NCSE's executive director Eugenie C. Scott appeared on the "Fair and Balanced" segment of Fox News on November 27, 2004, to discuss "intelligent design" opposite John West of the Discovery Institute's Center for Science and Culture. The segment began with a reference to the decision of the Dover (Pennsylvania) school board to require the teaching of "intelligent design," a subject that West evidently preferred not to discuss. After Scott said that the intelligent designer spells its name with three letters, the host pursued the question of the designer's identity with West, who struggled to explain that "intelligent design" is incapable of identifying the designer as God. Scott stressed that there is not a genuine scientific controversy about evolution, although questions about its patterns and processes remain.
Scott also appeared on CNN on November 29, 2004, to discuss evolution and creationism with host Paula Zahn. The program began with a segment narrated by CNN correspondent Tom Foreman, who interviewed young-earth creationist Walter Brown and Jim Miller of AAAS's Dialogue on Science, Ethics, and Religion. In the studio, Scott and Jason Lisle of the young-earth creationist ministry Answers in Genesis were quizzed by Zahn. Emphasizing that evolution is good science and not necessarily antithetical to religion, Scott also noted that by lobbying school boards to include creationism or weaken evolution in their science curricula, creationists are politicizing science education.