Lazy anti-evolution reporting
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Pirate modeHere's the problem with the media.
As was brought to my attention in the comments, CBS news has an article on the so-called evolution debate in Kansas. They are running a sidebar that is simply propaganda straight from the Discovery Institute, titled "What Some Students Are Asking Their Biology Teachers". It's ripped straight from the pages of Wells' terrible, incompetently-written book, Icons of Evolution, and it's presented as if these are serious questions that are troubling biologists.
They aren't.
They are nothing but tired old innuendo from creationists. Did the reporter ever think to, say, call up a biologist and ask her if there were answers to these questions? How about the National Center for Science Education? These are exactly the sort of things that the NCSE is geared up to address…they even have a resource prepared with short, media-friendly answers to each one of Wells' ten questions. Or, if the telephone is too terrifying, try googling talk.origins—they have a longer, more thorough demolition of Wells' case.
What is particularly ironic is that one of the points that the writer is making is that teachers face the difficulty of "learning to handle well-organized efforts to raise doubts about Darwin's theory". I think reporters need to learn the same thing.
I have a suggestion to all journalists. When a dishonest institution like the Discovery Institute mails you a press release full of assertions and insisting that there are profound questions that must be answered, don't accept it at face value. If you're planning to run it, at least call up a scientific organization like the NCSE or a local scientist and ask if their claims about biology have any reasonable foundation in fact. You might be surprised at how detached from reality they are.
I have a question for any journalists who might read this, too. What was the author of that article thinking? Why would a writer think a pile of crap from some grossly biased and unqualified organization like the Discovery Institute would be a useful addition to an article?
BG made an excellent point in the comments: complain to the source. Here's a link to the CBS feedback form. Everyone write in and tell them to quit swallowing the lies of the Discovery Institute, and point them to http://www.ncseweb.org/resources/articles/7719_responses_to_jonathan_wells3_11_28_2001.asp.
Unfortunately, this quote seems to be implying that Williamson doesn't like it that much when his students challenge him.
Look at the questions and note the insidious lies written into these "questions". Honest questions should be welcomed by teachers, but Wells has written blatant lies like "its [archaeopteryx's] supposed ancestors do not appear until millions of years after it?" These "questions" are not and should not be welcomed into classrooms trying to teach kids how to honestly deal with the evidence. Wells' questions are Trojan horses designed to fuck up the teaching of science.