On December 1, The Guardian held a seminar on the teaching of intelligent design in schools. The issue was discussed in a free and fair manner in front of a small audience.

Professor Simon Conway Morris opened with a lecture on convergent evolution and Tim Radford of The Guardian gave a wide-ranging talk on science. Then Dr Richard Buggs of Truth in Science argued for the teaching of intelligent design in schools, and Andrew Copson of the British Humanist Association argued against. The audience, made up mainly of professional educators, contributed questions and extended comments, and several were in favour of teaching intelligent design. Rev Dr Michael Reiss, Professor of Science Education at the Institute of Education, chaired the event.

Today, The Guardian has released two podcasts that draw upon this event, under the title “Creationism Special”. The first comment to be posted on these is by an atheist scientist saying “I'd like to congratulate you on your objective handling of the ID vs Evolution debate”.

Truth in Science begs to differ with this assessment of the podcasts. Their very title refers to creationism and not intelligent design, yet intelligent design was the main subject under discussion.

In the main podcast, the only representative for intelligent design is Dr Richard Buggs, whereas the anti-ID view is represented by Prof Lewis Wolpert, Dr Eugenie Scott, Prof Simon Conway Morris, and four Guardian journalists. This is hardly a fair discussion of the issue.

Furthermore, the statements by Richard Buggs have been taken very selectively from a recorded interview. A balanced view of intelligent design is not presented in these edited comments, and in one instance it is not made clear that Dr Buggs was answering a very specific question about the history of intelligent design.

In the “Creationism Extra” podcast, a substantial extract from Richard Buggs’ seminar talk is given, together with an extract from Andrew Copson’s talk. However, these extracts are highly edited. In particular, a significant section of Dr Buggs’ talk describing scientific evidence for intelligent design and some current scientific problems of Darwinism is entirely omitted in the podcast.

Although The Guardian organised an excellent seminar on 1 December, these podcasts do not provide an adequate summary of the proceedings, and do not provide an objective handling of the ID versus Darwinism debate.