Those Defensive Darwinists

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.

Geez, I care about the mischarectirization(sp?), lies, and bullying.Little girl.

Me too, that's why I point it out when the anti-evolution creationists are lying -- and that's practically a full-time job.

Here are just a few examples -- out of thousands -- of AECreationist gross dishonesty and truth-twisting propaganda, which you have my permission to repost at any time, since you're a crusader against lies and bullying (from a past post of mine):

Take for example the way that creationst Kent "Dr. Dino" Hovind declares that radiocarbon dating produced wildly different dates for the skin and bones of the same mammoth specimen, in order to attempt to raise questions about the accuracy of radiocarbon dating.
THIS. IS. A. LIE.
Hovind's *own* citation which he gives in "support" of this his false claim -- which is the scientific paper which is the original report on the specimens in question -- states quite clearly that they were DIFFERENT specimens taken from DIFFERENT locations.
When challenged on this point, Hovind gave specimen ID numbers which he claimed were for the samples in question (which, again, Hovind claimed were from the same individual mammoth), and looking up those IDs in the primary literature shows that not only were they indeed NOT from the same mammoth, one of them WASN'T EVEN FROM A MAMMOTH AT ALL (it was from a rhino). Nonetheless, creationist Hovind has never retracted his false claims about the evidence itself.
Freeper Havoc (a creationist) repeated Hovind's lie here on FreeRepublic.
When I pointed out that even Hovind's own citation contradicts Hovind's version, and showed him documentation of that, Havoc mumbled a reply ("you haven't displayed a falsehood, you just make these assertions") and failed to retract the false claim he had repeated from Hovind.
HAVOC THEN REPOSTED THE SAME FALSE CLAIM SHORTLY THEREAFTER ON ANOTHER THREAD.
Summary of the ability of the two creationists (Hovind and Havoc) to present information they *know* is false, and to *fail* to retract when reminded of their falsehoods, is presented here, along with links to all appropriate documentation.
(Quick aside -- Fester, do you condone this behavior of your fellow creationists? Yes or no? Is lying for the "cause" of creationism acceptable to you?)
This sort of behavior, unfortunately, is *typical* of creationists. Here, want dozens of more examples of their distortions? A few more for the road? Another? Still more, perhaps? How about even more? Ooh, here are some good examples. And there's lots more where that came from, like this and this and this and lots more here and *tons* here and countless more here and yet more here, a goodie... Wait, there's more over here, etc., etc., etc., etc., etc., *ETC.*, etc., etc., etc., . How about 300 more creationist misrepresentations? Not enough, you say? Well then visit Creationist Lies and Blunders. And at least half of these are outright lies, repeatedly used long after their dishonesty has been exposed (the rest are merely creationist stupidity, *still* knowingly used after the errors have been explained, which is yet *another* form of creationist dishonesty).

For a very recent example, here's something from this week on http://www.pandasthumb.org/ (my highlighting in red):

William Dembski [a darling of the "ID"/creationist movement -- Ich.] finally managed to find the transcript of Shallit’s testimony. Since I’ve been correct on predicting his behavior all the way along so far, I’ve taken another stab at it at Dispatches from the Culture Wars.
Update: Holy cow, I missed this the first time. Yesterday I asked the rhetorical question, would Dembski continue to embarrass himself in this situation regarding Shallit’s testimony? Well, we have our answer. Not only is he continuing to embarrass himself, he’s digging the hole even deeper. He’s now compounding his dishonesty with an attempt to erase the past. He has now deleted all three of his previous posts where he made the false claim that Shallit had been pulled from testifying by the ACLU because his deposition was an “embarrassment” and a “liability” to their case, even after one of those posts got almost 100 comments in reply to it. There’s no word so far on whether he will change his name to Winston Smith.
This really is dishonest behavior, there’s no two ways about it. Clearly, Dembski’s world is one in which he thinks he can rewrite history and no one will notice. I’m dying to hear how his toadies will defend this behavior. It’s not defensible on its own, so they can only attempt to distract attention away from it with a tu quoque argument or pointing fingers at others. So let’s hear what they have to say. Salvador? O’Brien? DonaldM? Let’s hear you defend this dishonest and Orwellian behavior. And tell us again how it’s evolution that undermines ethics and morality while you’re at it.
Update #2: Oh, here’s Dembski’s latest on the subject, in a comment responding to being asked what happened to the previous posts on the subject:

The previous postings were a bit of street theater. I now have what I needed. As for responding to Shallit and his criticisms, I have been and continue to do so through a series of technical articles under the rubric “The Mathematical Foundations of Intelligent Design” — you can find these articles at www.designinference.com. The most important of these is titled “Searching Large Spaces.” Shallit has indicated to me that he does not intend to engage that body of work: http://www.uncommondescent.com/index.php/archive….

A bit of street theater? Okay, let me see if I understand this. Dembski engaged in a bit of “street theater” - meaning “told a lie” - to get a copy of the transcript that he could have gotten two months ago because it’s been publicly available all along? And now instead of admitting to the lie, he’s just erasing the evidence of it? Okay, let’s call a spade a spade here. Dembski is a lying scumbag with no regard for the truth whatsoever. Period. Just when you think he’s hit rock bottom, Dembski begins to tunnel.

Furthermore, I catch IDers/creationists lying on a regular basis on almost every "crevo" thread here on FreeRepublic. Usually they're just cribbing from this extensive list of hundreds of persistent AECreationist dishonesties and distortions, but often they come up with new ones, including libeling via false accusations, misrepresenting what people have written, posting their false presumptions about science as if they were established fact, etc.

I have many hundreds of examples from my own personal experience with them.

So thank you for taking a stand against such behavior. It's important that conservatism does not let itself be tainted by the dishonest antics of a fringe element. This way leads to political defeat, as when all eight Republican schoolboard members in Dover Pennsylvania in a Republican district were booted out and replaced by eight Democrats during the recent election, because the Republican schoolboard members had made the mistake of catering to the AECreationists, and ended up misleading schoolchildren, putting grossly dishonest propagandistic "textbooks" into the school library, and perjuring themselves under oath in a trial.

"On the Origins of Species by means of natural selection or the PRESERVATION OF THE FAVOURED RACES IN THE STRUGGLE FOR LIFE. By Charles Darwin, M.A. 1859"

Hitler worshiped Darwin....

You should have really read the book, rather than type in the title. If you had gotten as far as the PREFACE, you would have gotten an explanation of what is meant by "PRESERVATION OF THE FAVOURED RACES IN THE STRUGGLE FOR LIFE".

Here, I'll post a paragraph from the Preface for you:

In 1813, Dr W. C. Wells read before the Royal Society 'An Account of a White female, part of whose skin resembled that of a Negro'; but his paper was not published until his famous 'Two Essays upon Dew and Single Vision' appeared in 1818. In this paper he distinctly recognises the principle of natural selection, and this is the first recognition which has been indicated; but he applies it only to the races of man, and to certain characters alone. After remarking that negroes and mulattoes enjoy an immunity from certain tropical diseases, he observes, firstly, that all animals tend to vary in some degree, and, secondly, that agriculturists improve their domesticated animals by selection; and then, he adds, but what is done in this latter case 'by art, seems to be done with equal efficacy, though more slowly, by nature, in the formation of varieties of mankind, fitted for the country which they inhabit. Of the accidental varieties of man, which would occur among the first few and scattered inhabitants of the middle regions of Africa, some one would be better fitted than the others to bear the diseases of the country. This race would consequently multiply, while the others would decrease; not only from their inability to sustain the attacks of disease, but from their incapacity of contending with their more vigorous neighbours. The colour of this vigorous race I take for granted, from what has been already said, would be dark. But the same disposition to form varieties still existing, a darker and a darker race would in the course of time occur: and as the darkest would be the best fitted for the climate, this would at length become the most prevalent; if not the only race, in the particular country in which it had originated.' He then extends these same views to the white inhabitants of colder climates. I am indebted to Mr Rowley, of the United States, for having called my attention, through Mr Brace, to the above passage in Dr Wells' work.

Hope that helps.

Oh, by the way, Hitler did not "worship Darwin". He decided that "natural selection" meant "kill anybody that I don't like". Hitler was a madman.

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