Another Meaningless Name Change

It was pointed out to me by a Commentor (Thanks again Matthew) that the Discovery Institute pseudo-blog has changed it's name.  It was called "Evolution News and Views (ENV).  Of course, I usually referred to it as "Evolution 'news' and Views (E'n'V)" because news was not it's forte.  It was always bringing you their [the DI's] view on nearly any topic.  Oh, they might reference other pieces of information -- including someone else's actual science -- but the purpose of E'n'V was never to educate, but show you the Intelligent Design (ID) perspective.

So, they would sometimes point out some actual science and then spin their ID magic on it and lo-and behold one of two things usually happened.  Either the real science could be spun in such a way as to appear to support ID or they declared that the real science must be wrong because of ID.  Of course, they never bothered to support either contention with anything resembling evidence or scientific experimentation, it was all rhetoric*.

One other point, I also normally referred to it as a pseudo-blog because they never, ever let people comment on it.  For all their talk about 'free speech', letting people comment would probably show more of the weaknesses in their arguments than identify any actual strengths -- but then strengths and weaknesses aren't their forte either (pun intended).  To my knowledge, they never even tried to moderate comments, which is how many other sites control views they do not like.  To date, I have only removed comments that were abusive (once) or sales marketing (three). All other comments are still there.  Funny, I've had more authors remove their own comments than anything I have done.

Back to the topic at hand, the DI pseudo-blog changed it's name.  It's now called "Evolution News and Science Today (ENST)".  I took a quick look through the postings for this month and it really doesn't look like anything has changed.  Sarah Chaffee is talking about a subject she doesn't seem to know anything about -- free speech, pseudo-historian Richard Weikart is busy trying to re-write history, and little davely 'klingy' klinghoffer is bragging that this pseudo-blog is now available in Spanish.  -- which I thought was almost interesting because their new intelligent design center is in Brazil, and their official language in Portuguese.  Nope, nothing new and still no commenting allowed.

Which means the new name is even more misleading than the old one.  I mean not only was it not presenting news, now they are hiding their views under the label of 'science'.  Does anyone actually believe actual science will be coming out from the DI, let alone published in their pseudo-blog?  But then, like their other avenues of publication, be it books, articles, or posts, there is no standard for supporting their 'work'.  Which means E'ns'T will continue in the less-than-proud traditions of E'n'V and give us things to laugh at rather than actually enlighten us!

*rhetoric: language designed to have a persuasive or impressive effect on its audience, but often regarded as lacking in sincerity or meaningful content.

News Bias . . . Yes, this is a real thing!

A recent conversation came to mind when I saw Prof McGrath's post "What's your Source".  I loved the opening sentence:

"Does it match your perception of these sources?  If not, do you assume that the issue is with the chart, or with your perception?"

Here's the chart in question:

The conversation was mercifully brief with someone who considers CNN a liberal partisan news organization and Fox News as the bastion for truth.  I wish I had this graphic with me during that brief, but memorable conversation.

For me, I find the graphic very close to my own perceptions.  I might have moved the Huffington Post a bit lower on the Journalistic Quality axis and maybe NPR a tiny bit more to the left on the Partisan Bias axis, but for the most part the only thing I really have trouble with is the oval that contains Fox News reaching nearly to the Analytical.  I don't watch much of Fox News, so maybe there is a Fox show or two that lean that way, but my experience would have ruled against that.  The shows I have seen fall much further to the right and at best would rarely come under the heading of 'Meets High Standards".

In fact of all the news organizations, Politifact usually measure Fox News much lower on any scale of truthfulness, rating their average at 60% being untruths, or as I was brought up to call them, lies.  CNN, the news service much maligned by most of the conservatives that I know, came in at 20% untruths.  If you wonder about what political ax Politifact grinds, you might do some homework and find that unlike Fox News, Politifact doesn't seem to care about content, only how the content relates to the actual facts.

So there you have it.  I would be interested in feedback and where you would rate your usual sources for news, as compared to this chart.  So, if you feel like it, leave a comment or two.  My usual sources are NPR, NBC, my local paper (Dayton Daily News -- which my much more right-leaning spouse calls the 'Dayton Daily Liberal'), and Google News.  But, unlike some, I try and trace information back to sources rather than just accept the headlines as gospel.  For example if Fox has a story and cite Reuters, I nearly always find the Reuters story and rarely find it says what Fox News said it did.  But that's just me!  It's not just "What are your Sources", but checking your source material as well.

As for my own political leanings, I would have said more of a Centrist for years, even though I was a Republican.  But recent Republican activities over the past couple of decades has made me an independent.  I still lean a little left on social issues, right on fiscal conservation, and most interested in accuracy from my news sources than any sort of spin.  Which is why my expectation of Fox News, in particular, is pretty low . . . and they seem to meet that expectation quite regularly.

The DI's Michael Denton makes a Prediction -- Yes, believe it or not! Unsupported, but still a Prediction.

The Discovery Institute (DI) did something out of the ordinary, well for them it's out of the ordinary.  In this post from their Evolution 'news' and Views (EnV), "Genetic Similarities Between Fins and Limbs -- Evidence for Evolution, Maybe, but Not for Darwinism", Michael Denton said this:

"There never were any transitional forms making both dermal bone and endochondral bone. Organisms made one or the other.There never were any transitional forms with fin rays and digits. And I predict that no matter how extensively the fossil record is searched, the phenotypic gap between fins and limbs will remain even as the genetic gap continues to diminish. "

While we could get into one of the usual arguments about how there is much more to Evolution than the work of Charles Darwin, something the DI only seems to remember when it suits them.  Usually they equate all of evolutionary theory with Darwin's work as a strawman so they can try and tear away pieces.

I do have a biological question about one of Denton's statements, he said "Organisms made one or the other".  That's not true is it?  Granted I have to go back a number of years to a biology class, but aren't there examples of both in the human body?  Let's try Wikipedia:

"A dermal bone or membrane bone is a bony structure derived from intramembranous ossification forming components of the vertebrate skeleton including much of the skull, jaws, gill covers, shoulder girdle and fin spines rays (lepidotrichia), and the shell (of tortoises and turtles)." (Wikipedia: Dermal Bone) 

"Endochondral ossification is one of the two essential processes during fetal development of the mammalian skeletal system by which bone tissue is created. Unlike intramembranous ossification, which is the other process by which bone tissue is created, cartilage is present during endochondral ossification. Endochondral ossification is also an essential process during the rudimentary formation of long bones, the growth of the length of long bones, and the natural healing of bone fractures." (Wikipedia: Endrochondral Bone)

That's what I thought, Denton's comment is wrong.  Humans produce bones using both processes.  Plus when you read the original article Denton started with, You have someone studying a subject for 20 years and then based on one article in the NY Times, Denton makes some erroneous statements, strange conclusions, and ends with a ridiculous prediction.

Even with that, what I found most interesting was this declarative statement, Denton's prediction.  He says 'no matter how extensively the fossil record is searched', really?  Isn't he making several assumptions?  First of all, is Denton a Paleontologist?

No, he's a Biochemist with a philosophical agreement with the ID community.  In fact he wrote one of the earliest books that influenced Phillip E. Johnson in his drive to form the Discovery Institute and legitimize his religious beliefs as science. That book (Evolution: A Theory in Crisis) was reviewed by actual scientists and they said that the book distorts and misrepresents evolutionary theory and contains numerous errors.  So, we have a Biochemist making predictions about the fossil record.  Anyone else see a problem with that?

Next issue, Denton seems to think the fossil record is a complete record.  Doesn't he realize that we are making new fossil discoveries all the time?  Paleontologists are still discovering, categorizing, and studying all the time.  As new discoveries are made, the fossil record changes, usually becoming more complete and better defined.  We discussed a good example of this back a few years ago.

Finally, the last part of his 'prediction' is his assumption that as the 'genetic gap' shrinks, and by that I believe he's saying that as we learn more and more and connect the fossil lineages closer and closer, there will never be a direct connection between limbs and fins.  So . . . I have to ask this, is Denton acknowledging that Intelligent Design in nothing more than a God-of-the-Gaps argument?

OK, maybe not 'god' of the gaps, but definitely using perceived gaps to try and make an argument against current evolutionary theory, oh wait, not current evolution, but 150-year old 'Darwinism', how could I confuse the two.  Denton called this a prediction, but in reality it's his opinion.  He might be right, but then how many opinions and even predictions opposing Evolution have come true?  Anyone else remember the "The Imminent Demise of Evolution: The Longest Running Falsehood in Creationism".  If you haven't read it, you might give it a go.  It's a nutshell view of the many 'predictions' made against evolutionary theory and how none of them have come true.

Back to his prediction.  Since the two bone formation processes (dermal and endochondral) are two different processes that produce different types of bone, would there be an expectation of a transitional form demonstrating one type to change into the other or is it more likely that one may replace the other?  I don't know what future discoveries will be (and neither does Denton), but I think what Denton's done is take two widely different things and then predict they won't intersect.  What this reminds me of is a common Creationist complaint about a dog never giving birth to a cat.  His 'prediction' seems to be highly improbable -- by design.