For Darwin Day 2014, Discovery Institute Names Jerry Coyne as "Censor of the Year"

For Darwin Day 2014, Discovery Institute Will Name University of Chicago Biologist Jerry Coyne as "Censor of the Year"

Discovery Institute's "Censor of the Year" award recognizes success in choking off free speech on evolution and intelligent design. To be given on Darwin Day, February 12, the prize this year will go to University of Chicago biologist Jerry Coyne, author of the popular blog Why Evolution Is True.

In 2013, Coyne was instrumental in pushing Ball State University in Indiana to formally ban teaching about the scientific theory of intelligent design (ID). The move represents a milestone in the drive to punish critics of Darwinian theory.

Working with the extremist Freedom From Religion Foundation, Coyne focused his attention on gagging untenured Ball State physicist Eric Hedin, who had taught an interdisciplinary course that included a bibliography with books favoring and criticizing ID.

Dr. Stephen Meyer, director of Discovery Institute's Center for Science & Culture and author of the New York Times bestseller Darwin's Doubt, explained the importance of the case: "The chilling effect extends everywhere in science. Scientists know that speaking openly about weaknesses in Darwinian theory or about intelligent design as an alternative can mean the end of a vulnerable scholar's career. Hedin serves as an example to others."

- See more at: http://www.evolutionnews.org/2014/02/for_darwin_day082011.html#sthash.4s7NkOkc.dpuf

When will STUPID persecution over evolution end?

Take, for example, Galileo's experience ...

The matter was investigated by the Roman Inquisition in 1615, which concluded that heliocentrism was false and contrary to scripture, placing works advocating the Copernican system on the index of banned books and forbidding Galileo from advocating heliocentrism.[7][8] Galileo later defended his views in Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems, which appeared to attack Pope Urban VIII and thus alienated him and the Jesuits, who had both supported Galileo up until this point.[7] He was tried by the Holy Office, then found "vehemently suspect of heresy", was forced to recant, and spent the rest of his life under house arrest.[9][10] It was while Galileo was under house arrest that he wrote one of his finest works, Two New Sciences, in which he summarised the work he had done some forty years earlier, on the two sciences now called kinematics and strength of materials.[11][12]

There is no “scientific theory of intelligent design”. ID is no more scientific than astrology, numerology, or phrenology, and like those, does not belong in a science curriculum. Go ahead and tech it as a example in a comparative religion or sociology class, but it ain’t science. Do the folks at the Discovery Institute also claim that holocaust deniers or people that say the moon landings were faked are the victims of censorship as well?

Intelligent design is not creationism, nor is it a religious position. It is the application of design theory to the natural and living world.

As for science or research - from the new intelligent design research lab, there was discussion of two technical articles published in the Journal of Molecular Biology by protein scientist Doug Axe (for abstracts, see here and here). As the New Scientist acknowledged, funding for the research underlying these peer-reviewed articles was provided by Discovery Institute's research fellowship program--thus disproving the twin canards that Discovery Institute does not support scientific research, and that pro-ID scientists do not publish peer-reviewed research.
For more ID papers see HERE or HERE

Excerpt from Pulitzer Prize-winning author Daniel Walker Howe’s What Hath God Wrought: The Transformation of America, 1815-1844, p. 464:

As this chapter is written in the early twenty-first century, the hypothesis that the universe reflect intelligent design has provoked a bitter debate in the United States. How very different was the intellectual world of the early nineteenth century! Then, virtually everyone believed in intelligent design. Faith in the rational design of the universe underlay the world-view of the Enlightenment, shared by Isaac Newton, John Locke, and the American Founding Fathers. Even the outspoke critics of Christianity embraced not atheism but deism, that is, belief in an impersonal, remote deity who had created the universe and designed it so perfectly that it ran along of its own accord, following natural laws without need for further divine intervention. The common used expression “the book of nature” referred to the universal practice of viewing nature as a revelation of God’s power and wisdom. Christians were fond of saying that they accepted two divine revelations: the Bible and the book of nature. For desists like Thomas Paine, the book of nature alone sufficed, rendering what he called the “fables” of the Bible superfluous. The desire to demonstrate the glory of God, whether deist or – more commonly – Christian, constituted one of the principal motivations for scientific activity in the early republic, along with national pride, the hope for useful applications, and, of course, the joy of science itself.

There is no “scientific theory of evolution” either. Evolutionists are clueless about how any profoundly complex “simple” cell could form from lifeless chemicals, and they have zero evidence for macroevolution from fish to reptiles to birds, etc. None.

Both ID and evolution are faith-based. Evolutionists are just too dishonest to admit that simple fact. That’s why they react so angrily to blaspheming their dual pagan gods of time and chance.

There is no “scientific theory of evolution”

I suggest reading British author Steve Jones' modern update ... chapter upon chapter, of Darwin's "Origin of the Species"?

Jones' book is titled "Darwin's Ghost," and it's a terrific read.

One for-instance is his revelation that "Just a tenth of the cells of our bodies are human. Most of the rest belong to bacteria (although a few fungi, mites and worms leven the mix). When things are good, the inhabitants of British guts double in number every twenty minutes or so, compared to the fifty years that it takes the population of these islands, even in expansive times, to do the same."

Courts have ruled that ID is a form of creationism, and have thus disallowed its being taught in school science classes. Without getting into too much detail, I’ll just say that ID was invented to put a scientific veneer on creationism. In reality, neither ID nor creationism have any scientific basis, and their resemblance to anything in the Bible is fairly thin, as well.

The articles you linked by Doug Axe are only available for a price from ScienceDirect. I found him as an author of 9 articles indexed in PubMed, of which 2 are free access. One of them predates his association with the Discovery Institute, but with the other, I was able to see that he is funded by Discovery Institute, through their “Biologic Institute.” The research done at the Biologic Institute seems limited (very few researchers and limited labspace is my impression), but, as far as I can tell, is pretty standard research which fits into everything we know about evolution.

If you’re going to cut and paste, I will too...

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