#37140: DarkSyde — 08/23  at  01:36 PM
That's nice of you PZ, but we must lose the concept of 'fair' when dealing with conmen. To them 'fair' translates as 'easier to bamboozle'. Here's my suggested methodology.

#37147: Ken Cope — 08/23  at  02:21 PM
Kenneth Chang's gratis column inches gift-wrapped for the artificial design creationists at the Discovery Institute aren't up to the standards of most editorial cartoons on the topic.

The day journamalists can eschew the facile equivalence and recognize that one side has facts and the other lies and flat out report it is a day I don't expect to see.

Of course Kenneth Chang was writing it for the people who don't know anything about the topic; ignorance and apathy about science is the only thing the oxymoronically named Discovery Institute has going for it. The crime is that nobody who reads the NYT series will be any less ignorant or apathetic than they were before that senseless tree pulping.

Thanks a whole heck of a lot pal. I guess you get to keep wearing your "I are impartial" hat to the cons.

#37160: — 08/23  at  02:51 PM
Chris Mooney wrote a nice piece in June 2004 for the Columbia Journalism Review:
Blinded By Science: How ‘Balanced’ Coverage Lets the Scientific Fringe Hijack Reality

#37178: sort of buddhist — 08/23  at  04:02 PM
It's very interesting that a paper like the Times has a science section which is supposed to (though it doesn't always) present science straight, whereas in its general news pages it feels the need to "balance" science with foolishness, scrupulously avoiding taking sides.

I have my suspicions as to why this is the case, but I would rather learn why from someone more knowledgeable about the journalism industry than I.

And by the way, when was the last time the Times featured evolution in its science section?

#37186: Arun — 08/23  at  04:47 PM
To sort of Buddhist:
This might be evo-devo or purely devo - don't know

SCIENCE DESK | August 16, 2005, Tuesday

Scientists Find a Touch of Sophistication in the Genes of a Simple Sponge

By JON NORDHEIMER (NYT) 736 words
Late Edition - Final , Section F , Page 3 , Column 1

DISPLAYING FIRST 50 OF 736 WORDS - SpongeBob may be more complicated than he ... A husband and wife research team at the University of Richmond has discovered that marine sponges, long considered some of the most primitive creatures on the planet, carry a sophisticated gene that in other animals controls the growth of eyes, brains and..

#37191: — 08/23  at  05:52 PM
Quoth Darksyde: " That's nice of you PZ, but we must lose the concept of 'fair' when dealing with conmen."

Maybe. Put I do have to say, I really like the contrast between typical science blogs and typical pseudoscience blogs highlighted by this exchange. Post something critical of ID on Dembski's site, and your post gets deleted & you get banned. Post something critical of Dr. Myers on his blog, and you might get a link on the front page ...

#37192: Arun — 08/23  at  05:58 PM
I divided the words in the article to ID and Evolution and came up with

1512 - Evolution
1399 - ID

The people mentioned in the article are:

Behe - ID
Erwin - Evolution
Doolittle - Evolution
Axe - ID
Meyer - ID
Paley - ID
Darwin - Evolution
Bottjer - Evolution
Dembski - ID
Miller - Evolution
Lenski - Evolution

It is equal time indeed.

#37202: — 08/23  at  07:22 PM
And if the Times printed a series giving equal wordage to faith healing and conventional medicine, this would be impartial? If some state legislatures passed laws promoting faith healing, reporting the political machinations that led to this pathology of government would be a public service. But promoting faith healing as an intellectually serious enterprise would amount to misleading uninformed readers.

Chang's claim that they were obligated to do the series is dishonest sophistry. It is reasonable to suspect that the same process that led to Behe on the editorial page produced this eruption of trash on the front page. They really should come out and say it's "All the superstition that's fit to print".

#37268: — 08/24  at  07:52 AM
But at least the third article reported the views of some top-notch scientists. One of the most annoying things about this whole debate is that so much of it is being driven by self-appointed spokesmen on both sides who are either non-scientist/philosophers (Ruse, Meyer) or second-rate scientists/teachers (Miller, Behe) who are not contributing much to the furtherance of knowledge but spend most of their time serving as propagandists for their respective dubious causes.

Trackback: Positive Discrimination Tracked on: Newton's Binomium (72.9.234.70) at 2005 08 24 07:32:20
Pharyngula has been hosting a discussion on the New York Times series on intelligent design creationism. Many of the arguments have already been aired. Let me just say that I maintain my opinion that Kenneth Chang's piece was terrible, even though I ...

#37293: coturnix — 08/24  at  11:32 AM
I have collected a bunch of links on the whole NYT series here.
Send more.

#37598: — 08/26  at  10:37 AM
Thanks for the analysis, Arun. I dont know who invented the equal time rule, probably it was a lawyer, but it is stupid to apply it in science or engineering. I am an engineer and would not tolerate somebody demanding equal time for a wrong or unsubstantiated theory. Somebody miscalculates Space Shuttle tiles performance and the Shuttle goes down killing its occupants. What equal time?

Chang writes about evolution not as a matter of science, something that can be tested in reality and proved right or wrong, but as a political issue in dispute, where one or the other side may equally be right and where the truth - if it exists at all - is somewhere in the middle.

Covering political disputes, the journalist must keep its objectivity and present a balanced picture of both sides. That is what Chang was doing, I agree. My sole objection is that evolution is NOT a political issue, and treating it as such is exactly what the Discovery Institute´s Wedge Project is trying to achieve.

It must be concluded that Chang performed a very good service to the Discovery Institute, a service worth a lot of money. I am not suggesting that Chang was actually paid, but my impression is that he could not have done a better job for the Discovery Institute even if he was paid for performing an ID promotional job.

I hope Chang will understand his mistake and correct it soon. In former occasions, when Pharyngula showed to writers who did commit similar errors, they did the right thing and corrected their mistakes.

#37728: — 08/27  at  12:03 PM
Jaimito, You're reading Pharyngula and think evolution isn't a political issue. How naive can you get!

#37777: — 08/27  at  09:42 PM
Christine,

If evolution is a political issue, let´s take a vote to decide if we want it. According to the polls, it is doomed. Next we vote if we approve of back aches (I am having one) and abolish it.

Then we could reduce the value of g (gravity) so people (at least the skinny ones) could fly by waving their hands. With a lower g people trapped in the World Trade Twin Towers could have flown away instead of falling and being pasted into the street asphalt.

Disease is a wrong theory, and death exists only because we have not willed it away. We should fight them by political action instead of expensive and misguided (possibly evil) medical research.