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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.

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.