Started my Monday morning by accidently deleting some data I’d taken hours to generate over the weekend. Felt fed up. Opened BBC News and read yet another misinformed article on Intelligent Design. Wrote the following complaint email:

Once again Intelligent Design is completely misrepresented by the BBC. To quote the above article:

“He urged Mr Johnson to view packs from creationist advocates Truth in Science for himself, before condemning them. Education officials insist intelligent design is not recognised as science. This is because it denies the evolutionary foundation of modern biology on the basis of literal readings of Genesis.”

If the author took the time to do any research on ID or the Truth in Science organisation they would realise that ID is very different to Creationism, and that Truth in Science advocate the teaching of ID, not Creationism. Instead the author accepts without question the rhetoric used by opponents of ID who equate the two as a way of undermining and dismissing ID.

Creationism is based on a literal interpretation of Genesis.

ID is just a theory that some biological systems are better explained by design than by purely natural processes. A large proportion of ID advocates are not creationists, including scientists such as Michael Behe and William Dembski whose work forms the foundations of ID theory.

It seems that the BBC is content to fit the controversy surrounding ID and Evolution into the simple template of science versus religion. I can accept that for the lay person it is easier to accept the perceived scientific consensus rather than understand the subject in question, but one doesn’t require a scientific background to read the material provided by Truth in Science and see that they do not advocate teaching Creationism.

Not sure what I am hoping to achieve.

UPDATE: 2.33PM: The article has been changed and now reads:

He urged Mr Johnson to view packs from lobby group Truth in Science for himself, before condemning them. Education officials insist intelligent design is not recognised as science. Advocates of intelligent design say there are things that cannot be explained by evolution and so argue for the existence of a supernatural intelligence behind the creation of the universe.

Not sure if that was just because of my email…but thank you BBC!

UPDATE: 10.03AM Tuesday: Article has been changed again. To quote:

Education officials insist intelligent design is not recognised as science. It argues that evolution cannot explain some things so the universe must have had an intelligent creator. The packs were sent out to 5,000 secondary schools by a group of academics and clerics known as Truth in Science.

Says pretty much the same thing…I think. It would be really useful if there was an accessible source of information on ID that people could be directed to in these situations. A page with a clear definition in layman’s terms would be a nice start.

UPDATE 12:53PM Tuesday: More changes…

Education officials insist intelligent design is not recognised as science. It argues that evolution cannot explain everything so the Universe must have had an intelligent creator. The packs were sent out to 5,000 secondary schools by a group of academics and clerics known as Truth in Science.

Now apparently evolution cannot explain “everything” instead of “some things” and “universe” has a capital letter. This is getting more and more confused. Of course evolution can’t explain everything, but only it’s inability to explain some biological systems is relevant.

However, I haven’t been keeping an eye on the rest of the article but I think it has improved because it is made very clear that TiS do not mention Creationism or God in any of their teaching materials.