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February 21, 2006
Kenneth Chang Writes a Very Good Article
Back in August of last year, I posted a very negative piece about an article in the New York Times written by Kenneth Chang. Today's New York Times has another article by Mr. Chang on the Intelligent Design creationist moment that is very good and to the point.
The article concerns a petition that the Discovery Institute has been circulating for some time trying to get "scientists" to go on record questioning "random mutation and natural selection to account for the complexity of life." The petition disingenuously does not even mention intelligent design. They have then tried to use the petition and its 514 signatures to indicate that there is widespread skepticism concerning modern evolutionary theory among scientists. This claim is beset with a raft of problems. First, 514 is a very small number compared to the 10s of thousands of biologists who actively work in the field. Even worse, the majority of the signers (350) are not biologists. Some biologists signed on because they thought, as all good scientists do, that some degree of skepticism was appropriate in the course of scientific pursuits. A few of those have since asked that their names be removed.
Anyway, I want to take this opportunity to say that Mr. Chang has done a very good job with this article and I congratulate him and suggest that his article should be widely read, particularly be those who want to argue that Intelligent Design is not a religious movement.
PZ Myers at Pharyngula has a very good analysis of the Discover Institute petition that should also be read.
Posted by Duane Smith at February 21, 2006 9:49 AM | Read more on Evolution |
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