Editor,
Livescience,
c/- Press Inquiries,
Imaginova.com
cc. CreationEvolutionDesign blog [with "9 January 2005" corrected in title]
In the article "Scientists Finally Figure Out How Bees Fly," Sara Goudarzi, LiveScience, 9 January 2006, the claim is made that:
"Proponents of intelligent design, which holds that a supreme being rather than evolution is responsible for life's complexities, have long criticized science for not being able to explain some natural phenomena, such as how bees fly."
and:
The same article was repeated on MSNBC, Fox News and Yahoo!."Proponents of intelligent design, or ID, have tried in recent years to promote the idea of a supreme being by discounting science because it can't explain everything in nature. "People in the ID community have said that we don't even know how bees fly," Altshuler said. "We were finally able to put this one to rest."
I have been a member of the ID movement since 1995, and have read most of its literature, and I have never heard of a claim by a proponent of intelligent design that "science ... can't explain ... how bees fly."
And after a Google search on "intelligent design" and "bees", I could not find such a claim. However, I did discover a discussion of your article at Bill Dembski's Uncommon Descent blog, and no one there had heard of the claim either.
So I would appreciate your journalist Sara Goudarzi or Douglas Altshuler (who seems to have been the source of the allegation), either letting me know where "Proponents of intelligent design ... have long criticized science for not being able to explain ... how bees fly," or issuing a public retraction.
Thank you.
Stephen E. Jones
http://creationevolutiondesign.blogspot.com/
Posts
7 comments:
I seem to remember something about this in the Disney movie "The Computer who wore Tennis Shoes"- starring a very young Kurt Russell.
In that movie there was a "nerd" who was out to "prove" that bees should not be able to fly due to something in physics.
Perhaps the authors thought that movie was indicative of IDists...
And now for a plug for my pro-ID blog:
http://intelligentreasoning.blogspot.com
Joe G
Thanks for your comment.
Personally I suspect he just made it up, to enhance his paper's (and his own) importance.
I have added your blog "Intelligent Reasoning" to my blog's sidebar. I am looking forward to reading your posts.
Stephen E. Jones
inunison
Thanks for your comment.
inunison said...
>These guys are realy something, don't you think? Spinning a story like this and all media just takes it for granted.
Not just the media. It is amazing how many anti-ID blogs uncritically accepted it. I was particularly amused that the "Georgia Citizens for Integrity in Science Education"
(http://tinyurl.com/a8x5k) believed it!
I have had no response to date from Livescience BTW, nor am I expecting any.
>When will Darwinists stop using what is clearly another indication of design in nature, as if supports their own dogma?
Well, they are entitled to present evidence that "supports their own dogma" if they want to. But they should not invent straw man claims about ID in order to make their evidence seem more important than it is.
>I can only conclude that they must be desparate.
Agreed. When ID's opponents resort to inventing falsehoods out of thin air to discredit ID, then ID's proponents (and hopefully the general public watching the debate from the sidelines) are entitled to conclude that the Darwinists must indeed be getting "desperate"!
Stephen E. Jones
Dear Stephen,
Thanks for your standing for Intelligent Design!
I believe that thinking people is really catching the Darwinists deception. Specially students, myself being one of them. The next generation of researchers will be an ID packed generation!
As we can see here and there and everywhere! (smile).
So, even if those two persons lack of the necessary guts to document their claims, specially Altshuler, the male one, I can see that the rest of the people is reading just the opposite to Altshuler's ideological and baseless claims!
fdocc
Thanks for your comment.
>fdocc said...
>
>Dear Stephen,
>
>Thanks for your standing for Intelligent Design!
Thank you.
>I believe that thinking people is really catching the Darwinists deception. Specially students, myself being one of them. The next generation of researchers will be an ID packed generation!
With the combination of the problems of Darwinism (in my next post I will show that even Dawkins has abandoned Darwinism) and the increasing evidence for design, I hope that is the case.
>As we can see here and there and everywhere! (smile).
I have added your blog, Research on Intelligent Design, to my blog's sidebar.
>So, even if those two persons lack of the necessary guts to document their claims, specially Altshuler, the male one, I can see that the rest of the people is reading just the opposite to Altshuler's ideological and baseless claims!
These Darwinists don't seem to realise (or care) that the more they use false and/or dishonest arguments, the less the public will trust them.
They may arrogantly not think it matters, but they will find out the hard way that it does!
Stephen E. Jones
Dear Stephen,
Thanks for your response!
Any news?
I only found that Douglas Altshuler is being used as a bad example of a baseless "stereotyping" vs. ID,
Activism...
Next is the Quote:
"There is plenty of evidence that this group suffers from stereotypes (such as Douglas Altshuler claiming that, “People in the ID community have said that we don’t even know how bees fly.”), but no systematic surveys."
fdocc
F>Dear Stephen,
>
>Thanks for your response!
>
>Any news?
No. And I never expected any.
F>I only found that Douglas Altshuler is being used as a bad example of a baseless "stereotyping" vs. ID,
Or a *good* example! :-)
[...]
Stephen E. Jones
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