Reuters/CNN have creationist bias?

When I went online I saw an interesting title link on a study which suggests clays may take part in forming early life molecules. I found that particularly exciting as this is something I have mentioned on this forum and am glad to see it is making some headway.So I followed the link to CNN, which was printing what it claims is a Reuters article.:
CNN.com - Study suggests life sprang from clay - Oct. 25, 2003What you will find is an interesting study on clay-life molecule interactions. EXCEPT, that it begins and ends by talking about RELIGION and CREATIONISM.The story is not that science has found more evidence which suggests abiogenesis may have happened, but that SCIENCE IS PROVING BIBLICAL CREATION RIGHT????excerpted beginning and end.. Do the beginning and ending paragraphs even match their neighboring paragraphs regarding the study. That last paragraph especially comes out of nowhere.Why are two respected news organizations having to bookend a purely scientific article with religion, making it appear that this is what the study suggests?There is no real mention of how important this is to a naturalist explanation of how life may have formed, and that in reality this hurts those saying abiogenesis is chemically impossible (to support creationist theory).I may have to give up hope that there is an objective news source on this planet.------------------
holmes[This message has been edited by holmes, 10-27-2003][This message has been edited by holmes, 10-27-2003]

Because science writing isn't about communicating science. It's about making it engaging. An article about clay and early life isn't really engaging, except to us. But sandwich it as a connection between science and religion, popularly viewed to be at loggerheads about this, and it takes on a "so they were right all along" flavor, which sells stories.Ultimately news is about money, and that requires that writing be interesting. I agree that this particular attempt is rather ham-fisted, however. A better attempt would have actually have sought quotes from religious figures or creationists.

Media (in the raw sense of people/persons) is always biased,
...metaphysical entities do the writing, no?
...empirical entities do the writing, no?
...spiritual entities do the writing, no?
...greedy entities do the writing, no?
You see where it all leads? Bias, points-of-view, romance, politics, money, religion, hyper-existentialism, etc. (pick your fallacy)You gotto admit: Time magazine is profanely ToE biased in scientific discourses (as are most other 'science' mags, methinks).

You seem to be forgetting the ToE is the only scientific explanation for the area it covers. It isn't "biased", in the way we usually use that word, if you go with what is independently the only choice.Some goodly fraction of this site is involved with the demonstration of the correctness of the above statement. We still wait for evidence that would suggest any other idea that Time or any "science" mag would discuss.

"the ToE is the only scientific explanation for the area it covers"That sounds like saying "life on other planets concurs with science". Science proves ETs to be so improbable as to be utterly unscientific (just like it disproves the mega-ToE).Remember, bold speculation (no matter how dogmatic) is not science until appropriate evidence makes it tenable.Thus, you seem to be pushing paradigms (sinuous lies), unless you explicitly refer to Time Magazine's micro-ToE discourses (NS, etc.)

Hi holmes,
I hope you were not relying on CNN as a source of unbiased or even passable news. Particularly their science reporting. Since the merger (or directly preceding it) with AOL, CNN has been completely degrading in quality. Does anyone remember the images of Palestenians celebrating in the streets on 9-11 which was actually old footage of celebrations of winning a soccer match? Talk about trying to bias the public in favor of a particular view. AOL Time Warner must have slimed the Clinton and Bush administrations big time to overcome the regulatory hurdles for the merger and are probably now completely beholden to the government.Their science reporting in particular is crap. They use such simplified terms as to render the original studies barely comprehensible. In addition, they and ABC news online contradict themselves i.e. they did a report on mammoth DNA and then a year later in another report claimed mammoth DNA had never been retrieved.That they would have a creationist bias? Maybe. More likely pure incompetence with no particular oversight or good editing.

What an odd sentence! First, life on other planets of course concurs with science. However, science "proves" nothing about ET's as yet. We simply don't know enough to say whether there is life anywhere else or not. If you mean "flying saucers" visiting us then what we do know suggests that they are, in fact, highly unlikely.Now you can take your "disproves the mega-ToE" comment and elaborate if you would like. There are probably threads already open for you to comment in. If not you could certainly open others.You hint you are arguing from probablilty arguments. That might belong in the CSI threads. What I have seen of probability arguments is they apply to abiogenesis and not he ToE so you may be off base to begin with.You made an assertion. If you've been reading here for any length of time at all you already know that an unsupported assertion isn't worth the disk space taken to store it. Are you prepared to support what you assert?

Actually a printing of objective facts does not have to be biased. I think one of the largest ironies I have found is that the Christian Science Monitor has some of the most nonbiased reporting on many issues.I realize bias often enters the picture, and it takes work to keep it out, but it is unnecessary to the process of delivering information.I worry that the main reason there is bias in media is that it is what the people are asking for (with how they spend their money). They don't want facts that they must assemble for themselves, but prefab opinion with the evidence necessary to support it.------------------
holmes

Originally I used CNN as a source. That lasted from the first Gulf War until about 1.5-2 years ago. I am unsure if that was when the merger happened, but it was when I saw unquestionably biased stories. Not that they were always against my own opinion, just that I recognized I was watching opinion and not news.That's when I switched to Reuters/AP. Since they are supposed to be the news media's new media, I figured they would be pretty straightforward... just the facts.When I saw the above article at CNN at first I was just upset with how bad CNN had gotten, then I realized it was from REUTERS! If they have been "gotten to", I am unsure where to go now for actual news that is devoid of opinion and fluff.------------------
holmes

Yeah, but I was under the impression that reuters was free of that problem. They are supposed to be the news stream that other news sources pick from.Besides, if anyone wanted to sex it up, why not say "Clay Proves Life Not Blown in By Breath of God", or "Scientists Dance on Grave of Creationists".------------------
holmes

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You gotto admit: Time magazine is profanely ToE biased in scientific discourses (as are most other 'science' mags, methinks).

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*GASP*To THINK that a SCIENCE publication would be biased in favor of a SCIENTIFIC theory!!!!!!!!!!What LOWS will they SINK to NEXT???????????????

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You made an assertion. If you've been reading here for any length of time at all you already know that an unsupported assertion isn't worth the disk space taken to store it. Are you prepared to support what you assert?

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Ned, the short answer to that question regarding Philip is, "No."He likes to make up his own undefined terms by the bushel, take fifty sentences to say nothing at all, then get annoyed and accuse people of being like robots when they prod him to explain what the heck he is talking about.It's not worth a lot of effort, IMO.

I thought Time was more of a current affairs magazine.You're right about bias appearing there, and in magazines like National Geographic, where there's an article on "Evolution of Man" every third issue or so. Once they opened an essay with a statement that despite the claims of the creationist/religious camp, science had always taught the truth of evolution. But as I said when I first came here, bias is pretty unavoidable whichever side you're on. Unless you're listing basic data and not making any arguments, you have to take a stand on the idea you prefer. A creationist speaker said a while back, "It's not a question of whether to be biased or not, it's a question of which is the best bias with which to be biased."

I would presume that the best bias would be the bias in favor of the evidence. It's difficult to me to see how a bias in favor of the statements of a very old book would help you find out how Things Really Are.

Jesus said that the bible was a book whose words will always remain. The proof of it is that were still here fighting about it. There are lots of historical accounts from lots of places outside the bible which talks about characters and events of the bible that were happening at that time. If you study the egyptian empire youll find in their writings the story of moses. If you study the roman empire youll find lots of stories about jesus in romen literatue of that era. The proof exists you just have to look for it. When you find it the desicion of believing or not belongs to you.------------------
BIG Bang=Bigger JOke