Graham Lawton and Darwin was Wrong

New Scientist this week has an eye grabbing cover.

The cover sports a big green tree with the words “Darwin Was Wrong.” I hope they sell a lot of magazines with that load of tripe, since they certainly were not thinking about the generations of school kids and church-goers who will now be treated to that cover in every creationist power point presentation between now and the Rapture. How many people do you think will actually read the article to discover what it was, precisely, that Darwin got wrong?

(from EvolutionBlog)

There's some fair (I think) coverage in a couple of places like Sandwalk and lots of not so fair coverage everywhere else.

I don't really understand what the big deal is. How dare a mainstream publication use a sensational cover to help sell copies? How dare a journalist cover a story that might be quote mined selectively by creationists?

It doesn't really matter if you're on a magazine front cover or tucked away on pg 127 - if somebody wants to quote you out of context then they can. Surely the thing to do at that point is to confront the person doing the mis-quoting, not to berate the original author.

The cover does make a lovely image for ID proponents to include in powerpoint presentations, yes. But why should New Scientist care? Why should they pander to creationists and sell fewer copies of a magazine that probably does more than any number of science blogs to get schoolkids interested in science?

Graham Lawton is not the enemy.

(New Scientist is full of crap sometimes, though)