Techcordance

Bias?

Last week I did an interview with an NPR reporter, Bob Garfield, for his NPR show “On the Media” about the recent Texas decision. I am used to hostile and skeptical questions from the media–and in fact I generally welcome good, hard discussions from reporters. But this reporter was particularly hostile and seemed to have an agenda to paint Darwin-skeptics like crazy religious fanatics. The final story lived up to its expectations.

The Interview: A string of False Accusations and “How Dare You?” Type Questions

The interview started with benign questions about the recent decision of the Texas State Board of Education to welcome scientific critique of evolution into the curriculum. This quickly descended into various “how dare you” type questions, about whether this was all a plot by the “Religious Right” to insert religion into public schools, and why I rejected all the fossil and cosmological evidence that shows the universe isn’t 10,000 years old. “Huh?,” I replied. I quickly informed Mr. Garfield that not only do we oppose advocating religion in science classrooms, but that I’m not a young earth creationist, and that the debate in Texas has never been about young earth creationism. The new Texas Science Standards only require scientific critical analysis of evolution, and in no way shape or form invited biblical creationism or religion into the classroom.
Mr. Garfield was also reminded that many of the 13 members of the Texas State Board of Education who voted for the new science standards both professed to accept evolution and stridently opposed the teaching of creationism, and thus it would seem highly unlikely that the new Texas standards were a “Trojan horse” for teaching religion. Nonetheless, the final story favorably quoted members of the evolution lobby saying this is all a ruse for creationism.

Original Broadcast

Pirate Bay Trial

In one of the biggest technology-oriented legal cases of the year (the entire trial was broadcast live on Swedish TV), the four men responsible for the operation of the notorious Pirate Bay website — an unapologetic haven for obtaining copyrighted music, TV shows, movies, software, and just about anything else for free — have at last been found guilty of “assisting in making copyright content available.” All four defendants have been sentenced to one year in prison and are compelled to pay damages of $905,000 each.
The verdict is paradoxically both surprising and wholly expected. On the surface, it’s obvious that The Pirate Bay has always done what it was charged with, “assisting in making copyright content available” is the site’s very charter, and the website has long been upfront that that’s exactly what it does. But TPB has always offered up the defense that, under Swedish law, making copyrighted material available for download is not actually illegal. Some of its letters to Hollywood studios in response to demands that it take down copies of various movies linked on the site are downright hysterical in their brashness.