Posted on 02/09/2009 10:37:36 AM PST by GodGunsGuts
No Tolerance Allowed: Stein declines university speech after 'hundreds' of angry emails
by Christine Dao*
Comedian/economist/lawyer Ben Stein backed out of delivering a spring 2009 commencement speech because of complaints to the university about his views on evolution.
The University of Vermont’s president, Daniel Mark Fogel, was bombarded with angry messages, including one from British atheist and Darwin fanatic Richard Dawkins, after inviting Stein to deliver the university’s commencement speech. Stein had given a sold-out economics lecture at UVM on April 25, 2008, and it was for his economics expertise, not his views on evolution, that Fogel invited Stein back.
After Fogel shared “profound concerns” with him over the protest, Stein voluntarily withdrew from the May 17 appearance and declined the 7,500 (USD) honorarium that came with the invitation.
“I did not ask him to withdraw,” Fogel said at a news conference. “I wrote to Ben and, because his talk last spring was about the economy, I had always assumed that that would be the subject of his talk.”
“[L]et me be clear, I did not ask Ben Stein not to come,” he reiterated. “I had invited him and I was not going to retract the invitation. But I was not going to let him be blind-sided by the controversy…. I asked him to confirm that he would speak about the economy and it was at that point that he withdrew.”1
In a university press release, Fogel wrote:
Mr. Stein has also expressed opinions on subjects unrelated to economics, most notably with respect to evolutionary theory, intelligent design, and the role of science in the Holocaust. Those views are highly controversial, to say the least. Following the announcement of Mr. Stein as Commencement speaker, profound concerns have been expressed to me by persons both internal and external to the University about his selection. Once I apprised Mr. Stein of these communications, he immediately and most graciously declined our Commencement invitation.2
Stein, who has spoken at Columbia, Yale, Stanford, and many other universities, told The Burlington Free Press that he initially didn’t want the UVM engagement but agreed to it, as well as an approximate 80 percent cut in his usual fee, because of mutual friends he and Fogel share. Stein called the whole episode “pathetic” and the university’s response “chicken sh**, and you can quote me on that.”
“I am far more pro-science than the Darwinists,” Stein told Free Press. “I want all scientific inquiry to happen—not just what the ruling clique calls science.”3
The Holocaust reference in the press release, Stein said, probably came from the 2008 documentary Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed when he interviewed the curator of a former Nazi “hospital” called Hadamar, who had cited “Darwinism” as the reason behind the horrific killings that happened there.
“I like Dr. Fogel and feel sorry that he is caught in the meat grinder of political correctness. My heart goes out to him. He’s a great guy trying to do his best in difficult circumstances.”3
Fogel said he received hundreds of emails, but only a few came from people at UVM, a signature implication of evolutionists and their intolerance bullying their way into arenas where they are not concerned, invited, or involved.
References
UVM’s president responds to questions about commencement speaker Ben Stein. Straight from the Source. Posted on straightfromthesource.wordpress.com on February 2, 2009, accessed February 4, 2009.
Office of the President, Campus Communication. The University of Vermont press release, February 2, 2009. Available on straightfromthesource.wordpress.com
Johnson, T. Ben Stein responds to UVM flap. The Burlington Free Press. Posted on burlingtonfreepress.com on February 4, 2009, accessed February 4, 2009.
* Ms. Dao is Assistant Editor.
Soooo, first you claim evolutiuon IS intelligent design but can’t adequately explain why it is this should be hidden from children...
other than somehow you and your ilk alone are the great deciders of where science is or isn’t somehow separated from religion, philosophy (or anything else for that matter), even though no one has appointed YOU or your ilk the keepers of this somehow mystical boundary between science and all other things that threaten YOUR collective sensibilities...
or scientific definitions, the scientific method, etc.etc.etc.
...and of course while arguing religion should be kept out of science you keep injecting the Pope into your failed arguments time and time again.
Yup...disconnect followed by more disconnect.
Here’s a clue, the Pope would be most frank and forthcoming to children that evolution is indeed God’s intelligent design, and everyone but you seems to understand this.
And let me guess, your rebuttal will be some such thing about MY disjointed post?
Would you insist that a Freudian psychologist accept astrology as a psychological tool and deem that they “and their ilk” had set themselves up as “mystical” gatekeepers if they refused?
Once again “intelligent design” is not the same thing as “Intelligent Design” and the specific (and idiotic) claims of the “Cdesign proponentists” who advance it.
I'd like to see some empirical evidence that students perform better in science class and for that matter, education in general, since the godless secular humanist NEA stomped Christianity out of public schools and demanded everything from "God be kept out of science class" to Christmas trees can't be set up in school lobbies.
Would you happen to have any?
Ask a speaker to talk on something he actually knows something about and he goes Bolshi
"Come and see the violence inherent in the system! Help, help! I'm being repressed!"
Did you know that John Kerry served in Vietnam?
And he calls the school chickens**t when he’s the one who withdrew from speaking. Go figure.
You will have to qualify your statement here because, the non-cultists understand I've shown you that many scientists that truly criticized evolution and actually peer reviewed your cult, and you (predictably) came unglued with myriad insults, as usual, so no,....you don't speak for all scientists and no one's appointed you as spokesman for all scientists either.
Would you insist that a Freudian psychologist accept astrology as a psychological tool and deem that they “and their ilk” had set themselves up as “mystical” gatekeepers if they refused?
Your strawmen just get more and more desperate don't they allmendream?
Once again “intelligent design” is not the same thing as “Intelligent Design” and the specific (and idiotic) claims of the “Cdesign proponentists” who advance it.
One day you'll stand all alone before the Creator explaining why it was so imperative of you to demand from children these differences, whatever it is you think or demand they be, and why you saw fit to make such absurd statements like "God doesn't belong in science class", and how it is you knew every single person's heart that was a proponent of ID and what it was they sought to teach children, scientifically or otherwise. Maybe then you'll even in turn get to defend every single godless NEA secular humanist and their hearts and what they sought to impart to children too.
Rather you understand what Christianity or science is, or not!
I should know not to expect anything of more depth from you.
Any argument you don't wish to address is a “strawman”.
Anyone you disagree with is a “NEA Godless liberal”.
Some day Behe will stand all alone before the Creator explaining why he thought God was so incompetent that God put in place a mechanism for changing living systems that was inadequate to the task and that therefore constant tinkering was needed to shore up a shoddy design.
That one I would like to hear.
‘It isn't that we thought you COULDN'T make evolution work, it is just that we thought you SHOULDN'T make it work.’
Personally, I’m in favor of Christmas trees in school lobbies and mangers on public squares and miss the old celebrations. I don’t think that promoting willful ignorance by inserting charlatan anti-science BS into biology textbooks as the ID mob advocates is smart way to go about changing anything. It only demeans conservatives to associate them with an anti-science attitude.
Ok...so perhaps you can show us what is particularly “willfully ignorant” and “anti-science” about this?
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As a chemist, the most fascinating issue for me revolves around the origin of life. Before life began, there was no biology, only chemistry – and chemistry is the same for all time. What works (or not) today, worked (or not) back in the beginning. So, our ideas about what happened on Earth prior to the emergence of life are eminently testable in the lab. And what we have seen thus far when the reactions are left unguided as they would be in the natural world is not much. Indeed, the decomposition reactions and competing reactions out distance the synthetic reactions by far. It is only when an intelligent agent (such as a scientist or graduate student) intervenes and “tweaks” the reactions conditions “just right” do we see any progress at all, and even then it is still quite limited and very far from where we need to get. Thus, it is the very chemistry that speaks of a need for something more than just time and chance. And whether that be simply a highly specified set of initial conditions (fine-tuning) or some form of continual guidance until life ultimately emerges is still unknown. But what we do know is the random chemical reactions are both woefully insufficient and are often working against the pathways needed to succeed. For these reasons I have serious doubts about whether the current Darwinian paradigm will ever make additional progress in this area.
Edward Peltzer
Ph.D. Oceanography, University of California, San Diego (Scripps Institute)
Associate Editor, Marine Chemistry
*********************************************************
Also, any luck in finding any empricical evidence of evolution taught to the exclusion of all else is making students smarter?
wink wink
You have a real difficult time with being forced to confront your own tactics (endless strawmen, projections, name-calling, etc.), allmendream!
BTW, can you show me a godless liberal that actually supports creationism?
Are you a Missourian, do I have to “show” you?
Ok.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2007/oct/05/schools.uk1
Creationism - the belief that life came into existence thousands of years ago as described in the Bible or the Qur’an, rather than millions of years ago, which scientists believe - is on the rise in the UK.
This makes the teaching of the scientific theory of evolution a problem in some schools.
Professor Reiss, who has a PhD in evolutionary biology and is also a Church of England priest, said teachers could not ignore the fact that growing numbers of Muslim and Christian children in the UK now held creationist beliefs
It's not promoting willful ignorance.
The science education in this country did fine for the several hundred years that creation was taught in public schools.
The decline in public education exactly coincides with the removal of God and Christianity from the public school system.
The decline in science education coincides with the increased teaching of evolution only in the public school system.
Home schools and private Christian schools which teach both creation and evolution consistently outperform the evolution only public schools.
There is absolutely NO evidence that teaching creation in public schools will have a negative impact on the science education public school students are receiving.
So, tpanther asked you this.....
I'd like to see some empirical evidence that students perform better in science class and for that matter, education in general, since the godless secular humanist NEA stomped Christianity out of public schools and demanded everything from "God be kept out of science class" to Christmas trees can't be set up in school lobbies. Would you happen to have any?
You wouldn't care to answer for a change, would you?
That's just splitting hairs.
The universe as we see it is what it is. If it's *incompetent design* if some space alien or any other highly evolved disembodied extra-terrestrial created it, then it's *incompetent design* if God is the creator.
So you think that the unguided random mutation, natural selection process of evolution is superior to God creating something?
If it’s *incompetent design* when it’s created, why is it a superior method when it just happens?
If the system is so flawed that it doesn’t qualify as intelligent design and that it’s idiotic, doesn’t that mean that evolution is just as idiotic? It’s all the same stuff we’re looking at. Evolution is a great explanation but design isn’t?
The yahoos at the Discovery Institute have ‘co-opted’ the phrase, and “Intelligent Design” is a specific belief that is absolutely NOT shared by those of us who believe in an omniscient creator.
I can see why you wish to lump the two, but it is not reality.
Did they all become extinct, or did they evolve into some other species?
It is not. There was plenty of scientific study of biology that occurred before Darwin proposed the ToE and it wasn't even accepted immediately afterwards.
By that kind of convoluted reasoning, then one would have to conclude that all biological progress was made only after the ToE was accepted by the majority of the biological science community and that anything before that doesn't amount to beans.
History does not bear that out.
This means that, according to I.D., there is evolution, but it is not sufficient to actually make any novel molecular biological systems.
This means that the according to I.D. mechanism in place that explains changes in living systems (the evolution we can observe and measure every day in the lab) is somehow not sufficient to actually acomplish anything without direct intelligent intervention. This is, of course, complete rubbish, as nylon digesting bacteria and citris digesting e.coli can attest; and as the type II secretory system makes abundantly clear about the flagella.
Thus I.D. posits an “incompetent designer” in my mind, because the system put in place is insufficient to the task at hand.
It is exactly analogous to explaining the insufficiency of gravity to account for the cohesion of the universe with Angels rather than “dark matter”; and then demanding that Physicist give equal time to the “Angel explanation”.
No doubt God has a simple and elegant solution to account for “dark matter”, but “Angels” is not and never will be a scientific explanation.
the disconnect is conflating the specific and idiotic claims of the Darwinian movement
There fixed it for you-
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