Our Marvelous Media: The Evolution Edition

Shouldn't the same standards of accuracy and truth that govern our journalists and editorial writers also apply to our opinion page editors and the submissions they accept. Would a mainstream paper publish an editorial outlining all the 'evidence' accumulated by Holocaust deniers?

USA Today wades in with their shorts down.

USATODAY.com - Evolution lacks fossil link:

"I realize that is a dramatic statement, so to be clear, let me restate: There is zero scientific fossil evidence that demonstrates organic evolutionary linkage between primates and man.

Darwin's famous The Origin of Species concludes that over eons of time, and through countless mutations, man evolved from an ape-like ancestor. It takes an enormous leap of faith (oh my, there's one of those terrible religious words!) to conclude that man evolved from ape without any empirical fossil evidence. "

So Utah State Senator "D. Chris Buttars, R-West Jordan, is active on the evolution-education issue." But how exactly does that authorizse him to pen a specious and inaccurate piece in a major daily? Forget refutation -- if something is false you should not be able to print it. Chris Mooney - blogger for science extraordinaire has it much better than I. And John Cole has more.