Hurdle trips up on evolution in the NYT

On April 19th Philadelphia marked the beginning of it's "Year of Evolution," a year-long celebration of the science that, to paraphrase Dobzhansky, makes sense of biology. Jon Hurdle has an article about the festivities in today's New York Times, but right out of the gate what could have been a good article is marred by putting everything in the context of the evolution v. creationism culture wars. Rather than praising Philadelphia for supporting good, established science the year-long series of events is tacitly cast as a reaction to creationism;

In the long-running culture war between evolution and creationism, Philadelphia is firing the latest shot.

Outside of some future appearance by John E. Jones III (the judge of the famous Dover trial) no details about the events are given, and Ken Ham and his creationist funhouse is given plenty of space on the page. Giving Ham so much room is unnecessary for an article that is supposed to be about the Year of Evolution events. No mention is made of Donald Johanson's lecture about "Lucy" a few months ago nor the upcoming lectures by Janet Browne & Ken Miller, much less the conference "Darwin's Legacy in 21st Century Biology." All we get is a stale reiteration that some people are upset that their closest living relatives are apes. Hell, the article doesn't even include the address of the Year of Evolution website so people can have a look at it for themselves; what kind of sloppy reporting is this?

I also found the quote from Janet Monge, one of the organizers for the Year of Evolution, to be a bit unfortunate. I do not want to become too incised because it is a soundbite from what I assume was a longer conversation, but I'm sure the statements will provide some quote-mining opportunities to unscrupulous creationists;

"The strengths and weaknesses of evolution are the strengths and weaknesses of science," said Dr. Monge, the curator of the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology at the University of Pennsylvania. "You don't get answers."

I don't think that we are served at all well by the language of "strengths and weaknesses of evolution" (a rhetorical technique that has been chosen by our opponents). The interplay of fact & theory and the intricacies of what science can & cannot explain are too broad in scope to be summed up in such a small space, and while I think I understand what Dr. Monge was getting at I'm not so sure that other readers will. The last snippet, "You don't get answers," is also perplexing. What answers are unavailable? Are we talking about Truth or ultimate causes or something else entirely? It's the sort of statement that requires more explanation than a newspaper column seems willing to give.

As I have stated before I think that the creationism v. evolution controversy is a symptom of larger cultural issues and problems in the U.S., from a swell in fundamentalist religious fervor to a lack of good science education in public schools. Such cultural conflicts deserve a coverage in newspapers, but I have grown tired of seeing boilerplate summaries that ignore good science and ramp up controversy instead. I look at the Year of Evolution as an event aiming to get people interested in science and stir a greater understanding of what evolution actually is, a positive event in which conflict with creationism plays only a minor role. The NYT piece makes it out to be something almost entirely different, manufactured controversy overshadowing thrilling scientific discovery.

[Hat-tip to Chris H]