I.D. in the Morning

This morning's Good Morning America carried a bit piece on the court case over intelligent design in Dover, PA that reminded me of C. John Sommerville's book, How the News Makes Us Dumb: The Death of Wisdom in an Information Society. Television segments like this one simply can't get into the depth required to adequately address the issues at the heart of this case. Yet, millions will watch such snippets and come away feeling informed.

In the segment, a high school science teacher spouted the frequently-heard line about Intelligent Design being a clever disguise to get religion into the public schools. She looked into the camera and said very confidently, "In biology there is no alternative explanation to evolution." I think it would have been more accurate to say that there is no naturalistic alternative to evolution in biology but chances are that this woman has so identified science with philosophical materialism that she closes the door on any inference that doesn't fit into a materialistic scheme. 

The same GMA segment included an excerpt from an interview with the Discovery Institute's Vice President, Stephen Meyer, in which he was asked whether the think-tank's major donors are religious. As Meyer was about to answer, the voice of someone off-camera could be heard objecting to the question. According to Discovery Institute's Bob Crowther at Evolution News & Views, the reason for the interruption was that ABC had said that they wanted to talk about the Institute's position on education policy concerning the teaching of evolution and intelligent design. According to Crowther:

Just a couple questions in and the producers asked a question about how we felt about getting all our money from the religious right. I somehow doubt that what students will face in science class when they go back to school is a list of Discovery's funders. So an interview that was presented as being about education policy was a lie, a sham, a chance to get someone on camera and then ambush them with other issues. That's called bait and switch, and it isn't journalistically ethical in any way shape or form.

I agree with Crowther's assessment of this encounter as an instance of bait and switch. Unfortunately, what was aired gave the impression that the Discovery Institute has something to hide, the very thing that the reporter Dan Harris was insinuating and many others have charged. In my opinion, it would have been better if Dr. Meyer had calmly answered the question and pointed out that the issue of the Institute's funding is immaterial to the truth or falsity of the arguments they put forth in favor of intelligent design. Then again, there would be no guarantee that such a response wouldn't end up on the cutting room floor.