Talk:Free Speech on Evolution

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Articles for deletion This article was nominated for deletion on May 29, 2007. The result of the discussion was keep.
Creationism Portal
This article is supported by the Intelligent design WikiProject.

This project provides a central approach to Intelligent design-related subjects on Wikipedia.
Please participate by editing the article, and help us assess and improve articles to good and 1.0 standards, or visit the wikiproject page for more details.
Start This article has been rated as Start-Class on the Project's quality scale.
Mid This article has been rated as Mid-importance on the importance scale.

The article has been rated for quality and/or importance but has no comments yet. If appropriate, please review the article and then leave comments here to identify the strengths and weaknesses of the article and what work it will need.

[edit] Notability

Did this petition ever get any mainstream media coverage? The references in it seem to be exclusively to coverage of underlying issues and the DI playing it up. If not, it probably does not meet WP:NOTE, so I'm tagging it for notability. HrafnTalkStalk 03:48, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

The topic is notable on its face and the sources there are more than sufficient. I'll strongly oppose any attempt to delete this article. FeloniousMonk (talk) 06:34, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

Let's look at the citations. First weeding out the ones coming straight out of the DI:

  1. ^ Bush Remarks On 'Intelligent Design' Theory Fuel Debate Peter Baker, Peter Slevin. Washington Post, August 3, 2005.
  2. ^ A Country Ruled by Faith Garry Wills. The New York Review of Books, November 16, 2006.
  5. ^ Statement on the Teaching of Evolution American Association for the Advancement of Science, 2006.
  6. ^ Science and Creationism: A View from the National Academy of Sciences, Second Edition National Academy of Sciences, 1999.
  7. ^ Ruling, Kitzmiller v. Dover page 83
  8. ^ "Not a single expert witness over the course of the six week trial identified one major scientific association, society or organization that endorsed ID as science." Ruling, page 70 Kitzmiller v. Dover.
  9. ^ Finding the Evolution in Medicine, Cynthia Delgado, NIH Record, National Institutes of Health, Vol. LVIII, No. 15, July 28, 2006
 14. ^ Intelligent-design backers applaud Bush World Net Daily, August 3, 2005.
 15. ^ Bush Praised for Defending Free Speech on Theory of Life's Origin Jim Brown. AgapePress, American Family Association, August 5, 2005.
 16. ^ President Bush calls for teaching Intelligent Design in schools Good News Magazine.
 17. ^ While we're at it, let's also fire the math teachers who can't do algebra PZ Myers. Pharyngula (blog). August 01, 2005.
 18. ^ Letter to the St. Petersburg Times on ID Poll Wesley R. Elsberry. The Panda's Thumb. January 1, 2006.
 19. ^ The Lie: "New Mexico's Science Standards embrace the Intelligent Design Movement's 'Teach the Controversy' Approach" New Mexicans for Science and Reason.

Of these:

  • (1), (2) & (19) appear to be more closely related to the Teach the Controversy campaign, the only mention of "free speech" was a passing quote from the DI (in 1 & 2).
  • (5) is related to the Creationism-Evolution controversy in general
  • (7) & (8) -- Kitzmiller wasn't a Free Speech case
  • (9) is about evolution in medicine, not free speech
  • (14) World Net Daily, AgapePress & Good News Magazine are hardly a reliable sources
  • (17) While blogs may at times be WP:RS, they are too minor a source constitute "significant coverage" on their own
  • (18) Ditto, and only makes a passing reference to "free speech"

Like many articles I have come across on wikipedia, this has lots of references on peripheral issues, but a gaping hole in terms of independent references for the core topic. 'Free Speech on Evolution' appears to have served as a minor, and not particularly successful, adjunct to Teach the Controversy and the various discrimination campaigns. No, I am not advocating its deletion, but I am considering advocating its merger, either into TtC or Discovery Institute intelligent design campaigns‎. HrafnTalkStalk 07:06, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

I did a Google search on "free speech" & "evolution", here are the top results:

  1. An article on the evolution of free speach
  2. The Center for Science and Culture
  3. This article
  4. Evolution News & Views
  5. A DVD on the Scopes Trial entitled Monkey Trial: Evolution, Creationism and Free Speech in Court

Paging down a couple more pages, none of the further hits seemed relevant to "free speech on evolution". Whilst Google results don't normally equal notability, when it's a media campaign that you're talking about, lack of external uptake of your messsage would seem to be a very bad sign that your meme isn't being heard & repeated. HrafnTalkStalk 11:21, 27 February 2008 (UTC)