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Those Defensive Darwinists
The Seattle Times ^ | 11/21/05 | Jonathon Witt

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.


TOPICS: Editorial; Miscellaneous; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: darwin; evolutionism; intelligentdesign
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To: Cicero

Quoting: "I'm perfectly happy to read Darwin and to let the theory be taught in schools, as long as it doesn't pretend to have a total monopoly on the truth."

"Why aren't Darwinists willing to entertain other possibilities in a similar way? Why do they refuse to let anyone even open their mouths about them? Why do they fire professors who dare to question Darwin? Why do they take school districts to court if they dare to question Darwin or even order an ID book for the school library? Is Darwin so delicate he can't stand up to questioning?"
----
Reply: Where are you going to go with this argument? I think faeries are responsible for making airplanes fly. Teach the controversy. Let's not let the elites of Lockheed and Boeing get away unquestioned. Do you have any single counter-example or PROOF that faeries do not keep airplanes aloft?

Do aeronautic engineers have a "monoply on the truth", as you say, in their sphere? I trust them more than 2000-year old texts on this. When do you want the 'faerie theory' of airplanes taught in engineering schools on an equal basis?


221 posted on 11/22/2005 7:06:24 PM PST by thomaswest (Just Curious)
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Comment #222 Removed by Moderator

To: editor-surveyor
Your "10,000 chrisian clergy" are unbelievers.

Ah, look, yet another AECreationist posting his MERE PRESUMPTION about the signers of the letter as if it was some sort of fact.

Do you guys get paid by the lie or something?

223 posted on 11/22/2005 7:11:44 PM PST by Ichneumon
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To: Stingy Dog
biologists have not been able to discover the factors that initiate the process.

Wrong. For starters:

Time. Rivers. Mountains. Continental drift. Genetic drift. Founders effect...

224 posted on 11/22/2005 7:13:14 PM PST by Coyoteman (I love the sound of beta decay in the morning!)
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To: Stingy Dog
Does one squirrel change into a different species, or does it continue to be a squirrel?

All squirrels are the same species? You're really a piece of work, aren't you?

225 posted on 11/22/2005 7:13:22 PM PST by Junior (From now on, I'll stick to science, and leave the hunting alien mutants to the experts!)
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Comment #226 Removed by Moderator

To: longshadow
But in as much as the anti-Evos were caught lying through their teeth under oath in the Dover Trial, it would be of little surprise that their apologists here on FR would resort to milder forms of deception, such as camouflaging the TRUE source of the posted article, by way of omission.

You find it difficult to click on the link provided at the top of the posting? Oh yeah, it's easier for you to use Ad Hominem.

Re: OSC File No. MA-05-0371 and MA-05-0015

First Amendment Violations, Religious and Political Affiliation Discrimination

Our investigation also shows that there is a strong religious and political component to the actions taken after the publication of the Meyer article. Much of the e-mail traffic after the publication of the Meyer article documented a personal investigation of you and tabbed you as a "creationist." One senior SI employee, when discussing the Meyer article stated, "the paper is a sheer disaster… We are evolutionary biologist, and I am sorry to see us made into the laughing stock of the world, even if this kind of rubbish sells well in backwoods, USA… under no circumstances should the Institution support the journal with page-charges, which up to this point has been a mainstay of the Society." After the publication when many in the SI were investigating your background one of the e-mails raised concerns that you had "extensive training as an orthodox priest." Another e-mail stated, "Scientists have been perfectly willing to let these people alone in their churches, but now it looks like these people are coming out and invading our schools, biology classes, museums and now our professional journals. These people to my mind are only a scale up on the fundies of a more destructive kind in other parts of the world. Depressing. Oh, if we only still had Steve Gould to lead the counter-attack."

227 posted on 11/22/2005 7:17:34 PM PST by AndrewC (Darwinian logic -- It is just-so if it is just-so)
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To: editor-surveyor; LiteKeeper; Ichneumon
On that list of pro-evolution clergy, I see ELCA and other Lutherans, United Methodists, Presbyterians, Catholics, Episcopal, Congregationalists, UCC, and even a Baptist. Oddly enough, only a few Unitarians. So which of these denominations is pro-abortion, pro-homosexual, or otherwise anathema? I'm curious what tiny percentage of Christians actually measure up to you gentlemen's exacting tests of orthodoxy.
228 posted on 11/22/2005 7:17:55 PM PST by Right Wing Professor
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To: Stingy Dog

"Why do they have this desire to improve us?"

We have no concern about improving you; you are hopeless. We are concerned about making sure that your ignorance doesn't spread.


229 posted on 11/22/2005 7:19:05 PM PST by CarolinaGuitarman ("There is a grandeur in this view of life...")
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To: Liberal Classic

quoting: "Do you believe in UFOs, astral projections, mental telepathy, ESP, clairvoyance, spirit photography, telekinetic movement, full trance mediums, the Loch Ness monster and the theory of Atlantis?

"Winston Zeddmore:
Ah, if there's a steady paycheck in it, I'll believe anything you say."

Thank you for adding to my list of silly, non-Christian things people believe in. Getting a buck from it is only to show that some practicioners know how to milk to ready-to-believe. Religious cults are the same.




230 posted on 11/22/2005 7:19:37 PM PST by thomaswest (Just Curious)
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To: Stingy Dog
You still have not acknowledged your gross error, which I pointed out in post #198.

Do you not acknowledge when you make a mistake, but just blithely keep posting along hoping nobody will notice?

231 posted on 11/22/2005 7:23:03 PM PST by Coyoteman (I love the sound of beta decay in the morning!)
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To: Stingy Dog
Like a squirrel on one side becomes an hyppopotamus?

Yes that's exactly what happened. It was observed too. Some scientists sat up all night watching squirrels and, would you believe it, one of them gave birth to a hyppopotamus. This is documented and proven, so evolution is now considered a law.

232 posted on 11/22/2005 7:23:08 PM PST by bobdsmith
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To: AndrewC

Problem is, none of this had in the least relevance, since the OSC admitted it had no jurisdiction. It appears to have been a personal jihad conducted by McVay on the government tab. Possibly if he were not an insurance attorney hired as a political appointee into a position for which he is manifestly unqualified (ring any bells, anyone?), he might have acted a little more professionally.


233 posted on 11/22/2005 7:24:40 PM PST by Right Wing Professor
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To: Ichneumon
Do you guys get paid by the lie or something?

So that's where Soros' money goes!

234 posted on 11/22/2005 7:24:49 PM PST by balrog666 (A myth by any other name is still inane.)
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To: Stingy Dog
Why is it that evolutionists are obsessed with creationists/IDers?

We wouldn't care one iota if it wasn't for y'all trying to force your views into high school science classes. You could be stark raving loonies channeling 15,000 years-dead Atlanteans, and it wouldn't matter to us. When you try to transport that lunacy into the academic realm, we draw the line.

235 posted on 11/22/2005 7:25:04 PM PST by Junior (From now on, I'll stick to science, and leave the hunting alien mutants to the experts!)
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Comment #236 Removed by Moderator

To: Ichneumon
David Gates, is that you?

I'm channeling him.

237 posted on 11/22/2005 7:27:43 PM PST by Right Wing Professor
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To: Stingy Dog

Why is it that evolutionists are obsessed with creationists/IDers? That is one question I've been asking of evolutionists, but in vain. They invariably skirt the question. Why do they have this desire to improve us? Do they think, perhaps, of themselves as God, or do they have an ulterior, hidden nefarious agenda? Like, the destruction of Christianity, its culture and the enslaving of its people?

Beware the anti-Christians!

This is tortured, twisted, childish, irrational paranoid logic. Are you a child or an adult?

238 posted on 11/22/2005 7:27:51 PM PST by ml1954 (NOT the disruptive troll seen frequently on CREVO threads)
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To: Stingy Dog
"We are the foe and that audience. And, w/o an audience you ain't convincing and attracting new members to your pseudo, fake and phony religion.

~~My granddaddy was no ape~~"

Not only was your granddaddy an ape, YOU are an ape. Humans are apes. Deal with it.

BTW, what is your position on race-mixing? Why did you post that disgusting quote on your homepage? This question will not go away, and will be there every time you post on these threads. You can either answer it now, or let your silence answer for you.
239 posted on 11/22/2005 7:30:20 PM PST by CarolinaGuitarman ("There is a grandeur in this view of life...")
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To: Junior
We wouldn't care one iota if it wasn't for y'all trying to force your views into high school science classes.

Judging by his grammar, spelling and general total ignorance, it's probably the first encounter of any kind he's had with high school classes.

240 posted on 11/22/2005 7:30:58 PM PST by Right Wing Professor (Hyppopotamuses? BWAHAHAHAHA!)
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