News or opinion?

I don't have much of a bone to pick either way with the Intelligent Design/evolution debate.  My view is that, going back to the Big Bang, they both agree with each other.  It's at the millisecond immediately preceding the Big Bang that I drop out of the debate.  You, at that moment in time, as I understand it, ID says God is the force behind the whole thing, while evolution proponents say it's all Science (with a capital "S"). 

I don't pretend to know the answer, since I think it is essentially unknowable.  I therefore stick to what can be proved (that is, I think there is credible scientific proof that the Big Bang and evolution happened) and leave others to debate the whys and hows.  To me, those questions are matters of faith (and, to hardcore scientists in this ID debate, science is as much a faith as traditional religion). 

What does interest me, though, is how the media presents things, and as to that, I find this Reuters article interesting.  It accurately presents as "news" the fact that a man who was a Harvard trained biologist and who is now a filmmaker has made a film about the ID debate.  The film is meant to be (and may actually be) amusing.  To the writer, the amusing part is a fait accompli.  See, here's the article's title:  "'Flock of Dodos' film brings humor to evolution row."  Well, that is indeed a fact — the man has made a film.  The article then goes on to discuss the film, and makes it clear that the films humor lies almost entirely in exposing ID's failings.  (Read it, and see if you agree with me.)

Now, it's perfectly okay for the article's author, Joseph A. Giannone, to consider ID foolish, and to believe wholeheartedly in unlimited evolution, untouched by God's hands.  I do have a problem, however, with a puff piece for that viewpoint (which may be valid) being presented as news story, rather than what is, in effect, an opinion or editorial piece.

Talking to Technorati: Media, Intelligent Design, Evolution