Of time, science, evolution … and ID?

Having been trained as a geologist, I have some sense of the immensity of geologic time. In today’s New York Times, op-ed columnist Verlyn Klinkenborg offers the view that “[n]early every attack on evolution – whether it is called intelligent design or plain creationism, synonyms for the same faith-based rejection of evolution – ultimately requires a foreshortening of cosmological, geological and biological time.”

Klinkenborg’s argument is one of the strongest (and best-written) I’ve seen lately of the consequences on science that public acceptance of faith-based alternatives to evolution represents. From the column:

Accepting the fact of evolution does not necessarily mean discarding a personal faith in God. But accepting intelligent design means discarding science. Much has been made of a 2004 poll showing that some 45 percent of Americans believe that the Earth – and humans with it – was created as described in the book of Genesis, and within the past 10,000 years. This isn’t a triumph of faith. It’s a failure of education.

That last line — “a failure of education” — rings true these days. Just look into American students’ performance in math and science compared with other nations. I’d argue science is now something that a growing number of Americans fear rather than embrace. That’s not a healthy public attitude when it comes to deciding educational priorities at all school levels.

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Editor tired of J profs (like me) bashing newspapers

An editor for a Lee Enterprises newspaper in Wisconsin took me and other journalism professors to task last week for criticizing corporately owned newspapers. While I didn’t appreciate assumptions he made about me, he raises points about modern newspapering that deserve wider circulation.

See Randolph D. Brant’s piece at E&P or read on …