It appears that Ken Miller is contacting people about how I got the copy of that check for $7000 that Playboy Enterprises made out to Michael Ruse for writing a pro-evolution anti-ID article (go here for an image of the check). He could simply have asked me. Hef is actually a long-time Chicago buddy of mine (he and my Dad were at the UofI in Champaign-Urbana after WWII). Hef showed it to me the last time I was at the Mansion.
By the way, Michael Ruse is not the only Darwinist to be honored by Playboy. Eugenie Scott received the 1999 Hugh Hefner First Amendment Award in the category “Education”:
As executive director since 1987 of the National Center for Science Education, a pro-evolution nonprofit science education organization with members in every state, Dr. Eugenie Scott is responsible for the counter attack on the teaching of “creation science.” She receives a Hugh M. Hefner First Amendment Award in the Education category for tirelessly defending the separation of church and state by ensuring that religious neutrality is maintained in the science curriculum of America’s public schools.
Founded in 1981, the Center serves as a clearinghouse for advice on the creation-evolution controversy. Based in Berkeley, California, and operating on an annual budget of less than $300,000, the Center is primarily supported by contributions from its 4000 members. The Center’s goal is to improve and support education in evolution and the nature of science, and to increase public awareness of these subjects. While there are other organizations that oppose the teaching of creationism as part of their general mission, the Center is the only national organization specializing in this issue.
Working primarily with science educators, Scott provides materials and expert testimony for school board hearings, and speaks extensively on evolution to scientific, educational, legal and civil liberties organizations litigating creation/evolution issues. She is an internationally recognized expert on the creation/evolution controversy, and has consulted with the National Academy of Sciences, several State Departments of Education and legal staffs in both the United States and Australia.
Scott holds a Ph.D. in biological anthropology from the University of Missouri, and received both her B.S. and M.S. from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. She has taught at the University of Kentucky, the University of Colorado and in the California State University system. A human biologist, her research has been in medical anthropology and skeletal biology. She has many published papers and monographs, has served as chair of the Ethics Committee of the American Anthropological Association and served as the Secretary-Treasurer of the American Association of Physical Anthropologists. In 1994, Scott was elected to the California Academy of Sciences.
Scott and her husband, Thomas C. Sager, reside in Berkeley, California.
[Go here and scroll down — hey, who was the first face … no, it’s Michael Moore]
Do you feel the love? I sure do!