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Climategate Recalls Attacks on Darwin Doubters
Human Events ^ | 12/22/2009 | Dr. Stephen C. Meyer

Posted on 12/22/2009 7:53:44 AM PST by SeekAndFind

Believers in human-caused global climate change have been placed under an uncomfortable spotlight recently. That is thanks to the Climategate scandal, centering on e-mails hacked from the influential Climate Research Unit (CRU) at England’s University of East Anglia. The e-mails show scientists from various academic institutions hard at work suppressing dissent from other scientists who have doubts on global warming, massaging research data to fit preconceived ideas, and seeking to manipulate the gold standard “peer review” process to keep skeptical views from being heard.

Does this sound familiar at all? To me, as a prominent skeptic of modern Darwinian theory, it sure does. For years, Darwin-doubting scientists have complained of precisely such abuses, committed by Darwin zealots in academia.

There have been parallels cases where e-mail traffic was released showing Darwinian scientists displaying the same contempt for fair play and academic openness as we see now in the climate emails. One instance involved a distinguished astrophysicist at Iowa State University, Guillermo Gonzalez, who broke ranks with colleagues in his department over the issue of intelligent design in cosmology. Released under the Iowa Open Records Act, e-mails from his fellow scientists at ISU showed how his department conspired against him, denying Dr. Gonzales tenure as retribution for his views.

To me, the most poignant correspondence emerging from CRU e-mails involves discussion about punishing a particular editor at a peer-reviewed journal who was defying the orthodox establishment by publishing skeptical research.

In 2004, a peer-reviewed biology journal at the Smithsonian Institution published a technical essay of mine presenting a case for intelligent design. Colleagues of the journal’s editor, an evolutionary biologist, responded by taking away his office, his keys and his access to specimens, placing him under a hostile supervisor and spreading disinformation about him. Ultimately, he was demoted, prompting an investigation of the Smithsonian by the U.S. Office of Special Counsel.

The public has been intimidated into thinking that “non-experts” have no right to question “consensus” views in science. But the scandal in at the University of East Anglia suggests that this consensus on climate may not be based on solid evidence.

But what about the Darwin debate? We are told that the consensus of scientists in favor of Darwinian evolution means the theory is no longer subject to debate. In fact, there are strong scientific reasons to doubt Darwin’s theory and what it allegedly proved.

For example, contrary to Darwinian orthodoxy, the fossil record actually challenges the idea that all organisms have evolved from a single common ancestor. Why? Fossil studies reveal “a biological big bang” near the beginning of the Cambrian period (520 million years ago) when many major, separate groups of organisms or “phyla” (including most animal body plans) emerged suddenly without clear precursors.

While all scientists accept that natural selection can produce small-scale “micro-evolutionary” variations, many biologists now doubt that natural selection and random mutations can generate the large-scale changes necessary to produce fundamentally new structures and forms of life.

Thus more than 800 scientists, including professors from such institutions as the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Yale and Rice universities and members of various national (U.S., Russian, Czech, Polish) academies of science have signed a statement questioning the creative power of the selection/mutation mechanism.

Increasingly, the Darwinian idea that living things only appear to be designed has come under scrutiny. Indeed, living systems display telltale signs of actual or intelligent design such as the presence of complex circuits, miniature motors and digital information in living cells. The information and information-processing systems that run the show in cells point with a particular clarity to prior design. The DNA molecule stores instructions in the form of a four-character digital code, similar to a computer code. As we know from our repeated experience -- the basis of all scientific reasoning -- systems possessing such features always arise from minds, not material processes.

Thus, despite the orthodox view that Darwin showed “design could arise without a designer” there is now compelling scientific evidence to the contrary.

The question of biological origins has long raised profound philosophical questions. Have life’s endlessly diverse forms been the result of purely material processes or did a purposeful intelligence play a role? It’s not surprising that such an ideologically charged issue would illicit strong passions, leading even scientists to suppress dissenting views with which they disagree.

All the more reason -- in this debate as in the one about global warming -- to let the evidence, rather than the consensus of experts, determine the outcome.

-- Dr. Meyer is director for the Discovery Institute's Center for Science and Culture. He is author of Signature in the Cell: DNA and the Evidence for Intelligent Design, honored in the Times Literary Supplement as one of the best books of 2009. He received his Ph.D. in the Philosophy of Science from Cambridge University.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: catholic; christian; climategate; creation; darwin; dnctalkingpoint; dnctalkingpoints; evolution; globalwarming; globalwarminghoax; godsgravesglyphs; humanevents; intelligentdesign; protestant; science; stephencmeyer
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To: wendy1946; varmintman; jeddavis; medved; tomzz
You see what you want to see, Ted, and only what you want to see.

I must admit, though ... you've shown improvement from the old days. Your attacks on science no longer include minstrel dialect jokes.

101 posted on 01/05/2010 11:56:12 AM PST by Gumlegs
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Comment #102 Removed by Moderator

To: Gumlegs; wendy1946; medved
Be fair. I don't think there's any FR policy on virtual cross dressing.

Besides, I'm thinking medwendyved would show a bit more flash:


103 posted on 01/05/2010 3:03:49 PM PST by Stultis (Oceania has always been at war with Eastasia; Democrats always opposed waterboarding as torture)
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To: Stultis; wendy1946; medved; jeddavis; varmintman; tomzz
WWVW?

"What would Velikovsky wear?"

104 posted on 01/05/2010 4:26:24 PM PST by Gumlegs
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To: SeekAndFind
Even the Roman Catholic Church welcomes discussions and exchanges on Galileo.

That might be true now, but not then. Galileo finished his life under Catholic Church house arrest.

105 posted on 01/06/2010 9:32:07 AM PST by OldNavyVet
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To: allmendream

No your premise is flawed, you’re confusing education with liberal indoctrination and vice versa.

And all the your projections in the world about your own ignorance can’t mask it.


106 posted on 01/07/2010 7:10:28 AM PST by tpanther (Science was, is and will forever be a small subset of God's creation.)
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To: tpanther
No, you are confusing education with liberal indoctrination. You have yet to support your premise that increased educational attainment leads to political liberalism.

However my statement is absolutely supported by the evidence. The more educated you are, the less likely you are to be a creationist.

Thus creationism is the refuge of the uneducated and ignorant.

Cretarded sources depend upon the ignorance of their target audience.

107 posted on 01/07/2010 7:33:01 AM PST by allmendream (Wealth is EARNED not distributed, so how could it be RE-distributed?)
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To: allmendream
However my statement is absolutely supported by the evidence.

Around here, this "evidence" thingie is unknown, unwanted, and most asssuredly not understood.

108 posted on 01/07/2010 1:52:04 PM PST by Gumlegs
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To: allmendream; GodGunsGuts; metmom; Agamemnon

“No, you are confusing education with liberal indoctrination”.

I know you are but what am I? That’s all you’ve got AGAIN?

Ohhh...K...

Meanwhile,

It’s not like people haven’t seen your tired argument destroyed about 100 times over (and over again)...indeed the more educated one is (self-educated or whatever it takes), the more likely they are to see through the liberal indoctrinations masquerading as education, keeping in mind of course that a liberal piece of paper from say Yale or Harvard does not necessarily mean one IS educated much less intelligent.

And even if you were even remotely lukewarm, one glance at this site indicates scientists bright enough to recognize the liberal cult of evolution for what it is, are indeed “educated” at Johns Hopkins, Princeton, Harvard, MIT, etc.

www.dissentfromdarwin.org

BTW a valid argument/observation is that the more conservative one is, the more they understand what a fraud evolution is.

And what people here understand is how ridiculous you liberals look on FR when you let your guard down on various other dead giveaways.


109 posted on 01/07/2010 3:25:07 PM PST by tpanther (Science was, is and will forever be a small subset of God's creation.)
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To: tpanther
BTW a valid argument/observation is that the more conservative one is, the more they understand what a fraud evolution is.

Well said!!

110 posted on 01/07/2010 3:27:50 PM PST by Agamemnon (Intelligent Design is to evolution what the Swift Boat Vets were to the Kerry campaign)
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To: tpanther
I said that the more educated one is the less likely they are to be a creationist.

Implying that education is liberal indoctrination is not in any way a “debunking” of the simple fact that....

The more educated one is, the less likely they are to be a creationist.

That is simply the truth. A truth that, like most of science, creationists would rather ignore than deal with.

Creationism is the refuge of the ignorant and uneducated.

Acceptance of a scientific theory based upon evidence is not liberalism. Adherence to your favorite ideology based upon feeling and emotion despite all facts to the contrary is liberals; thus YOU tpanther are just like a liberal.

111 posted on 01/07/2010 3:32:42 PM PST by allmendream (Wealth is EARNED not distributed, so how could it be RE-distributed?)
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To: allmendream; tpanther
Ignorance is not a conservative trait, and education level is not a predictor of political ideology.

Ignorance tends to be a liberal trait, but ignorance can be in other areas than just head knowledge.

In light of that, level of education does seem to be connected to political ideology. Look at the big name universities, like the ones that promote evolution, atheism, etc and tell me the political leanings of the majority of the professors. We've even had evos on this forum admit that either most of the scientists they know, or scientists in general tend to be liberal.

While theoretically, there should be no correlation between level of education and morals and political leanings, it does seem to exist, as evidenced by the universities.

Too much indoctrination goes on in universities, and public schools, and not enough passing on of knowledge and practical application of same.

112 posted on 01/07/2010 4:09:06 PM PST by metmom (Welfare was never meant to be a career choice.)
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To: allmendream

The more one is indoctrinated by liberal teachers and professors, the less likely one is to be a creationist.

That you can’t tell the diference between education and liberal indoctrination is hardly surprising.

The truth shall set you free.

But the truth will not demand you recognize it...

you have to actually educate yourself to recognize it.

Projecting your ignorance just isn’t getting it done.


113 posted on 01/08/2010 7:31:53 PM PST by tpanther (Science was, is and will forever be a small subset of God's creation.)
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To: tpanther
Science isn't either liberal or conservative, it is just a body of knowledge and a system for gaining that knowledge.

You have yet to demonstrate that educational attainment correlates with liberal politics.

You are a one trick pony that's ‘trick’ is to scream “liberal” at everything that you disagree with, like learning.

114 posted on 01/08/2010 8:18:50 PM PST by allmendream (Wealth is EARNED not distributed, so how could it be RE-distributed?)
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To: allmendream

You continue ignoring that science has been hijacked just like liberals hijack

politics
government
journalism
law

nothing is off limits, including science.

I understand your disability and projections. as do most freepers.


115 posted on 01/12/2010 10:53:03 AM PST by tpanther (Science was, is and will forever be a small subset of God's creation.)
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To: tpanther
Stating something is true is not the same as providing evidence that it is true.

Science is science, it has not been “hijacked” just because it disagrees with your theology.

You have yet to show any evidence that increased educational attainment correlates with increased political liberalism.

However, the less educated one is, the more likely they are to be a creationist.

Thus creationist sources “play to their audience”, the ignorant.

116 posted on 01/12/2010 11:01:53 AM PST by allmendream (Wealth is EARNED not distributed, so how could it be RE-distributed?)
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To: allmendream

The evidence is before you. No one can force you to accept it though.

Plodding through life on FR masquerading as something you’re not is your right.

But understand it is equally the right of others to expose you.

People are free to make buffoons of themselves, and you’re free to continue your buffoonery on FR.


117 posted on 01/12/2010 4:46:55 PM PST by tpanther (Science was, is and will forever be a small subset of God's creation.)
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To: tpanther
The evidence is quite conclusive, creationism is the refuge of the uneducated. The more educated one is the less likely they are to be a creationist.

It may be beyond your limited understanding of the world to accept that all conservatives are not creationists, but the only deception is your constant lie of screaming “liberal” to any disagreement.

Buffoonery is exactly how I would describe your posting style.

Saying “projection” and “liberal” to every argument makes one assume that this is a reflexive action on your part not requiring any thought, and a good thing that, for I think if any though were required for your posts you wouldn't bother as it is beyond your limited abilities.

118 posted on 01/12/2010 4:54:51 PM PST by allmendream (Wealth is EARNED not distributed, so how could it be RE-distributed?)
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To: allmendream

The more one is indoctrinated by liberal teachers and professors, the less likely one is to be a creationist.

That you can’t tell the diference between education and liberal indoctrination is hardly surprising.


119 posted on 01/12/2010 5:19:25 PM PST by tpanther (Science was, is and will forever be a small subset of God's creation.)
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To: tpanther
Once again it is YOU who cannot tell the difference, and have provided zero evidentiary support that attaining degrees correlates in any way to political leftism.

I don't see how being taught Molecular Genetics by Valery Soyfer, the noted anti-Communist, who said in class that “I bless every day Ronald Reagan in my prayers” was in any way shape or form “liberal indoctrination”.

He taught me mostly Molecular Genetics, and there is nothing political about it or any other scientific theory.

120 posted on 01/12/2010 5:32:47 PM PST by allmendream (Income is EARNED not distributed. So how could it be re-distributed?)
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