Coyne: Forbes Debases Journalism and Science
Professor Jerry Coyne reads the scientific riot act to Forbes Magazine, for “balancing” their stories on Charles Darwin’s birthday by giving several of the most benighted creationists in America a platform from which to shout their nonsense: Why Evolution Is True.
Far more disturbing is Forbes’ ham-handed policy of “balancing” the views of evolutionists by giving a say to Egnor and four other creationists. (Their articles, found here, are at least as misleading as Egnor’s.) Perhaps Forbes sees Darwinism as “controversial.” But it’s not, at least not in a scientific sense. Scientifically, evolution is a settled issue—a fact.
The only “controversy” is social and political: Will Americans, in violation of the First Amendment of the Constitution, be allowed to impose a false, religiously based view of biology in the public schools? This “teach the controversy” approach, so popular among fundamentalists, ill suits a publication with the gravitas of Forbes.
Can we expect that it will balance stories on medicine with the competing views of shamans, Christian Scientists and spiritual healers? Will articles on the Holocaust be rebutted by the many Holocaust deniers? When the 40th anniversary of the first moon landing rolls around this July, will Forbes give a say to paranoids who think the landing was a fraud, staged on a movie lot?
This, in effect, is what Forbes has done by giving equal time to evolution-deniers. Journalists have an obligation to be fair, but this doesn’t mean that they must give charlatans a prestigious platform from which to broadcast their lies. By doing so, Forbes has debased both journalism and science.
Hear hear!
I wasn’t very happy with Forbes either, for publishing a typically deceptive piece by Dishonesty Institute shill John G. West: Discovery Institute Propaganda Everywhere.
Frank says: