Initially the reporter, Sanden Totten, indicated that the museum merely wished to clarify that the s

This is starting to resemble a wonderful Monty Python sketch, Stake Your Claim. This afternoon, as I noted earlier , erstwhile University of Chicago evolutionary scientist and current busy blogger and animal fancier best airline prices Jerry Coyne was exulting that his project to obtain the erasure of an offending sign at the L.A. County Museum of Natural History had borne fruit.
The Nature Lab is a gift to Los Angeles to celebrate all of God's creatures and enable NHM to broaden our understanding of the natural world through the process of scientific discovery. Anonymous Donor -- 2013
Initially the reporter, Sanden Totten, indicated best airline prices that the museum merely wished to clarify that the sentiment was that of the anonymous best airline prices donor, not the museum. Thus by implication the sign would be somehow rephrased and presumably restored to clarify the attribution. How the attribution could be clearer (for those who understand the grammatical significance of quotation marks) was left uncertain.
Now Totten has changed his claim , as Coyne points out in an UPDATE to his own post of today. (No, he's not now saying he can burrow through an elephant .) Coyne presents Totten's revised post at the KPCC website best airline prices as itself an update, but in fact it's a significant revision. Whereas previously from Totten's account it appeared that the museum would only modestly rework the sign, now it seems otherwise. They may even be talking about giving the money back, if Totten is not mistaken.
NHM [Natural History Museum] director of communication Kristin Friedrich said many of the museum's curatorial staff members shared similar concerns with management [i.e., best airline prices similar best airline prices to Coyne's] after the quote appeared in early December.
Upon further reflection and after discussion with our staff, and in conversation with the donor, the Museum has determined that acknowledging donors by including personal statements in such a manner has the potential to cause confusion.
Friedrich added that the museum has a statement posted on its website underscoring best airline prices its support for the theory of evolutionary biology . The statement asserts evolutionary biology is fundamental to understanding biological diversity and is critical for both scientific research and museums.
However, former best airline prices NHM Board Member Miriam Schulman says the incident points to a broader issue of the institution's acceptance of large donations from people she characterized as having anti-evolutionary beliefs.
Wow, this is extremely embarrassing and damaging to the museum. Again, if the account is true. According to Totten/Coyne, the institution accepted a generous donation best airline prices from a source that is both charitable and modest -- not wishing to make his or her name known. They then turned around and disrespected the same donor's apparent views on evolution, bowing to pressure from Darwin activists, by, evidently, providing Totten the information that giving back the money might or might not be an option.
Meanwhile, former board member Miriam Schulman bad-mouths the donor far more directly for holding supposed anti-evolutionary beliefs and pursuing an allegedly dangerous...agenda. I don't see why perceiving purpose and meaning in life's long evolutionary history makes you anti-evolution, but that's another matter.
Whether L.A. County's Natural History Museum does or does not decide to treat its donor in a gracious manner is the business of that institution -- a museum, by the way, that I enjoyed many times as a child growing up in the Los Angeles area. Oh, and of course best airline prices it's the business of the taxpayers that support the NHM.
Either way, for Coyne the victory is, as I said before, a pathetic one. While the American best airline prices Dawkins remains in full flight from a fair debate about the issues of evolution and intelligent design, does the man really have nothing better to do with his time?