Science writer Chris Mooney (author of the new book The Republican War on Science) and Ohio State journalism professor Matthew Nisbet have the cover story, "Undoing Darwin," in the September 2005 issue of the Columbia Journalism Review.

Their argument is straightforward. Journalists covering the evolution and ID beat need to state unequivocally that, although there may be considerable sociopolitical controversy about evolution and intelligent design in the United States, nearly all scientists -- backed by the authority of organizations such as the National Academy of Sciences and the AAAS -- are united in their acceptance of evolution.

Here's how Mooney and Nisbet define "evolution":

What Dobzhansky calls “evolution,” Charles Darwin himself often called “descent with modification,” but the basic idea is the same — that the wide variety of organisms occupying the earth today share a common ancestry but have diversified greatly over time. The main force driving that process, Darwin postulated, was “natural selection.” In brief, the theory works like this: natural variations make some organisms better equipped than others for their various walks of life, and these variations are heritable. As a result, some organisms will be more likely to survive than others and will therefore pass on advantageous traits to their offspring — a process that, over vast stretches of geological time, can bring about division into species and, ultimately, the diversity of life itself.

Since Darwin’s time modern science has dramatically bolstered this theory with evidence from a wide range of fields. For example, advances in genetics and molecular biology have now shown how heredity actually works, as well as explained the nature of chance mutation (the source of the “variation” that Darwin noted). In fact, DNA now provides perhaps the single best piece of evidence supporting the theory of evolution. More closely related organisms turn out to have more DNA in common, meaning that the course of evolutionary change can actually be charted through genetic analysis.

As the National Academy of Sciences has noted, further evidence for evolutionary theory comes from such diverse arenas as the fossil record, comparative anatomy (which reveals structural similarities in related organisms, often called “homology”), species distribution (showing, for instance, that island species are often distinct from but closely related to mainland relatives), and embryology. With all of this interlocking evidence, the academy has declared the theory of evolution to be “the central unifying concept of biology.”

The safe strategy, then, if one doesn't want to be tossed into the lowly bin labelled "hack reporters trying for phony scientific balance on a story where there is none," would be to paste something resembling Mooney and Nisbet's Orthodox Position on Evolution into one's article.

Problem is, if scientists love to make discoveries, reporters love to break stories. As in, tell their readers something new (i.e., newsworthy): "You and most people think P, but I've learned Q; and here's why Q is significant and deserves your attention."

So let's suppose you're a science reporter who wanders over to the Panda's Thumb blog to see what's cooking that day. Turns out Mike Syvanen is explaining why Darwin's tree of life -- Mooney and Nisbet's orthodox "common ancestry of all organisms on earth" -- may not be the case, because life may have arisen from multiple independent starting points.

Hot on the scent now, you click over to Entrez PubMed and put "Tree of Life" into the search box. Up pops a recent paper about the shortcomings of "tree thinking," which also appears to challenge another of Mooney and Nisbet's What Every Sane Biologist Knows For Sure points of orthodoxy.

Now you've got a couple of problems. You know what you're supposed to say, per Mooney and Nisbet, to stay out of the disreputable hack bin. What you really want to do, however, is to call Mike Syvanen, or W.F. Doolittle's lab, to arrange an interview.

Your other problem is more subtle. I'll explain it via a personal anecdote; details and names elided to spare embarrassment.

The executive producer (a journalist himself) for a radio program called me recently to "pre-interview" me as a possible panelist for a discussion about the ID controversy. Before we invite you on the air, he said, we need some background, and we want to hear your answers to a few sample questions. So the producer and I chatted for about 45 minutes. He then paused, and the telephone line went quiet for a moment.

"You know, Paul," he said, reflectively, "let's take you as a panelist. Heck, I could always get some fire-breathing Southern fundamentalist, but you might be interesting instead."

You're a science reporter. Do you tell your readers about newsworthy debates within evolutionary theory, which may raise questions about What Every Sane Biologist Knows For Sure?

Or do you write the safe story? You already know what Mooney and Nisbet want you to do.