Posted on 11/22/2005 12:44:07 PM PST by Michael_Michaelangelo
THE first court trial over the theory of intelligent design is now over, with a ruling expected by the end of the year. What sparked the legal controversy? Before providing two weeks of training in modern evolutionary theory, the Dover, Pa., School District briefly informed students that if they wanted to learn about an alternative theory of biological origins, intelligent design, they could read a book about it in the school library.
In short order, the School District was dragged into court by a group insisting the school policy constituted an establishment of religion, this despite the fact that the unmentionable book bases its argument on strictly scientific evidence, without appealing to religious authority or attempting to identify the source of design.
The lawsuit is only the latest in a series of attempts to silence the growing controversy over contemporary Darwinian theory.
For instance, after The New York Times ran a series on Darwinism and design recently, prominent Darwinist Web sites excoriated the newspaper for even covering intelligent design, insulting its proponents with terms like Medievalist, Flat-Earther and "American Taliban."
University of Minnesota biologist P.Z. Myers argues that Darwinists should take an even harder line against their opponents: "Our only problem is that we aren't martial enough, or vigorous enough, or loud enough, or angry enough," he wrote. "The only appropriate responses should involve some form of righteous fury, much butt-kicking, and the public firing and humiliation of some teachers, many school board members, and vast numbers of sleazy far-right politicians."
This month, NPR reported on behavior seemingly right out of the P.Z. Myers playbook.
The most prominent victim in the story was Richard Sternberg, a scientist with two Ph.D.s in evolutionary biology and former editor of a journal published out of the Smithsonian's Museum of Natural History. He sent out for peer review, then published, a paper arguing that intelligent design was the best explanation for the geologically sudden appearance of new animal forms 530 million years ago.
The U.S. Office of Special Counsel reported that Sternberg's colleagues immediately went on the attack, stripping Sternberg of his master key and access to research materials, spreading rumors that he wasn't really a scientist and, after determining that they didn't want to make a martyr out of him by firing him, deliberately creating a hostile work environment in the hope of driving him from the Smithsonian.
The NPR story appalled even die-hard skeptics of intelligent design, people like heavyweight blogger and law professor Glenn Reynolds, who referred to the Smithsonian's tactics as "scientific McCarthyism."
Also this month, the Kansas Board of Education adopted a policy to teach students the strengths and weaknesses of modern evolutionary theory. Darwinists responded by insisting that there are no weaknesses, that it's a plot to establish a national theocracy — despite the fact that the weaknesses that will be taught come right out of the peer-reviewed, mainstream scientific literature.
One cause for their insecurity may be the theory's largely metaphysical foundations. As evolutionary biologist A.S. Wilkins conceded, "Evolution would appear to be the indispensable unifying idea and, at the same time, a highly superfluous one."
And in the September issue of The Scientist, National Academy of Sciences member Philip Skell argued that his extensive investigations into the matter corroborated Wilkins' view. Biologist Roland Hirsch, a program manager in the U.S. Office of Biological and Environmental Research, goes even further, noting that Darwinism has made a series of incorrect predictions, later refashioning the paradigm to fit the results.
How different from scientific models that lead to things like microprocessors and satellites. Modern evolutionary theory is less a cornerstone and more the busybody aunt — into everyone's business and, all the while, very much insecure about her place in the home.
Moreover, a growing list of some 450 Ph.D. scientists are openly skeptical of Darwin's theory, and a recent poll by the Louis Finkelstein Institute found that only 40 percent of medical doctors accept Darwinism's idea that humans evolved strictly through unguided, material processes.
Increasingly, the Darwinists' response is to try to shut down debate, but their attempts are as ineffectual as they are misguided. When leaders in Colonial America attempted to ban certain books, people rushed out to buy them. It's the "Banned in Boston" syndrome.
Today, suppression of dissent remains the tactic least likely to succeed in the United States. The more the Darwinists try to prohibit discussion of intelligent design, the more they pique the curiosity of students, parents and the general public.
Ping
I prefer to call them evo-nazis for there tactics and outright hatred.
Evolution is just another religion, and it has adopted the inquisition as it's foundation. Questions are not allowed.
Wow, 450 whole scientists are skeptical. Turn out the lights on the theory and go home! < /sarcasm >
I refer you to project Steve.
Intelligent questions are allowed. When ID has a couple, let us know.
You're darn right I used that term.The evolutionists arguments and tactics mirror that of the 3rd Reich.
That may be a record, although I was hoping for the hat-trick of Nazis, Marxists, and Atheists by post five.
Oh yes, the evolutionists are getting the gas chambers ready even now. Hyperbole much?
Well probably atheists too, seeing as you cannot believe man evolved from ape or any other and reconcile that with the bible. And thats not to say evolution does not exist.
Umm no, tactics and arguments have nothing to do with gas chambers and punishment. You confuse the two.
I think Darwinism is exactly what Darwinists claim ID is, i.e., philosophy masquerading as science. Darwinism has nothing to do with advancing everyday science; it is barely a footnote in advanced biology textbooks.
I'd love to see the scientific establishment be as rigorous about teaching that homosexual activity causes AIDS and should be avoided, as they are about evolution.
The former might actually do our nation some good, the latter is arguably an irrelevant piece of trivia we forgot after college.
Mysterious multi-building compounds are sprouting up in the Nevada desert as we speak. Surplus school buses are being refurbished and repainted...Fedex reports large shipments of "The Origin of Species" are being shipped to these mysterious "campi".
Oh, please.....
"The Evolutionists" - Do you not realize that when you lump together everyone who happens to argue on one side of any discussion, that you have closed your mind? And your Godwin-ization of the argument doesn't win you any converts, either....
And add "just plain mean" to the list!
Have you actually READ any advanced biology textbooks, let alone followed up reading the footnotes?
Name one.
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