My letter to NBC

[elfs]

To the Editors at NBC News:

Your recent article, "Science Advisors Give Fresh Boost To Evolution," about the National Academy of Science's release of Science, Evolution, and Creationism, did a tragic disservice to the people NBC is supposed to be informing. Your show presented Intelligent Design as if it had scientific merit or validity while downplaying the overwhelming evidence supporting evolutionary theory.

Yet a review of actual scientific literature shows that there is no such thing as a "theory of intelligent design"; there is no scientific basis on which to hypothesize about intelligent design; and there are no industrial, medical or agricultural research programs underway that use the various premises promoted as part of intelligent design. One would think that if intelligent design was a valid means of understanding our world that it would be economically useful, but all meaningful research conducted in the life sciences use evolutionary biology as their premise.

Meanwhile, our nation continues to fall further and further behind in cutting edge research into the biological sciences. Creationists have fought for decades to keep evolutionary biology out of the classroom. As a result, our students do not learn about the very fundamentals of biology, and few students reach the university prepared to enter the biological sciences. The most impressive biological research being done today is occurring in countries such as Scotland, North Korea, and Japan-- all countries where evolution is taught from the very beginning without controversy.

"Science Advisors Give Fresh Boost To Evolution" was what has become a meritless standard of reportage: "there are two sides, let's present them as if they had equal merit." There are not two equal sides to this debate: there is biological evolution, the foundation of all understanding in the sciences that keep us alive and keep us fed, and there is a small, disgruntled cadre of religious believers who dislike the implications of that understanding. That NBC should present this as a disagreement between equally valid worldviews contributes to popular impressions that cripple our education system and doom our economy.

Sincerely distressed,

E. M. Sternberg

[Sent "To The Science Editor," TechNews@msnbc.com]

Comments

[resonant.livejournal.com]

come 2 canada and marry me, u are who i want to be with 3 the rest of my life

[resonant.livejournal.com]

*4* the rest of my life!!!!

[elfs.livejournal.com]

I actually did send it to the editor (and have edited the entry to reflect the address and the subject line). I encourage anyone in the U.S. who gives half a damn about our science education to tell the editors at NBC what utter buttwads they have been pandering (more out of fear, I imagine) to the yahoos in our midst.

There ought to be a houyhnhm.com.

[doodlesthegreat.livejournal.com]

Honest and truly, if there were a way to sign the bottom of this message, I'd do it. You're far more eloquent than I.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_candide_/]

Science cannot prove that we are evolved from monkeys.¹ Science has, however, proven that we are monkeys.²







¹That would be hard to do without DNA in every single fossil we find. At best, we have a model, evolutionary biology, which fits the fossil record fairly well.

²The last figure I heard places the match between human and chimpanzee DNA at a minimum of 96% identical.

[gromm.livejournal.com]

I think that ABC wanted to change hearts and minds, rather than just pissing off the fundies.

On the other hand, this will probably just as easily piss off the fundies, since "giving a boost" means "a renewed attack".

Every effort to quash this argument in public schools over the past 100 years or so has failed. Before, this was okay since high school graduation was not mandatory, and it was okay if most of the factory workers didn't have this kind of education. But now that most factory work these days is either overseas or mechanized, there's suddenly a need for higher education. There's just not as much of a place for blue-collar workers in America these days. So over the past 30 years or so, these knuckle-dragging dingbats have been under increasing pressure to give up their long-held beliefs, and they've fought back ever harder. They're pathetically stuck in the 19th century on this issue.

[gromm.livejournal.com]

"Students should learn about the evidence for and against evolution," he said.

This line in the article really made me chuckle actually, because any argument for intelligent design would be snowed under by the evidence in favour of evolution. You would have to be thoroughly blind to walk away from *that* class still believing that God created the earth and all the animals in a literal week.