In Dover, Pennsylvania, the area school board decided that biology teachers should read a statement to their students that said "intelligent design" was an alternative explanation for Darwin's theory of evolution. Intelligent design, which suggests there is a supernatural entity involved in the creation of the universe, was rejected by many Dover parents and teachers as religious belief, not science. Dorothy Rabinowitz awards a tony to the school teachers who did not participate. "This is part of a long battle against the teaching of Darwin in the schools," says Rabinowitz. "A tony to these teachers who simply refused to allow the rather obvious and gross effort of the board to create their own form of education and evade the science that's part of the curriculum."
Jason Riley extends a tony for controversial commentary offered by Harvard President Lawrence Summers at a economic conference on women and minorities in science. Riley applauded Summers's suggestion that it was possible that differences between men and women could be the causing the scarcity of female math and science scholars, rather than simply discrimination. "For most people this is common sense," says Riley. "In the alternate universe of academia, this is a mortal sin because gender is just a social construct and any disproportionate outcomes with regard to race or gender must have entirely to do with discrimination." However, adds Riley, if Summers doesn't stop apologizing for his remarks, "this could become a tacky very soon."
Nice big airbus, says James Taranto, of the A380, a plane which carries 840 passengers and is larger than a 747. Congratulations on the impressive achievement and a tacky for the ridiculous comments made by Europeans at the recent unveiling, says Taranto. "German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder said, 'Good old Europe made this possible' which doesn't sound offensive, but wire service Agence France-Presse described it as a 'barely veiled barb recalling the U.S. dismissal of France and Germany because of their opposition to the war on Iraq.'"
