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The press release is not fabricated. The PEER letter is still at their website, right here.

I am, like Skeptic magazine, a *bit* irritated on this. And like, Skeptic, in my overeagerness to write the letter, didn't dig deeper as I usually do on issues. You can be sure that I am going to explicitly wary of anything that comes out of PEER anymore. While this misleading information running about, PEER is going to be losing its credibility and burning bridges. This will harm them more, I believe, in the long-term perspective. People like me and media outlets like Skeptic have awfully long-term memory when it becomes to being mislead.

I am going to do the legwork now to bring everyone else who was duped to be unduped.

Evan Derkacz, Editor for AlterNet.org was contacted by me and gave me a reply nine minutes later that they will do a follow-up ASAP.

Jeff Ruch has burnt bridges for PEER. As the misinformation is corrected, and I am doing all effort possible to do this, PEER's trustworthiness as a source is marred.

You can expect that any future press releases by PEER, as long as Jeff Ruch is its Executive Director, will be either ignored or scrutinized to its bones.

It is ironic that the one time where I don't do my usual checking, this happens. I am usually the one attempting to expose misinformation in the media. I am, however, not going to let this pass by silently into the night.

I'm sorry Stewart -- I wasn't suggesting that the news story was a fabrication, only that PEER's press release was a fabrication, upon which the news story stood.

It is a tendency in the media to assume that the PRs you get, while certainly awash in spin, have a factual basis. The only fact in all of this is that some creationist book is for sale in the park bookstore along with truckloads of other books; and some plaques referring to the Biblical Flood are along the South Rim. (In previous times, Biblical imagery was very widespread in US culture... you cannot read anything Lincoln ever wrote without hearing King James cadences).

It is also a tendency for people in general to be less skeptical of things that generally agree with their viewpoint (note the recent blogstorm over "Hillary" attacking Obama on his "madrassa upbringing," which was a crock, or the competing blasts on "Jamil Hussein," which make everybody involved look at least careless and at most [this is you AP] mendacious).

As flaky as the PEER release is, it SOUNDS like something some clown in the Bush administration might do, almost; and it probably sounds much more that way to people who are antipathetic to Bush (which would include 95% of journalists).

"If your mother says she loves you, get two on-the-record quotes in support." This was always good advice, and yet it's advice that's hard to take when the story is so delectably in line with one's comfortable assumptions.

d.o.l.

Criminal Number 18F