WorldNetDaily has an article about the false smear of California parent Larry Caldwell by Eugenie Scott of the National Center for Science Education. According to the article, Scott has yet to respond to Caldwell’s request for a retraction:
Caldwell asked for a response by 5 p.m. yesterday but has heard nothing from Scott…
“It just shows that even after they’ve been told in detail the specific facts, they are not willing to rely on the truth in this debate,” Caldwell said.
“It just confirms to me they have a strategy of using misinformation.”
As of this morning, the NCSE’s website is still running its link to Scott’s article about Caldwell, which falsely claims that he tried to get his district to adopt two creationist books as part of the district’s curriculum.
Of course, this isn’t the first time NCSE officials have been guilty of spreading false information about those they disagree with. In 2002, NCSE officials Kevin Padian and Alan Gishlick impugned the science credentials of biologist Jonathan Wells by claiming that after Wells obtained his Ph.D. in biology, he “followed this with a 5-year postdoctoral position…during which time he seems to have performed no experiments” and “no peer-reviewed publications resulted.” Both claims were false. Wells did perform experiments in his post-doctoral position, and those experiments did generate peer-reviewed publications. But even after being sent documentation of these facts, Padian and Gishlick refused to correct the record. For details of their outrageous defamation of Wells, you can read the pdf document posted here. Spreading false information about others appears to be part of standard practice at the NCSE.