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Intelligent Design” Professional Biologist Media Coverage of “Intelligent Design” JASON ROSENHOUSE AND GLENN BRANCH News media coverage of the controversy surrounding recent attempts to insert creationism into public school science curricula—this time in the form of “intelligent design”—has generated miles of copy and hours of television footage. The quality of that reporting varies widely, depending on the media outlet. Often, reporters with no scientific training are assigned to report on evolution–creationism controversies, which inevitably leads to distortions of the relevant science. A misconceived concern for balance frequently results in equal time being accorded to biologists and creationists, creating the illusion of scientific equivalence. At other times, a clear bias toward creationism is revealed, especially on cable television. Focusing mainly on recent treatments, this article analyzes and critiques specific stories, as well as trends and patterns in coverage in newspapers, magazines, and television; it concludes with suggestions of ways in which scientists can be more effective in dealing with the media. Keywords: evolution, intelligent design, media, creationism, education ncreasingly in the past few years, states and local ignore the fact that the creation scientists before them made Ischool districts have had to confront challenges to science similar claims of scientific rigor. education instigated by antievolutionists. Part of the reason Proponents of ID further claim that their methods, when for this surge of antievolution activity is the repackaging of applied to biological systems such as the human blood- creationism in the less overtly religious form of “intelligent clotting cascade, reveal that these complex systems must be design”(ID), which enjoys the support of a number of promi- the products of an intelligent agent. It is natural to suppose nent, politically conservative groups and individuals. As a re- that the designer is God, but ID proponents, mindful of sult of this activity, the news media have produced miles of potential constitutional challenges to teaching that idea in the copy and hours of television footage in their coverage of public schools, are adamant that science is incapable of val- evolution and ID. The quality of this reporting varies widely, idating that identification. depending on the media outlet. Most ID literature is devoted to attacks on modern evo- lutionary theory. Proponents claim that the scientific lines of Terms of the debate evidence used to support evolution are dubious at best. Such The landscape of this debate has changed considerably since arguments are recognizable as a proper subset of the tradi- tional creationist canon. Also prominent in ID-generated the antievolution flare-ups of the 1970s and 1980s. Terms such literature are philosophical and sociological claims that like- as “creation science” and “originally created kinds” have wise have precursors in creation science. Among these claims nearly disappeared from the discussion. Defenders of a are that modern science unreasonably and arbitrarily bars young Earth and ancient global flood are still around, but a supernatural explanations from receiving a fair hearing, and string of adverse court decisions made it impossible for that “the Darwinian establishment”is so powerful and mono- them to have their ideas openly presented in public school lithic that the traditional venues of scientific discourse are science classes. closed to ID proponents. Proponents of ID often bristle at the term “creationism.” It is not the purpose of this article to analyze the merits of In the public consciousness, that term is laden with the sort ID arguments. The major scientific and philosophical claims of religious connotations ID supporters wish to abjure. They for ID have already been assessed and refuted in several books claim that there are scientifically rigorous methods by which (Miller 1999, Pennock 1999, 2001,Young and Edis 2004).The the products of an intelligent agent can be identified, inde- religious motivations of the ID movement, along with its pendent of any knowledge concerning the history of those products. As an elementary illustration, they point to the faces on Mount Rushmore: Only the action of an intelligent Jason Rosenhouse (e-mail: [email protected]) is an assistant professor in the agent, and not natural forces like weathering and erosion, can Department of Mathematics and Statistics, James Madison University, account for them. It is in large part this assertion of scientific Harrisonburg, VA 22807. Glenn Branch (e-mail: [email protected]) is rigor that ID proponents claim distinguishes their creed from deputy director of the National Center for Science Education, Oakland, CA traditional creationism. In making this assertion, however, they 94609. © 2006 American Institute of Biological Sciences. www.biosciencemag.org March 2006 / Vol. 56 No. 3 • BioScience 247 Professional Biologist attempts to craft a constitutionally acceptable form of cre- typical example comes from the article “‘Call to Arms’ on Evo- ationism, have also been documented at book length (Forrest lution,”published in USA Today: and Gross 2004). Nor is it our intention either to argue, as Forrest and Gross (2004) and Coyne (2005) have, that ID is To most scientists, evolution is defined as changes in a historical continuation of traditional creationism, or to genes that lead to the development of species. They see pursue a sociological investigation of the antievolution move- it as a fundamental insight in biology. ment (such as Eve and Harrold 1991 or Toumey 1994). Rather, our intention is to consider the manner in which Creationism is the belief that species have divine origin. the nation’s major media outlets cover the evolution–ID is- sue. Writing in Columbia Journalism Review, Chris Mooney Another alternative to evolution is called “intelligent and Matthew Nisbet (2005) note that in covering this issue, design.” Proponents believe some cellular structures are the media transforms “an entirely lopsided debate within too complex to have evolved over time. (Vergano and the scientific community” into an “evenly divided one in the Toppo 2005, p. 7D) popular arena.”We agree with this conclusion, and will pre- sent concrete examples of the rhetorical techniques through None of these definitions would be regarded as adequate which this transformation is achieved. On the basis of these by any of the participants in the debate. Even worse, they pre- examples, we will offer several suggestions for how scientists sent a distorted picture in which ID is distinct from cre- can more fruitfully engage the media. ationism and both are “alternatives” to evolution, and in News about the evolution–ID issue seems to break almost which the massive evidence for evolution, on the one hand, daily. Consequently, any analysis of media coverage will be out- and the scientific bankruptcy and religious agendas of the “al- dated almost as soon as it is written. In this article we focus ternatives,”on the other, are completely neglected. Also typ- exclusively on a half year’s worth of media—articles written ical is a back-and-forth style of reporting, in which a quote and shows aired between November 2004 and April 2005. We from one side is mechanically balanced in the next para- graph by a quote from the other. There is little attempt to eval- begin with coverage in the wake of the presidential election, uate the merits of what each side is saying. The USA Today because the ID movement received a boost with the reelec- article quoted above supplies a good example: tion of President George W.Bush, who, as he publicly disclosed during a press conference in August 2005, is sympathetic to Says Stephen Meyer of the Seattle-based Discovery the ID cause. For a discussion of more recent examples of me- Institute, which promotes intelligent design: “My first dia coverage, we recommend the article by Mooney and Nis- reaction is we’re seeing evidence of some panic among bet (2005). Furthermore, we have confined our analysis to just the official spokesmen for science.” He says [NAS Presi- three forms of media: major national newspapers, weekly dent Bruce] Alberts is wrong—that intelligent design is newsmagazines, and cable television news channels. not creationism but a scientific approach more open- minded than Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution. Newspapers Several themes emerge in the news coverage of evolution– Biologists retort that any reproducible data validating creationism disputes in the largest newspapers in the United intelligent design would be welcome in science journals. States. First, very little science finds its way into the coverage. “If there were indeed deep flaws in parts of evolutionary Because most of these disputes concern public education, it biology, then scientists would be the first to charge in is usually a reporter who specializes in education or politics, there,” says Jeffrey Palmer of Indiana University in rather than a science reporter, who is assigned to the story. Evo- Bloomington. lution is often not defined at all, or is defined in grossly in- accurate terms. The history of evolutionary theory typically Meyer counters that scientific leaders such as Alberts is given short shrift as well. Evolution is often described as block a fair hearing of evolution alternatives. “There are “Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution”(as if biology has not powerful institutional and systematic conventions in progressed since 1859). This usage persists for at least two science that keep (intelligent) design from being consid- reasons: the media’s need to put a human face on the issue ered a scientific process,” he says. (Vergano and Toppo by attaching a name to the theory, and the creationists’ sus- 2005, p. 7D) tained campaign to present evolution as a relic of the 19th century. Thus, evolution supporters are “Darwinists,”and any- From such exchanges a lay reader could hardly avoid draw- thing related to modern evolutionary science is “Darwinism.” ing the erroneous conclusion that there is some genuine con- The journalistic need for succinct definitions also distorts troversy here between rival scientific camps.
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