Scientists' open letter attacks Ohio school board candidate

A New York Times article describes an open letter from Case Western Reserve University scientists that attacks Ohio Board of Education candidate Deborah Owens Fink.

The bias of the article is immediately apparent. For example, the article says,

Elsewhere in Ohio, scientists have also been campaigning for candidates who support the teaching of evolution and have recruited at least one biologist from out of state to help.

The above statement implies that Owens Fink and some other candidates are opposed to the teaching of evolution. This is not the case -- Owens Fink and some other candidates are not opposed to the teaching of evolution but want to include a critical analysis of evolution in the curriculum. The above statement would have been more correct to say that scientists have been campaigning for candidates who are opposed to including a critical analysis of evolution in the curriculum.

The NY Times article also states opinions as though they were facts, e.g.,

Although researchers may argue about its details, the theory of evolution is the foundation for modern biology, and there is no credible scientific challenge to it as an explanation for the diversity and complexity of life on earth.

My replies to the above statement are in Darwinism is grossly overrated, Darwinism is grossly overrated II, and Darwinism is grossly overrated III.

Red State Rabble has a complete copy of the scientists' letter, which says,

Current Board Member Deborah Owens Fink has referred to the National Academy of Science, the nation’s most prestigious scientific body, as “a group of so-called scientists”, and more generally to all scientists as a “dogmatic community”.

So she called them names -- so what? She has probably been called everything in the book.

According to the NY Times article, she did not specifically remember calling the NAS "a group of so-called scientists": "Dr. Owens Fink . . . said the letter was probably right to say she had dismissed it as 'a group of so-called scientists.' 'I may have said that, yeah,' she said."

The scientists' letter said,

During her tenure on the State School Board she has continued to sideline important issues associated with improving public education in her effort to debase and distort the teaching of science in high schools while attempting to cast controversy on biological evolution in favor of an ill-defined notion called Intelligent Design that courts have ruled is religion, not science.

ID was not part of the Ohio evolution lesson plan that the Ohio Board of Education deleted in February. ID is specifically the idea that some biological systems are too complex to have evolved solely by what we consider to be natural means -- there was nothing about that in the lesson plan and in fact the lesson plan expressly denied that teaching ID was one of its purposes.

Also, I have seen no evidence that she "sidelined" other important issues or that she tried to "debase and distort" the teaching of science in general.

And ID was ruled to be religion by a single judge, not "courts."

. . .our views thus reflect the views of the majority of the science community in Northeast Ohio

Case Western Reserve University has a minority of the scientists in Northeastern Ohio.

This letter is full of lies.

I don't see what these scientists are bellyaching about. Millions of tax dollars per year are spent on evolution research. For example, scientists get public funding for fossil hunts that could turn out to be wild goose chases. And there is no evidence that fossil hunting produces technological spinoffs of benefit to the public -- the fossil hunts mostly just pursue knowledge for knowledge's sake.

Scientists who argue that criticisms of Darwinism are absurd ought to put their money-grubbing mitts where their mouths are by signing a pledge to never accept one dime of research money for anything that directly addresses those criticisms, e.g., research into determining the evolvability of irreducibly complex biological systems.

For more info on the situation in Ohio, just enter "Ohio" in the search window in the top border of the blog screen. You must be scrolled to the very top to see this window.

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Dear National Science Foundation,

I would like a grant of one billion dollars for a research program to show that criticisms of my theory are so ridiculous that they are not even worthy of consideration.

Sincerely,

Prof. Charles Darwin