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

[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.