Jerry Bergman. C. S. Lewis: Anti-Darwinist: A Careful Examination of the Development of His Views on Darwinism. Eugene Oregon: Wipf & Stock Publishers. 2016.Posted on 12/02/2017 12:14:14 PM PST by SeekAndFind
I have written three rather lengthy books about discrimination against scientists who dared to question the validity of Darwinism, more commonly known as Darwin Dissidents.[1] C.S. Lewis predicted that Darwinists would become totalitarians when he was alive, and history has proved him correct.[2] One recent case is that of the distinguished paleontologist, Dr. Günter Bechly, a world expert on fossil insects, who was forced to resign [a tactful way to say he was fired] as curator for the State Museum of Natural History in Stuttgart, Germany. Then, as a result, he was censored from Wikipedia. The editors at Wikipedia attempted to cover up their censorship of Günter, a world-class expert on dragonflies, by claiming his heresy on ID had nothing to do with their decision. Instead, they proclaimed the censorship was because he is not “notable” enough to include in their free online encyclopedia.
The editors of Bechly’s Wikipedia page also grossly distorted their entry on Intelligent Design and made little effort to hide their ideological bias. What happened to Dr. Bechly is the same thing that happened to ID advocate Walter Bradley, a Baylor University Professor, whose Wiki entry was also censored heavily.[3] The Wikipedia staff claim that Darwinism is the scientific consensus worldview, therefore this justifies the censorship. This ignores the fact that scientific consensus on evolution is maintained by the practice of censoring dissenters. Having your scientific accomplishments erased is the ultimate insult for a scientist. Wiki editors, meanwhile, indulge far less notable atheists with extensive biographical entries.
This conclusion was affirmed by Darwinists themselves in Israel’s leading newspaper, the secular left-leaning Haaretz, which is Israel’s equivalent of the New York Times. The headline said: “A Respected Scientist Comes Out Against Evolution – and Loses His Wikipedia Page.”[4]
Günter Bechly, a devout Catholic from Germany, had a promising academic career as a paleontologist. He had published numerous papers in prestigious, peer-review journals – including groundbreaking studies he conducted into the evolution of dragonfly wings – and was even a curator at Stuttgart’s State Museum of Natural History. At least until 2016. That’s when he first came out against evolution and in favor of intelligent design.[5]
Haaretz repeatedly misspelled Bechly’s last name as “Blechy” or “Blechly” and added the standard insults directed at ID as a “pseudoscience rehash of creationism.” Fortunately, Haaretz embedded a clip from the Discovery Institute documentary Revolutionary: Michael Behe and the Mystery of Molecular Machines [6] in which Dr. Bechly gets to tell some of his own story in an excerpt from the film (see the excerpt posted at Evolution News).
That is a remarkable bit of fairness in reporting, coming from the media’s leftist progressives who typically call on Darwinists to speak for ID. Reporter Omer Benjakob describes Wikipedia’s rationalizations for deleting Bechly’s page:
Accusations of anti-creationism bias are not germane to the purpose of [the article-for-deletion debate], and we don’t consider the stances of an article subject on a contentious topic in judging notability,” the deleting editor wrote, explaining that, “On balance, it seems like the case that the sources do not establish [Bechly’s] notability is more thoroughly argued than the case that they do, and there is no indication that any other notability criteria is met.”
See the German version to judge for yourself if Wikipedia is correct.[7] The German entry lists his many publications (many of them are listed at the end of this article). Looking past the ritual attribution of “creationism” to anyone who has the audacity to question Darwinism, Benjakob admits: “If Blechly’s [sic] article was originally introduced due to his scientific work, it was deleted due to his having become a poster child for the creationist movement.” The fact is, his scholarly articles never mention either creation or evolution.
Disregarding the “creationism” reference, Bechly was openly censored because he had moved over to the ID side of the evolution debate, not because he is not “notable” enough. The Haaretz reporter isn’t alone in stating this, which is obvious. Even Matt Young at the Darwinist group blogging site Panda’s Thumb admitted that ID supporters are probably correct.
David Klinghoffer wrote a piece at Evolution News a month or so ago, in which he charged that Wikipedia had removed the entry for the paleontologist Günter Bechly because Dr. Bechly had “converted” to creationism. I think he may have a point.[8]
Any time a Darwinist concedes that an ID supporter “may have a point” is a good day. Young adds:
Dr. Bechly has a long and impressive list of publications (not to mention a handful of species named after him, which Wikipedia deems irrelevant). I looked him up on Google Scholar and found tens to hundreds of citations to the first 10 articles listed. He has appeared on German TV, and he organized what appears to have been a major Darwin celebration in 2009. I am not at all familiar with how Wikipedia applies its guidelines, but I would have guessed that Dr. Bechly would qualify as being generally notable. Indeed, I kind of agree with one commenter, who noted that he should be of interest precisely because of his conversion to creationism.[9]
The creationism name calling slur is common. ID is very different from creationism. Young then concluded
had Dr. Bechly not converted to creationism, then he would have flown beneath the radar and his Wikipedia entry would have been safe. Unfortunately, he flew above the radar for a while, and some Wikipedia editor decided to have a closer look and ultimately decided to delete the entry. The editor claims that the creationism issue was irrelevant.
Had Dr. Bechly not left the Darwinist worldview camp, I have no doubt he would still be on Wikipedia, a key resource that those in the public who are interested in the origins debate are likely to consult. On the other hand, informed readers can learn a great deal about the evolution controversy, such as how it is deceptively manipulated, by this episode.
Below is a partial list of his peer reviewed scientific publications by Dr Bechly, a clearly meritorious record by any standard:
Update: Bechly describes what happened to him in a recent podcast at ID the Future, “Wikipedia Throws Günter Bechly Down the Orwellian Memory Hole.” He mentions that he has discovered over 160 species of insects, has had 8 species of insects named after him, and has discovered 3 orders of insects—the equivalent in physics of discovering new atomic particles. At the Stuttgart museum, he was an ardent Darwinian. He even set up a boastful display at the museum’s Darwin Bicentennial in 2009 showing Darwin’s Origin of Species outweighing a pile of ID books. Out of curiosity, he decided to read some of the ID books. As a result, he became convinced that they made a better scientific case, and he switched positions for scientific reasons, not for religious reasons (he only converted to Catholicism after being expelled). His humiliation began in 2016 when he came out publicly in support of intelligent design.
[1] Slaughter of the Dissidents: The Shocking Truth About Killing the Careers of Darwin Doubters. Revised version 2012. Southworth, WA: Leafcutter Press; Silencing the Darwin Skeptics. Southworth, WA: Leafcutter Press. 2016; The current book that contains this section is Censoring the Darwin Skeptics. Port Orchard, WA: Leafcutter Press.
[2] Jerry Bergman. C. S. Lewis: Anti-Darwinist: A Careful Examination of the Development of His Views on Darwinism. Eugene Oregon: Wipf & Stock Publishers. 2016.
[3] https://evolutionnews.org/2017/10/youve-been-edited-another-id-scholar-walter-bradley-gets-the-wikipedia-treatment/
[4] https://www.haaretz.com/science-and-health/1.823247
[5] Omer Benjakob. https://www.haaretz.com/science-and-health/1.823247
[6] https://revolutionarybehe.com
[7] https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Günter_Bechly.
[8] https://pandasthumb.org/archives/2017/11/creationists-wikipedia-page.html
[9] https://pandasthumb.org/archives/2017/11/creationists-wikipedia-page.html
The video link included in this article is fantastic!
Darwinism is a perjorative term to refer to people who don’t ascribe to the faith-based rather than observationally based alternative. As soon as an article starts by pigeonholing and trivializing a particular viewpoint, you’re guaranteed to only get one cherry picked side of the argument. Communists have been doing it for years by labelling proponents of free market enterprise as “capitalists”. Now if you are a board certified cardiologist that one day decides that it’s all bunk and the right way to treat a myocardial infarction is praying over a bowl of chicken entrails like in a philippino village, then yes, you should be fired from John Hopkins or Bethesda. The theories of evolution and biological adaptations has practical implications: it makes your gasoline cheaper since it is used (in part) by petroleum geologists to figure out the best place to drill, and works.
Theory that challenges Einstein's physics could soon be put to the test
So what happened to scientific consensus concerning Einstein’s speed of light idea?
Would you feel better about the discussion if, instead of “Darwinists,” the term “atheists” were used?
If you define the concept of “Creationist” to mean belief that the earth was created 10,000 years ago, with fossils already in place, and then you say that the theory of Intelligent Design must accept Creationism, then I have a problem with your premise.
I have seen too many discussions over the years of “intelligent design” to agree. Some intelligent design adherents appear to believe that Evolution, and almost all of Darwin’s principles, simply show how God has been working out creation. Five hundred million year old fossils don’t faze them in the least.
Blaise Pascal lived before fossils were completely understood, but consider his concept of the probability of finding a “naturally occurring” watch on a path in the forest to the the probability of the universe having no creator. In essence, isn’t that what many adherents of Intelligent Design are saying?
Your post seems to confuse the concepts of Creationism and intelligent design, as I read it.
Saved for future reference.
Science. Such a simple concept, yet so elusive to the totalitarians.
Whatever the source, when I see both the words "science" and "consensus" in the same sentence, I immediately lose interest. Life is too short.
The notes, references and links are always illuminating, though.
Which Video link?
I left my OUIJA Board in my other suit...
Note that I was polite enough to give you a context link quote.
Anything posted in Wikipedia is subject to question.I have found them wrong on several occasions, including their insisting at first to better know the date and time of the death of my husband. I finally succeeded in setting them straight!
And *Luddites* and *creationists* are pejoratives lobbed at those who DO adhere to faith based model of creation.
Every liberal is a violent totalitarian thug.
Censorship is an important part of Consensus Science.
Everyone on the left is a totalitarian at heart.
Wickedpedia is by and for secular, atheist, communist evolutionists.
I find it enormously amusing that university academics who agree with both the prejudices and publishings of Wickedpedia nevertheless resent and deride it because it is populist rather than elitist.
They hate the competition, just like Russia and China.
Einstein was close. Nothing can exceed the local speed of light. But that local can be modified to exceed the equivalent speed of light. Just one analogy: If I am running at near the speed of light and I am pulling on a rope connected to a little red wagon at the other end of the field at a significant fraction of the speed of light; then I will reach the wagon in less time than it would take a beam from a flashlight to reach the same wagon at the end of the field.
Great post!!!
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