A few days ago, Forbes magazine published an online “Darwin issue,” containing a number of pieces by eminent philosophers and evolutionists, including Sean Carroll, Michael Ruse, and Adrian Desmond. For some strange reason—presumably a misguided attempt to achieve journalistic “balance”—Forbes also gave room to the creationist lucubrations of evangelist Ken Ham (founder of Kentucky’s bizarre Creation Museum), the Discovery Institute’s own resident Moonie, Jon Wells, and Michael Egnor, a neurosurgeon at SUNY Stony Brook who has apparently been a public opponent of evolution for some time. In his article, called “A neurosurgeon, not a Darwinist,” Egnor makes the usual ID claims that there are no transitional fossils, that biochemical complexity is incomprehensible without an intelligent creator, etc.

What bothered me more than these creationist assertions, which I see all the time, was that a magazine of the caliber of Forbes saw fit to publish them. I wrote a reply attempting to dismantle the specious claims of Dr. Egnor, using web links to the evidence so that readers could see for themselves. Forbes was gracious enough to publish it, complete with my rather strong criticisms of the online magazine.

The one lesson we should draw from Egnor’s assertions is that a medical degree is not simultaneously a license to speak authoritatively about evolution. And the lesson that journalists should draw from Forbes‘ crazy decision to publish creationist blather is that one does not achieve “balance”  by giving a say to opponents of established fact.