, Sadava, Orians and Heller’s Life: The Science of Biology (6th Edition, 2001) all feature the Miller-Urey experiment in their sections dealing with evolution. Alberts, Bray, Lewis, Raff, Roberts and Watson’s upper-division textbook for biology majors, Molecular Biology of the Cell (3rd Edition, 1994), discusses it in a chapter titled “Evolution of the Cell.” The Miller-Urey experiment is also standard fare in upper division and graduate-level textbooks devoted entirely to evolution, such as Futuyma’s Evolutionary Biology (3rd Edition, 1998) and Freeman and Herron’s Evolutionary Analysis (2nd Edition, 2001).

Now lets look at how Wells gave a grade. A majority of the textbooks received:

F = includes a picture or drawing of the Miller-Urey apparatus with a misleading caption claiming or implying that the experiment simulated conditions on the early Earth; the text contains no mention of the experiment's flaws, and leaves the student with the impression that it demonstrated how life's building-blocks formed on the early earth.

What did Gishlick say:

Even if Wells had been correct about the Miller-Urey experiment, he does not explain that our theories about the origin of organic "building blocks" do not depend on that experiment alone (Orgel, 1998a). There are other sources for organic "building blocks," such as meteorites, comets, and hydrothermal vents. All of these alternate sources for organic materials and their synthesis are extensively discussed in the literature about the origin of life, a literature that Wells does not acknowledge. In fact, what is most striking about Wells's extensive reference list is the literature that he has left out. Wells does not mention extraterrestrial sources of organic molecules, which have been widely discussed in the literature since 1961 (see Oró, 1961; Whittet, 1997; Irvine, 1998). Wells apparently missed the vast body of literature on organic compounds in comets (e.g. Oró, 1961; Anders, 1989; Irvine, 1998), carbonaceous meteorites (e.g. Kaplan et al., 1963; Hayes, 1967; Chang, 1994; Maurette, 1998; Cooper et al., 2001), and conditions conducive to the formation of organic compounds that exist in interstellar dust clouds ( Whittet, 1997).

OK. How does this deal with the Miller-Urey experiment as currently shown in textbooks? Wells is dealing with what is currently in textbooks and Gishlick is not. If the Miller-Urey experiment is incorrect and outdated, why should we “imply that the experiment simulated conditions on the early Earth; the text contains no mention of the experiment's flaws, and leaves the student with the impression that it demonstrated how life's building-blocks formed on the early earth?” We both know that OOL research is in its infancy and is far from being resolved. Should textbooks leave students with the impression that it is?

What did Wells say:

According to reviewer David Ussery, however, I failed to notice that “Miller himself describes his own more recent experiments under the conditions now believed to be those of the primitive atmosphere, where he found he could still generate many organic compounds.” (Ussery, p. 73)
I would thank Ussery for setting me straight, except that the organic compounds that are produced in this fashion are not amino acids. Instead, when a mixture of carbon dioxide, nitrogen and water vapor is used in a Miller-Urey-type experiment, the reaction products tend to be toxic chemicals such as formaldehyde and cyanide.
This is not late-breaking news. As I pointed out in my book, Sidney Fox and Klaus Dose reported in 1977 that no amino acids are produced by sparking a carbon dioxide-nitrogen-water vapor mixture. In 1983, Miller himself reported that he could produce no more than a small amount of the simplest amino acid (glycine) by sparking an atmosphere containing carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide, and then only if free hydrogen was added. And Miller conceded that glycine was the best he could do in the absence of methane. In 1984, Heinrich Holland confirmed that mixtures of carbon dioxide, nitrogen and water vapor yield no amino acids at all. Perhaps Ussery was ignorant of these facts.

And now you move on to the famous missing link. Unfortunately ‘you’ did not read the links – and they were not missing. So what did Wells say about Archaeopteryx:

(a) Many biology textbooks call Archaeopteryx a “link” that once was missing but now is found. Starr and Taggart’s Biology: The Unity and Diversity of Life (8th Edition, 1998) calls Archaeopteryx “the first of the ‘missing links’.” Mader’s Biology (6th Edition, 1998), describes this fossil as “a transitional link between reptiles and modern birds.” Schraer and Stoltze’s Biology: The Study of Life (7th Edition, 1999) calls it “an evolutionary link between reptiles and birds.” And according to Raven and Johnson’s Biology (5th Edition, 1999), Archaeopteryx is an example of a fossil “linking” major groups. If the NCSE ever launches a campaign against misconceptions in biology textbooks (such as calling the origin of life part of evolution, or using homology as evidence for common ancestry), it can add “missing link” to its list.
(b) In any case, the NCSE’s claim that “missing link” is a misconception is odd, since if Darwin’s theory is true there MUST have been organisms in the past that were transitional links between ancestors and descendants. Transitional links are a logical consequence of evolutionary theory, yet most of them are missing from the fossil record. Archaeopteryx is famous precisely because it is one of the few supposed links that have been found. So the notion of “missing link” cannot possibly be any more “out-of-date” than evolutionary theory itself. Of course, whether any PARTICULAR fossil can be determined to be a transitional link is open to serious doubt. According to Henry Gee, chief science writer for Nature, “the intervals of time that separate fossils are so huge that we cannot say anything definite about their possible connection through ancestry and descent.” But if the NCSE is suggesting, like Gee, that NO fossil can be identified as transitional between its ancestors and descendants, why does it call Archaeopteryx a “transitional fossil” that shows “reptilian ancestry” as well as bird-like features?
(c) Archaeopteryx is the oldest bird in the fossil record. It appears fully formed, and it is not preceded by fossils showing gradual transitions from reptiles to birds. So the NCSE’s claim that it shows “how a branch of reptiles gradually acquired” bird-like features is false. If the NCSE is suggesting that this gradual transition is seen in bird-like dinosaurs (a view passionately--and controversially--defended by NCSE’s president, Kevin Padian), the problem is that these supposed ancestors do not appear in the fossil record until tens of millions of years AFTER Archaeopteryx. Without fossils of the appropriate age, the NCSE has no grounds for saying “Wells’s claim that ‘supposed ancestors’ are younger than Archaeopteryx is false.”
(d) Calling bird-like dinosaurs “uncles” instead of “ancestors” of Archaeopteryx merely obscures the problem: Although an uncle isn’t the ancestor of his nephew, and the former can be younger than the latter, the two--by definition--are no more than a generation apart, and they are members of the same species. Yet according to the fossil record, Archaeopteryx is millions of generations older than the bird-like dinosaurs. Furthermore, the two are not in the same species--in fact, they’re not even in the same genus, family, order or class! It makes no sense to call David Ben-Gurion the “uncle” of Abraham--much less to call bird-like dinosaurs the “uncles” of Archaeopteryx.

Again, how did he grade the textbooks? Well a majority received:

D = presents Archaeopteryx as the transitional link between reptiles (or dinosaurs) and modern birds; does not point out that modern birds are probably not descended from it, but at least hints at the fact that there is a controversy over its ancestry or its transitional status.

So again, in summary:

Did CNN fabricate and misrepresent? Yes

Are you consistent with your ridicule of others? No.

Has Wells addressed your issues? Maybe, read and see.

Are textbooks correcting errors that Wells pointed out? Yes.

Creationism and ID were not discussed.

What is your evidence for "not discussed?" Two representatives from the un-Discovery Institute were present. There was plenty of advance publicity on who was coming and what reception should be given their shtick. Why would you imagine their known agenda was "not discussed" inside the meeting? What evidence do you have? The Knight-Ridder article cites considerable pre-meeting controversy of which the participants must have been aware.

The AP article, written after the meeting, says this:

Both proponents and critics of intelligent design -- an emerging belief that life did not evolve randomly but instead progressed according to a plan or design -- testified Wednesday before the state Board of Education about the adoption of new textbooks.

Worse for your viewpoint, the quotes that follow are presented as if from the meeting itself. I thus assume that they are. I will include just one of many.

"Please do not include creationism and intelligent design in the textbooks," implored Jennifer Walker, a member of the Lone Star Chapter of the Sierra Club. "These are not science and this textbook is about science."

There is nothing wrong with LAVANDERA's statements. They are fully backed up by other sources. I wonder at the willingness to hurl false accusations at the presumed infidel dogs as a matter of Holy War convenience. I'm not a Christian, so I can't tell Christians what a Christian is supposed to be like. I will say yet again that creationists are repellent as supposed examples of moral behavior by Christians. If what you and Discovery are doing to CNN here--and what gore is doing to the long-dead Darwin on another thread--amount to Christian behavior, I hope I never become afflicted with faith.

Again, Beckwith and Bohlin only pointed out errors in textbooks.

Their idea of "errors" is Wells's idea of "errors" and it's anything to do with the massive amounts of evidence for evolution. That in turn has a lot to do with Wells and every other ID-ist being a witch doctor who thinks evolution is ungodly if not Satanic. That in turn is why CNN's coverage--which in this instance is in no way out of line with AP's or Knight-Ridder's--does not contain any misstatements of which I am aware.

Now you go on to the Miller-Urey experiment. This is interesting to me because you have argued many times that the origin of life has nothing to do with evolution. So I ask you, is OOL and abiogenesis part of evolution? Be consistant.

Evolution in the "variation and natural selection" scenario only begins after some kind of imperfect self-replicator exists. I continue to say this because it is true. Abiogenesis is thus a separate area. It is discussed on these threads all the same and I talk about it. It's a much more speculative area than whether evolution has occurred, but there is a growing body of research out there to be misinterpreted to others by people who prefer magic. It would be a shame if they got away with that.

Let me apologize that I missed some material in your Inherit the Spin link. I didn't give it a hard read since it is part of a different if parallel dialog in which Wells published Ten Questions to Ask Your Biology Teacher About Evolution and The NCSE Published a set of brief replies. It is not written as an answer to Gishlick's utter demolition of Icons of Evolution in his review of same, nor do I see where Wells has written such.

You obviously don't see one, either, as you join Wells in pretending not to see most of what Gishlick says. Gishlick's criticisms are there and unrebutted. You made no reference to most of the arguments except to invite me to believe that I see them being answered. You need to fake that better. OK, you tried to do for Wells what he hasn't done for himself when you said:

OK. How does this deal with the Miller-Urey experiment as currently shown in textbooks? Wells is dealing with what is currently in textbooks and Gishlick is not.

The material cited, whether in textbooks or not, backs up the contention that there was plenty of pre-biotic organic raw material out there. The presence of this stuff in space complements the Miller experiment nicely in demonstrating that this stuff is not that hard to cook up, even in seemingly forbidding environments. Wells zeroes in on lawyering about mistakes in the exact mixture of gases. Only a crude idea existed in the early fifties of what this mixture should be and still no one knows for sure. The important thing was showing the easy recombinability of CHON mixtures.

As far as him "dealing with textbooks," his criteria for grading textbooks are ridiculous:

In order to receive an A, a textbook must first omit the picture of the Miller-Urey apparatus (or state explicitly in the caption that it was a failure), discuss the experiment, but then state that it is irrelevant to the origin of life. This type of textbook would be not only scientifically inaccurate but pedagogically deficient.

Under Wells's grading criteria, the only discussion of the Miller-Urey experiments allowed would be a ~~cretinist~~ ID-ist anti-evolution pamphlet. This is a pathetic sham.

As far as the Archaeopteryx material is concerned, no answer at all would have been a better idea. Did you really mean to quote this bit of incredible dumb-dumbing?

d) Calling bird-like dinosaurs “uncles” instead of “ancestors” of Archaeopteryx merely obscures the problem: Although an uncle isn’t the ancestor of his nephew, and the former can be younger than the latter, the two--by definition--are no more than a generation apart, and they are members of the same species.

He rebuts by interpreting the word "uncle" in its most literal sense. Do you read this stuff? I've used the word "uncle" in these discussions myself to refer to something offline but obviously highly related. Neanderthal Man, if truly offline, is such an "uncle."

Again, in all the verbiage Wells has spilled in book and web page, Gishlick's main criticism and my own still holds. I'll let Gishlick say it first:

Archaeopteryx is frequently used for pedagogical purposes because it is easy to recognize its mixture of "bird" and "reptile" features and because it played an historical role in helping to cement Darwin's theory (it was discovered 2 years after publication of the Origin). Textbook authors like Archaeopteryx for these reasons and often illustrate their discussions with pictures of the Berlin specimen, one of the most beautiful fossils ever discovered, and remarkably complete. Textbooks also use Archaeopteryx as an example of how fossils are important for showing transitional features of evolution, and how the fossil record is good evidence that evolution has occurred.

Archaeopteryx looks just as much like a reptile as it does a bird. Just as much. No modern bird--not the young Hoatzin or anything else--comes near it in reptilian characteristics. Here's one list: Dromaeosaurid Archaeopteryx.

Archy's skeleton is so reptilian that Fred Hoyle claimed it was just a dinosaur with faked feather impressions.

Look at the thing above. That does not look like a widdle birdie. It has a tiny sternum, unfused mani, teeth, jaws, no beak, and lots of caudal vertebrae, just for beginners.

What does Wells say about this minor embarrassment? He pretends never to have noticed it. He's trying to get the evidence thrown out on every grounds he can think of except the true grounds, that it proves him wrong. Look at the stuff you quoted. It's ridiculous! He's just repeating points that Gishlick and others have demolished.

Even Wells's claim that paleontologists do not think Archaeopteryx is "ancestral" is incorrect. Archaeopteryx has no features that would actually disbar it from being a direct ancestor of living birds. Whether it was a direct ancestor of today's birds or not is irrelevant: Archaeopteryx exhibits unique features of the last ancestor it shared with birds, so, regardless whether it is a lineal ancestor, it still preserves features that indicate what the last ancestor of Archaeopteryx and birds may have been like. In other words, Archaeopteryx has many features intermediate between those of its dinosaurian ancestors and its avian descendants, which is exactly what would be predicted by evolution. No amount of stridency on Wells's part can change that.

Tamzek may have explained it even more simply:

However, creationist claims have been refuted so often and so thoroughly regarding Archaeopteryx that very little remains for Wells to do except raise a smoke screen over whether or not Archaeopteryx was the actual species through which the genes of the last common ancestor of modern birds passed, or whether it was a closely related side-branch. Either way, it is clear evidence that a transition between the classes occurred.

What Wells is doing is just brazen dishonesty. That "uncle" business is the cherry on the whipped cream. What is this fossil doing existing? Wells does not say. Evolution demands that such things must have existed. Creationism and it's front organization of ID jeer that there are still gaps. We keep finding these things. Since Darwin published we've found tons of them.

Oddly enough, creation and ID simply keep on jeering from the sidelines of science. But then, it's a Holy War for them.

What is your evidence for "not discussed”?

Again:

The Institute’s goal is to inform policymakers and citizens about factual errors in how some textbooks cover evolutionary theory and to encourage textbooks to include information about both the strengths and weaknesses of evolutionary theory. The 41-page preliminary textbook review Discovery Institute distributed to the Board of Education focused on factual errors and the need to include additional information about four issues—the Miller-Urey experiment, the Peppered Moth experiments, the Cambrian Explosion, and Haeckel’s embryos. The only places that the report broached the subject of intelligent design was in reference to two textbooks that already discuss intelligent design theory. The textbook review noted how these two textbooks discussed intelligent design in a biased and highly inaccurate manner. While the Institute is not advocating that textbooks must cover intelligent design theory, it does believe that textbooks that already mention intelligent design should cover the theory accurately and fairly. Again, the Institute’s chief concern is that evolutionary theory be treated fully and accurately in textbooks, NOT that intelligent design be included.
Clarifying the Issues in the Texas Textbook Controversy

So what were the quotes in the articles from the men in question:
CNN-

RAYMOND BOHLIN, DISCOVERY INSTITUTE: Every theory has its weaknesses, has it's problems, and evolution seems to be the one theory in the textbooks that just isn't treated that way. We're just not told where its weaknesses and problem are.

AP-

Raymond Bohlin, an employee of the Discovery Institute, a nonprofit Seattle-based think tank that has led the intelligent design movement, said the theory has no religious foundation.
"There is scientific dissent concerning Darwinism," Bohlin said. "There are weaknesses to the theory and those are not being represented."

The Knight-Ridder article-

"Instead of wasting time looking at motivations, we wish people would look at the facts," said John West, associate director of the center.
"Our goal nationally is to encourage schools and educators to include more about evolution, including controversies about various parts of Darwinian theory that exists between even evolutionary scientists," West said. "We are a secular think tank."

and goes on to say:

The center sent the state board a 55-page report that graded 11 high school biology textbooks submitted for adoption. None earned a grade above a C minus. The report also includes four arguments it says show that evolutionary theory is not as solid as presented in biology textbooks.
Discovery Institute Fellow Raymond Bohlin, who also is executive director of Probe Ministries, based in Richardson, Texas, will deliver that message in person Wednesday before the State Board of Education. Bohlin has a doctorate degree in molecular cell biology from the University of Texas at Dallas.
"If we can simply allow students to see that evolution is not an established fact, that leaves freedom for students to pursue other ideas," Bohlin said. "All I can do is continue to point these things out and hopefully get a group that hears and sees relevant data and insist on some changes."

I see nothing about ID and definitely nothing about creationism – but it gets better…
You quote this:

"Please do not include creationism and intelligent design in the textbooks," implored Jennifer Walker, a member of the Lone Star Chapter of the Sierra Club. "These are not science and this textbook is about science."

So now if we use ‘your’ standards, let’s evaluate the Sierra Club:
The Big Book of Bush
Candidates endorsed by the Sierra Club

So now you support CNN and the Sierra Club? I don’t think you do but you continue the guilt by association campaign. Be consistent and remember that on the issue of evolution, the verdict is still out on how God created the Earth.

Look, as I pointed out in a link earlier that you ‘might’ have read:

The National Association of Biology Teachers [NABT] in their 1995 Official Statement on Teaching Evolution stated the following:

"The diversity of life [all life] on earth is the outcome of evolution: an unsupervised, impersonal, unpredictable and natural process of temporal descent with genetic modification that is affected by natural selection, chance, historical contingencies and changing environments."

It took seven years of prodding from conservative groups before they revised the statement. According to the NABT's executive director, the change was made ``to avoid taking a religious position'' that might offend believers. The two words that were removed from their statement were; 'unsupervised' and 'impersonal'. These two words made the NABT's statement religious and faith-based. To illustrate, change the words to 'supervised' and 'personal'. Either way, both statements would be outside the purely 'material constraints' that science now (ironically thanks in part to Darwin) currently imposes. Their statement boldly claimed that there was no intelligent cause (force, etc.) behind mankind and all existence.

Do you understand that these textbooks will be used for approximately six years and all data should be correct? The NABT official statement on evolution was a religious statement. I am not endorsing religion in science textbooks but the current information should be correct.

Anyway, here is what these two gentlemen discussed (the actual 41 page report):
A Preliminary Analysis of the Treatment of Evolution in Biology Textbooks

Their idea of "errors" is Wells's idea of "errors" and it's anything to do with the massive amounts of evidence for evolution. That in turn has a lot to do with Wells and every other ID-ist being a witch doctor who thinks evolution is ungodly if not Satanic. That in turn is why CNN's coverage--which in this instance is in no way out of line with AP's or Knight-Ridder's--does not contain any misstatements of which I am aware.

OK, I’ve pointed out that these two gentlemen only wanted to dispute errors in textbooks (in many posts). They did not want ID in textbooks and creationism was never on the table. I am going to say flat out that there are currently errors in textbooks and not just in science textbooks. We live in an era of political correctness and evolution has become a politically correct type issue.

If one were to pose problems with the theory of common descent and cite religious sources that person would be labeled a creationist and disregarded. If one were to cite problems with the theory of common descent and refer to peer-reviewed papers, that person is called confused because the person cited has no problem with the general evolutionary theory.
We have been through this before…

And the even NCSE has an agenda. They are against ‘creationists’ and not against textbook corrections – or are they? What is the problem here? Is it scientific to wrongly label someone creationist and ignore the individual and the facts presented? Heck, let’s just label people; creationist, atheist, Christian, IDist, Marxist, neo-Darwinist, naturalist, troll, liberal, witchdoctor, Luddite… and stop arguing. This is what it is currently done by both sides.

So I say again:

Did CNN fabricate and misrepresent? Yes

Are you consistent with your ridicule of others? No.

Has Wells addressed your issues? Maybe, read and see.

Are textbooks correcting errors that Wells pointed out? Yes.

But now let me add something beyond this CNN article.

Look, if someone decides to believe only science holds ‘the truth’, it is known that that person will die knowing many wrong things about science. This is a fact as we know many great scientists have died with incomplete or wrong theories, or lacking other important knowledge. So if someone limits ‘truth’ to only ‘metaphysical naturalism’ (or current science) they are defining what ‘they’ believe ‘truth’ to be, and will be ‘ultimately’ wrong. Again, I say they will be wrong as they will die misinformed about what they have defined ‘truth’ to be.

Now, many can and will accept this as “well, that’s life”, but the point is they have established what many would consider a religion. ‘Truth’ as only defined by man and the formation of an individual’s worldview around this ‘truth’. We know that morality as only defined by man is relative so why not ‘truth’? Science has not always been defined as metaphysical naturalism.

You might say here that I have made a leap between science (as currently defined) and religion so let me clarify:

religion:
Etymology: Middle English religioun, from Latin religion-, religio supernatural constraint, sanction, religious practice, perhaps from religare to restrain, tie back -- more at RELY
Date: 13th century
1 a : the state of a religious b (1) : the service and worship of God or the supernatural (2) : commitment or devotion to religious faith or observance
2 : a personal set or institutionalized system of religious attitudes, beliefs, and practices
3 archaic : scrupulous conformity : CONSCIENTIOUSNESS
4 : a cause, principle, or system of beliefs held to with ardor and faith
(Obvious emphasis mine)

One can state that ‘some’ who believe in a supernatural entity have shut the door to science. Can the believer in a supernatural entity say the same about those who base their worldview on the metaphysical naturalism that they consider to be the only ‘truth’? Beyond this, which individual’s ‘truth and morality’ is relative and which is stationary?

How is one who adheres strictly to science as truth different than a Creationist? Is it because they allow for mistakes and corrections? Then let the mistakes be known and the corrections take place. Lest this be your Holy book, correct the errors as you have done in the past – should now in the present – and will in the future.

I apologize for the long delay but my family takes precedence.

Tons of verbiage before we get to this:

So I say again:
Did CNN fabricate and misrepresent? Yes

You forgot to show this. Lots of quoting and table-pounding, no more. I believe you realize that you have no evidence for CNN falsifying or fabricating in its report on this meeting. The attitude you reveal in groundlessly repeating these charges does not look very Christian. I'm not totally ignorant of what that means. I was raised to be one, but it didn't take. What I was not raised to be was an idiot. I can tell when something advertised to be in a post is not there.

The two yokels from DI were not the only people in the meeting. If they were, it could have been held in Seattle. Unless CNN accuses these two specifically of mentioning creationism, then nothing is changed by claiming that they didn't. [Although not even that little has been shown.] I've pointed out that someone from the Sierra Club did mention ID and creationism. That alone would be enough to make CNN right. There were other quotes from other folks as well. You pretended to misunderstand what I was doing in mentioning the Sierra Club. I guess false witness isn't false witness if you pretend to be stupid.

Are you consistent with your ridicule of others? No.

You simply repeat this without having remembered to readdress it. You failed to establish it on your first try, remember?

Has Wells addressed your issues? Maybe, read and see.

I had already checked as of your last post. He emphatically has not answered the mail from his critics.

I apologize for the long delay but my family takes precedence.

You should be apologizing for all the squirmy smoke-and-mirrors camouflage.

"This doesn't even rise to the level of journalism. Really, it's sheer fantasy," West says. "They had a story that they wanted to tell, which was religion versus science, and when the facts didn't fit that, they just made it up. This is just atrocious."

Yep, that's CNN alrighty. Is Clinton's buddy, Rick Kaplan, back?

"But then, it's a Holy War for them"

ahhh the true agenda comes out

AGAIN