User:ScienceExplains/sandbox/LeboAttackedByDI

Lebo Conspiracy Theory
In his article |Dear Lauri Lebo, Please Help Me Understand Your Conspiracy Theory, David Klinghoffer, a Senior Fellow at the Discovery Institute (DI), expresses shock that “...a journalist who wrote a whole book about the Kitzmiller v. Dover case, isn’t aware of the enormous difference in content between creationism on one hand, and the scientific critique of Darwinism (sic), or the related theory of intelligent design, on the other.”

The article is a direct response to Creationism: Don’t Use the “C-Word”, which likens the Discovery Institute's president, Bruce Chapman, to “Brave” Sir Robin from the movie Monty Python and the Holy Grail.

Conspiracy Theory Responses
 Lebo responded with Still Trying to Get Creationism into Science Classes The differences (or lack thereof) between Intelligent Design (ID) and Creationism were a major theme in the book to which Klinghoffer refers, The Devil in Dover, in which Lebo details the explicit Christian-based intentions of the Dover school board. Other persons and organizations also conflated Creationism and ID

 The Discovery Institute  DI's own Wedge Document, text here, which proclaims the institute as being on a theistic, spiritual mission. “God” appears in the first sentence. The author of the document apparently also does not see a difference between Intelligent Design and Creationism. The lead scientist testifying for the Dover defense, Michael Behe, is, like Klinghoffer, a senior fellow with the Discovery Institute. His testimony is assessed for its intent to promote Intelligent Design as a way of promoting Christianity in the Dover Testimony section of his Wikipedia page. <li>William Dembski</li>

<ul type="a" alt="Dembski"> <li>in his Touchstone Magazine interview said, “Intelligent design is just the Logos theology of John’s Gospel restated in the idiom of information theory.” <li>“Christ is never an addendum to a scientific theory” in Intelligent Design: The Bridge Between Science & Theology, p.207 </li> </ul> </ul>

<li>Barbara Forrest, who “connects the dots" in her book she wrote with Paul R. Gross, Creationism’s Trojan Horse, and her article on Livingston Parish, between DI and Creationism</li> <li>Kitzmiller v. Dover trial judge John Jones III in his decision wrote that an Establishment Clause violation had occurred .</li> <li>Pat Robertson, who said that Dover had voted out God when they voted out all the pro-ID school board members up for reelection</li> </ul> </ul>

The Sensuous Curmudgeon addresses Klinghoffer's attacks on Lebo in Klinghoffer:“You Caught Us, So What?”.

lebo "amnesia", attack by John G. West, Senior Fellow at Disvoery Institute
In Lauri Lebo's Amnesia, John G. West makes several charges against Lebo:

<ol> <li>Claim: Lebo clearly was rooting for Kitzmiller

Lebo reported that she came in rooting for proof of god and saw "the hand of the Divine" in Intelligent Design. She was at first impressed with DI. (dd97)</li> <li>Claim: Lebo was "not a disinterested observer", although West gave no indication of how Lebo would benefit from the trial outcome, let alone evidence that the supposed benefit would sway her reporting, unless it was his statement further down in the article, "she tried to cash in on the Dover case by writing a book". West does not mention that possibility that she could have "cashed in" to a greater degree by supporting the creationist/ID side.</li> <li>Claim: Lebo called West dishonest for not agreeing with her, although West does not provide a quote or other evidence. In her book and articles, she does not level charges in that manner.</li> <li>Claim: Lebo said J Wells was wrong about a point in Wells' book, but Wells was not wrong. West does not indicate which claim he is talking about.

Lebo does mention a discussion with Wells himself in which Wells became snappy, saying that finches could not survive a sustained drought. Finches can survive droughts, and evolve quickly, according to the National Evolutionary Synthesis Center, now TriCEM. "Sustained" is not a measurable word.</li>

5. Lebo Styled herself a latter-day H.L. Mencken (skip, this is vague and may be only an extension of the "not disinterested" claim ) Mencken was a counter: The plaintiff's side referred to York Daily columnist Mike ARgento as "our Mencken". dd115 Howard Zinn compared and contrasted Lebo to Mencken http://laurilebo.com/dp/ The publish of DD made the strongest comparison in an advertisement for the book. http://thenewpress.com/books/devil-dover Lebo has quoted Mencken multiple times. 5. West cites only one review, a negative one, of The Devil in Dover (and as it turns out, a phantom review) the link West provides is one of Lebo's publisher for The Devil in Dover, The New Press http://thenewpress.com/index.php?option=com_title&task=view_title&metaproductid=1693 The page contains nothing about Lebo, the Devil in Dover, or any reviews of any books. The URL provides no indication that this page ever had anything about Lebo's book or any reviews. On the contrary, it indicates its content as "metaproduct". The phantom reviewer twists Lebo's words to say that she is against objectivity in reporting (this is addressed in the article in the Journalistic philosophy section)

6. Lebo was hostile to West counter: The scientists "patiently undulged" Lebo's "uninformed question". The DI people reacted to questions with hostility (dd43). 6. references Lebo's article on "Stealth Creationism bills" http://religiondispatches.org/record-number-of-stealth-creationism-bills-introduced-in-2011/

... claiming that her claim that there is no such thing as ID research was proven false by	http://www.evolutionnews.org/2011/03/no_peer-reviewed_id_research_j044851.html (so, separate section below for this page, which also attacks Lebo personally) general counter: The DI examples may not be ID research, just biology research. The first example seems to show that if a bird's feathers were different in any way, birds could not fly. This is part of their "irreducible complexity" theme. "IC" does not disprove evolution, since, for example, Ostriches do not fly but have feathers. It may be that all dinosaurs had feathers, but none of them flew. (Pterodactyls were not dinosaurs and did not use feathers to fly) <"cherry-picking" is a weak counter to IC: IC might argue that even if ONE animal could not function without its IC, then IC is relevant>Also, one could argue that IC is inherently a "cherry-picking" endeavor: it focuses on aspects of currently successful species. ABout 99.5% of all species that have lived on Earth have gone extinct, whih could be interpreted as a failure of a designer 7. The "amnesia" issue. The claim starts with a misquote of Lebo and DI itself regarding the post-Dover emphasis by DI.

The article Lebo supposedly forgot is under subscription at the York Daily Record site. The URL is a search-result URL (for the dates 2004-07-01 thru 2004-12-20), returning the indicated article name for 2004-10-20 Lebo article, http://nl.newsbank.com/nl-search/we/Archives?p_product=YK&p_theme=yk&p_action=search&p_maxdocs=200&s_dispstring=headline%28dover%20curriculum%29%20AND%20date%287/1/2004%20to%2012/20/2004%29&p_field_date-0=YMD_date&p_params_date-0=date:B,E&p_text_date-0=7/1/2004%20to%2012/20/2004%29&p_field_advanced-0=title&p_text_advanced-0=%28%22dover%20curriculum%22%29&xcal_numdocs=20&p_perpage=10&p_sort=YMD_date:D&xcal_useweights=no

"Dover curriculum move likely a first; Even some supporters of intelligent design suggest the board might have overstepped," So I can'taddress this article per DD (Devil in Dover) p 35 William "Bill" Buckingham, head of district curriculum committee at the time, said DI first offered to help, then feared losing the suit. But p29, Buckingham also claimed his memory is fuzzy due to a painkiller addiction

So there are 2 counters to the amnesia claim A. (a weak counter) DI was not consistent in its proclamations, so it is understandable if someone thought they made a major shift due to the Dover suit B. Elsberry's article below

Wesley R. Elsberry's personal weblog, The Austringer addresses Lebo's "amnesia" http://austringer.net/wp/index.php/2011/03/23/john-g-wests-cognitive-deficit/