Typical Liberal University Silencing...
As a Conservative College Republican, I've had to deal with a liberal professor's attempt to hush me time and again. Whether it be through filibustering an entire class, spewing radical liberal ideology by cutting off my attempts to propose the conservative views on the topic at hand. Or be it through straight up telling the class that conservatives are bigots, dumb, haters, irrational, racist and even stupid... the ultimate goal of University leftists is the same: silience those who don't have the same views. As opposed to diversity, they'd rather everyone believe the exact same thing (as long as it conforms to their way of thinking), rather than to think outside the box.
In Intelligent Design Proponent an Outcast at own University, biochemist Michael Behe is regularly the target of such "siliencing methods." Although his book "Darwin's Black Box" was a best-seller, Behe is routinely turned down for grants and denied time and again to have his research and Intelligent Design-related work published in mainstream scientific journals.
Why doesn't get get the grants? Why is he denied by left-wing bigots who claim to teach unbiased science to have his research reproduced and read by scientists across the country? Why does his own department "actively and forcefully" condemn him and his work outright? A simple answer: FEAR.
As one who's read a good part of "Darwin's Black Box," along with parts of Michael Denton's "Evolution: A Theory in Crisis," and "Case for a Creator" by Lee Strobel, I believe FEAR is what drives scientists to relentlessly, and unabashedly (not to mention blindly) defend the paradigm that is evolution.
Scientists today who simply dismiss the scientific theory of intelligent design with no more than a quip or anti-creation/anti-God one-liner, are no better than those in Plato's cave. Liberals who like to preach "tolerance" and "openness" should practice what they preach and be more "tolerant" of opposing views and theories they don't understand, and ought to be more open to learning about them. It's the least the can do. After all, unlike the day-to-day liberal indoctrination of university professors in spewing anti-Republican, anti-Conservative, anti-Christian, and anti-Democracy hatred, the theory of Intelligent Design isn't being shoved down their throats.
To the those who like to go to sources themselves before they cast judgements, those who like to do a little thing we call research: Buy Behe's book now, it's only $10.20 on Amazon.
"Science without Religion is lame, Religion without Science is blind." Albert Einstein
"From the time the world was created, people have seen the earth and sky and all that God made. They can clearly see his invisible qualities--his eternal power and divine nature. So they have no excuse whatsoever for not knowing God." Romans 1:20
In Intelligent Design Proponent an Outcast at own University, biochemist Michael Behe is regularly the target of such "siliencing methods." Although his book "Darwin's Black Box" was a best-seller, Behe is routinely turned down for grants and denied time and again to have his research and Intelligent Design-related work published in mainstream scientific journals.
Why doesn't get get the grants? Why is he denied by left-wing bigots who claim to teach unbiased science to have his research reproduced and read by scientists across the country? Why does his own department "actively and forcefully" condemn him and his work outright? A simple answer: FEAR.
As one who's read a good part of "Darwin's Black Box," along with parts of Michael Denton's "Evolution: A Theory in Crisis," and "Case for a Creator" by Lee Strobel, I believe FEAR is what drives scientists to relentlessly, and unabashedly (not to mention blindly) defend the paradigm that is evolution.
Scientists today who simply dismiss the scientific theory of intelligent design with no more than a quip or anti-creation/anti-God one-liner, are no better than those in Plato's cave. Liberals who like to preach "tolerance" and "openness" should practice what they preach and be more "tolerant" of opposing views and theories they don't understand, and ought to be more open to learning about them. It's the least the can do. After all, unlike the day-to-day liberal indoctrination of university professors in spewing anti-Republican, anti-Conservative, anti-Christian, and anti-Democracy hatred, the theory of Intelligent Design isn't being shoved down their throats.
###
To the those who like to go to sources themselves before they cast judgements, those who like to do a little thing we call research: Buy Behe's book now, it's only $10.20 on Amazon.
"Science without Religion is lame, Religion without Science is blind." Albert Einstein
"From the time the world was created, people have seen the earth and sky and all that God made. They can clearly see his invisible qualities--his eternal power and divine nature. So they have no excuse whatsoever for not knowing God." Romans 1:20
posted by Anonymous @ 5:54 AM
7 Comments:
At 5:31 PM,
M. McKain said…
I'd agree that such debate is perfectly acceptable in the world of academia, and should be promoted instead of silenced. I think the problems emerge when they start trying to push this notion into high schools as a scientific theory. Intelligent design currently lacks the scientific backing to be taught at those levels, not to mention that teaching the existence of a creator, no matter how one sugar coats it, is an unconstitutional state endorsement of religion. Behe and others draw scorn primarily for advocating this, not their academic research. I'll wholly concede that rejection at that level should only be in the form of scholarly rebuke based on facts and nothing further.
The reality is, however, there is a very strong movement to do exactly what you said is not being done: shoving intelligent design down people's throats. While Conservatives are so worried about the "liberal silencing," they’ve apparently missed the fact that the Conservatives in power at all levels of national government and in many states have reopened the debate about teaching this in schools that should have met its end along side the "cross of gold" a century ago. So, before you get too downtrodden and feel like too much of a victim, take a few minutes to recognize the “progress” that your side has made in this area. In reality, these developments are probably responsible for spawning any backlash that may be occurring.
At 7:14 PM,
mynym said…
Intelligent design currently lacks the scientific backing to be taught at those levels...
Then Darwinism does too, as there has always been a dialectic between them and one is not falsifiable without the other. Note that what is currently taught in highschool is often based on known frauds anyway, so there is no glittering Enlightenment to protect.
...not to mention that teaching the existence of a creator, no matter how one sugar coats it, is an unconstitutional state endorsement of religion.
Then both the Declaration and the Constitution are unconstitutional since they support the doctrine of a Creator. How can you go about arguing that either document is unconstitutional, especially as one of them is the Constitution?
"Neither of the two fundamental axioms of Darwin’s macroevolutionary theory—the concept of the continuity of nature. . . and the belief that all the adaptive design of life has resulted from a blind random process—have been validated by one single empirical discovery or scientific advance since 1859."--Michael Denton cf. (Doubts About Darwin: A History of Intelligent Design
By Thomas Woodward :48)
At 7:21 PM,
mynym said…
You can read the Uncommon Dissent and others if you are interested in reading the side that tends to be censored in American universities.
Philosophically and scientifically ID is pretty simple in some ways, if you do not agree that symbols and signs can be the work of a mind generating information (in formations of matter) then do not bother reading text here. In fact, you should not bother to write anything either as it is just an artifact of the biochemical state of your brain at that moment, and if it is not capable of dealing with or creating intelligence then it is unintelligable.
For how it may be working in telic thoughts, see:
The Quantum Brain
By Jeffrey Satinover
Another ID blog is Telic Thoughts
At 12:08 PM,
M. McKain said…
You've attacked one piece of evidence out of the hundreds because it may be slightly misleading as presented in some text. Even then, the similarities in the embryos can be noted, and that is the point of the diagram in the first place. The DNA evidence is perhaps the most powerful of all, and continues to strengthen rather than weaken the case for evolution. Obviously, ideas change and develop (we've come a long way since Darwin), but that is just part of science.
"Then both the Declaration and the Constitution are unconstitutional since they support the doctrine of a Creator." --There is a huge difference between historical documents recognizing a creator, written in a time before the theory of evolution even existed, and teaching creation at the hand of a divine intelligence, particularly in a science classroom. There's really no comparison.
Though I admit I need to do more reading, I'm yet to see any EVIDENCE to support intelligent design (beyond my own theology,which is a personal belief). Why must the two be mutually exclusive anyway, as you present it? Is it not possible that some divine hand used evolution as a TOOL for their creation? Show me something concrete and scientific (like DNA and the whole host of other things to support evolution), and then I'll consider id a scientific alternative. Until then, it should remain in the church (or even the world of academia) where it belongs, and not in our public schools.
At 1:55 PM,
Unknown said…
"Even then, the similarities in the embryos can be noted, and that is the point of the diagram in the first place."
I hope I'm not mistaken tht you're refering to Heckles Embryos. The pictures of how embryos are similar. Well, if you would, like i said do the research, you would find out that those pictures are a complete fraud. The have no scientific basis at all.
"The DNA evidence is perhaps the most powerful of all, and continues to strengthen rather than weaken the case for evolution"
are you kidding me? What research of evidence do you have of this at all? cellular microbiology and the study of DNA and RNA have created major holes in the theory of evolution. The definition of "irreducibly complex systems" has shaken believers in Darwin's theory to the point where they don't have any logical response that's based on evidence.
If you look at the history of DNA/RNA scientists still don't know how these genetic codes were created and how they're instilled in our cellular structure. However, this is completely explained in the theory of intelligent design.
Thing is Mike... why do you attack intelligent design without doing the investigative research? It's important in life to see the other sides point of view, and in the many various comment posts you've had on this site, it appears to me that you fail to do so.
By researching the opposition and looking at their research and their evidence (like most liberal professors DON'T do: hence the "hushing"), you would be able to strengthen your own arguments against ID... that is if you didn't become an ID proponent in the process.
One last thing, you said "there is a very strong movement to do exactly what you said is not being done: shoving intelligent design down people's throats"
I won't even ask the question of when the theory of evolution was started- if you feel that that theory was shoved down my throat... or how in every science class i've ever had, that evolution wasn't shoved down my throat, or that in classes at UD- that liberal ideology is shoved down my throat. Don't worry, I won't ask for a response to that "shoving down a throat"...
Instead I'll address your comment about ID. If you look at the court case in Pennsylvania. Currently, a textbook that only cites the theory of evolution is taught in schools. With the overwhelming amount of evidence that has come up in recent decades against evolution, and the overwhelming concret evidencial support of ID: the school board felt it necessary to type a paragraph into the beginning of the book.
That paragraph simply says that the theory of evolution isn't complete and has a substantial amount of evidence against it that disproves it. It also mentions that there are others that have taken to the new theory of intelligent design and if the student wishes to learn more- they can buy a textbook on ID- that is not offered by the school.
So, students are given a textbook on evolution, have to read and answer test questions on evolution... and if they even wanted to learn about something else, they would have to buy a collegiate textbook on their own. And saying our textbooks are routinely over $75, I don't think many H.S. students would be reading it. It is the absolute minimum, and for anyone who's had something shoved down their throat would realize- this isn't even a tap on the shoulder.
At 4:18 PM,
mynym said…
You've attacked one piece of evidence out of the hundreds because it may be slightly misleading as presented in some text.
I attack it because it is what is being imposed as textbook orthodoxy. Usually when you hear, "This is a textbook case of..." such and such that means it is classic, well verified knowledge. To question it would be "like questioning gravity" which is just like Darwinian propagandists sometimes argue, although they deny doing so. If you're so concerned about what is being imposed, as noted sometimes fraudulent claims are being imposed on impressionable minds. (And note that any move towards the slightest correction such as putting a sticker on Darwinist textbooks is cause for hysterical claims about the end of science as we know it by Leftists, the Old Press and Darwinists.) The next "textbook case" of Darwinian processes is the case of the peppered moths, which is also presented in misleading ways, i.e. the pictures in texts are of dead moths which Darwinists placed on tree trunks to make the case about how they changed color to adapt to the color of the trees, yet the moths natural resting place is not the tree trunk they are said to adapt to, which is why Darwinists had to stage their images. Imagery probably imposes a false impression on young student's minds, yet you do not seem concerned.
...the similarities in the embryos can be noted, and that is the point of the diagram in the first place.
Even evolutionists (like Gould) admit that Haeckel's frauds are just that, a fraud. Interesting to note Haeckel's defense though, summarized: "All biologists try to fit the data to Darwinian theory!" And that is true, some just take it so far that it is obviously fraudulent. I.e., if you make a claim about bits of bone and write mythological narratives of Naturalism about them, then you are pretty safe in fitting things to Darwinism. (Sometimes not...) But if you take some embryos which anyone can observe and make pictures of them which "fit" a hypothesis just the way you want them to, then when embryos are studied further and more empirical observations are made your claims may be falsified.
Note that Darwin would not agree with the modern "synthesis" of Darwinism:"According to a theory of Darwin’s that is little known today but was dear to his heart—the theory of”pangenesis”—an egg is made from fea tures of the parent organism that transmit their earthly past through the seminal fluid in the form of little particles. According to pangenesis, the entire organism generates the offspring. Only in this way could Darwin explain the evolution of the species—i.e., as a decanting of the vicissitudes of the parents’ lives into the offspring. For Darwin, evolution was the cumulative experience of the world’s organisms over time. He got this idea from his illustrious, unappreciated French precursor, the Chevalier de Lamarck. Before Darwin came along, Lamarck proposed the theory of the transmission of acquired characteristics. The transfer of worldly acquisitions from the environment to offspring was a sort of spontaneous generation of life from non-life, and this was evolution, Darwin never thought that evolution was anything else, and he would have disavowed the Theory of Evolution propounded in his name in the twentieth century.
Once the effect of the environment is excluded, whence, one may ask, come the differences between living beings? Weismann suggested that the differences must have been present in the first beings to populate the earth. Species differentiate among themselves because of something received from distant ages, remaining intact for millions of years, unreachable by influences of the body and apart from transactions with the environment. To Darwin’s “pangenes,” coming from all parts of the organism to form the germ of each generation, Weismann opposed his “biophores,” present from the beginning of life and preceding all organic forms, including eggs. He maintained that these “determinants,” as incorruptible as ideas, were transmitted via immortal germ lines to produce bodies, again and again, as glorious and mortal by-products.
Life thus returns to its origins or, rather, holds on to its origins by clinging to the handrail of the germ line.
Samuel Butler expressed Weismann’s theory in the following terms:
“The hen is the means whereby an egg constructs another egg.” This evokes a barnyard scene where the hen is a gossipy creature, incapable of flight and good only for laying eggs. The hen well expresses the useless ness of the organism, apart from her function as a bearer of eggs. But Weismann also said: "From the eagle’s egg, the eagle."
The shells of an eagle’s egg and a hen’s egg are barely distinguishable. Their egg cells, nuclei and DNA look almost identical. And yet from the hen’s egg there hatches the chicken, and from the eagle’s egg the king of birds: Powerful and immense, with hooked claws, imperial head and great square tail, it soars aloft, its outstretched wings at times motionless, at times stirring in solemn strokes, the feathers at its wing tips separated and curving upwards.
From an eagle’s egg, an eagle."(Why is a Fly not a Horse? By Giuseppe Sermonti :34-35)
At 12:26 AM,
M. McKain said…
You have both written quite a bit, and I don't really have the time or energy to respond to each thing individually. Jeff asks, "do you attack intelligent design without doing the investigative research?" - To a degree, yes - I am not a biologist; I am not someone who has spent my entire life studying this, as a vast majority of biologist who accept this theory have. You're right: I'm kind of taking their word for it, but the word of the vast majority of the scientific community is good enough for a humble history ed/political science major.
I would like very much to hear you (or someone else who is well read on your perspective) debate the actual facts (Jeff has yet to show any evidence to support ID, and I have difficulty following Mynym’s arguments) with someone in the scientific community who knows this stuff better than I. Perhaps we could plan some kind of program here on campus? I'm not being sarcastic here, I really think there would be some interest – get some professors and maybe clergy involved. Maybe we could try to plan something?
At any rate, all of this back and forth is irregardless of the fact that I more or less said that at least to a degree, I actually support the notion of intelligent design. However, I think the role of religion is more to answer the "why" and that we should let science answer the "how."
As far as the teaching of evolution - it is taught (when it is taught - my conservative high school skipped over a vast majority of it, leaving me WAY behind in intro level science classes here where they assumed familiarity with it) because it is the accepted scientific theory. It is no different than plate tectonics or a host of other theories in geology (I’ll avoid the gravity comparison just for you, Mynym). Also, there is a HUGE difference between HS and college - we're old enough and mature enough to think for ourselves now. In high schools, I do think we need to be careful, which is exactly why they do not allow the teaching/preaching of religion.
All I was arguing in the first place was the need to keep academic debates confined to academia until the status quo therein shifts; if the paradigm moves towards the acceptance of id INSTEAD of evolution, then we can debate teaching it.
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