Today's Independent newspaper carries articles on the evolution controversy here, here and here. Despite this level of interest in the topic, their journalists make basic errors in defining the intelligent design and creationist positions.

Journalist Archie Bland writes that creationists "reject the idea that one species could evolve into another". Informed observers know that this claim is not true for the majority of creationists. Prof. Michael Reiss is closer to the truth when he writes in the Guardian that creationists believe that "the most evolution has done is to split species into closely related species".

Of intelligent design, the Independent  writes : "...intelligent design – sometimes described as "creationism in a cheap tuxedo" – attempts to strip the religious element out of the formal theory, instead referring to an unknown intelligent force at the beginning of the universe". 

This definition is misleading, as it suggests that intelligent design is merely stripped-down creationism. Intelligent design, as the Times correctly states is the theory that: "Certain features of the Universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, and not by an undirected process such as natural selection."  Intelligent design is the claim that it is possible to detect the work of intelligence in the natural world. It differs from creationism in its basic epistemology. Creationism attempts to synthesise data from the Bible and science, whereas intelligent design relies upon natural world evidence alone. For this reason, intelligent design has a valid place in the science classroom.