Missouri House Committee Passes Evolution Academic Freedom Bill
The Missouri House of Representatives' Committee on Elementary and Secondary Education just approved a proposed academic freedom act on evolution by a bipartisan vote of 8-3. The bill now moves to the full House for consideration. Sponsored by Rep. Wayne Cooper, the bill reads in part:
The state board of education, public elementary and secondary school
governing authorities, superintendents of schools, school system administrators, and public elementary and secondary school principals and administrators shall endeavor to create an environment within public elementary and secondary schools that encourages students to explore scientific questions, learn about scientific evidence, develop critical thinking skills, and respond appropriately and respectfully to differences of opinion about controversial issues, including such subjects as the teaching of biological and chemical evolution. Such educational authorities in this state shall also endeavor to assist teachers to find more effective ways to present the science curriculum where it addresses scientific controversies. Toward this end, teachers shall be permitted to help students understand, analyze, critique, and review in an objective manner the scientific strengths and scientific weaknesses of theories of biological and chemical evolution.
Methodists Nail Darwinian Nazi Record, Repent U.S. Past, Warn About 21st Century Eugenics
The quadrennial international convention of the Methodist Church, meeting in Fort Worth, today adopted an historic and detailed resolution deploring the legacy of Darwinian eugenics that saw its 20th century extreme expression in the theories of Adolf Hitler.
Yes, that would be the Nazi ideology that the Darwinists of today—and major media—pretend sprang on the world fresh from the head of Hitler, wholly unconnected to the history of Darwin’s theory, Francis Galton and Ernst Haeckel. For the ten minutes it spent on this topic, the current film Expelled, starring Ben Stein, has been the target of unstinting left wing media attack and revisionist history.
The Methodists’ resolution—adopted by a vote of 836 to 28—apologizes for the denomination’s own failure to resist the eugenics movement in this country in the 20th century. They were not alone, as John West explains in Darwin Day in America. But no other mainline Protestant denomination has yet had the courage to admit to the racism of Darwinist eugenics and the supine attitude that leading American religious leaders, as well as the scientific establishment, adopted towards it.
Perhaps most importantly, the Methodists warn of the danger of eugenics in our own time. This is a significant development in an era of growing and cavalier genetic experimentation. The Methodists are the third largest religious denomination in America and a major force internationally. Their voice matters.
I can’t wait to see Cornelia Dean explain the Methodists’ concerns in The New York Times. Will the Anti-Defamation League rebuke the Methodists for daring to mention the historic link between Darwinism and Hitler? Will Richard Dawkins be quoted calling the resolution “outrageous”? Will MSNBC and other major media that have smeared Ben Stein and Expelled call Stein and his colleagues for their reaction? Or—this being an increasingly sensitive, revealing and inconvenient subject for America’s modern social engineers—will they try to ignore it and hope nobody notices?
The trouble for them is that plenty of people are noticing. The issue is diverse and complex—and consequential.
Expelled Is Not a Film about Intelligent Design, Rather It's about Academic Freedom
[Note: For a more comprehensive defense of Ben Stein's documentary Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed, please see: NCSE Exposed at NCSEExposed.org]
MSNBC.com columnists sure have it in for Expelled. What about the movie exactly has all their knickers in a twist? It might be easier to ask what doesn’t infuriate them about this film. Last week it was Art Caplan’s ridiculously absurd charge that Ben Stein is a Holocaust denier. This week it is Alan Boyle taking aim at the film, albeit in a less inflammatory manner. At least he, unlike some critics, appears to actually have seen, and reflected on, the movie.
Before I saw the movie, I wondered how wacky it might be. Now I don't think it's wacky. Instead, it's worrisome. The creepiest thing about "Expelled" is that the filmmakers' strategy of casting the scientific establishment as a big bad godless conspiracy just might work.
Boyle calls the film worrisome. For a diehard materialist, I suppose it is. How does one cope when confronted with evidence that certain things you adhere to — Darwinism — might have been influential in justifying some of human history's most horrifying atrocities. Worrisome indeed. (Go here for more on the connection between Darwin and Hitler.)
According to Boyle, Expelled
is also about rallying people who are unfamiliar with the issues to take a stand against mainstream science. For many of the million or so people who have seen the film over the past couple of weeks, "Expelled" might be as close as they come to examining the arguments for and against current evolutionary theory.
First, neither Expelled nor the scientists in it are anti-science. Still, this is a telling statement. Expelled doesn't examine any of the arguments for or against current evolutionary theory. Just telling people that there are scientific arguments against current evolutionary theory is a bad thing for Boyle and other Darwinists. They don't want people to know that such scientific arguments even exist, let alone what they actually are. Just alerting the public is a dangerous thing.
In the movie Boyle says,
Ben Stein takes on a quest to find out what's happening to teachers who promote the intelligent-design concept - that is, the idea that some things in the universe are so complex they're best explained as the work of an intelligent designer.
Actually, the film also looks at people — such as Caroline Crocker — who simply present arguments that counter Darwinian evolution. Regardless, the definition Boyle uses is not the definition of intelligent design. Boyle can’t be blamed though. As great a film as Expelled is, it doesn’t do a very good job of giving a basic definition of intelligent design. The theory of intelligent design simply says that certain features of the universe — such as digital code in DNA, or molecular machines in cells — are best explained by an intelligent cause. The idea isn’t that things are so complex they must have been designed, but rather that there is actual, physical evidence in nature of real design.
Intelligent design scientists argue in favor of design theory based on the recognition of things like the digital information in DNA and the complex molecular machines found in cells. They do so because invariably we know from experience that complex systems possessing such features always arise from intelligent causes. For instance, the DNA molecule is embedded with an immense amount of information. In our uniform and repeated experience, information only comes from minds (read: intelligence). So why should we attribute the information in DNA to a mindless process like natural selection? ID scientists think we should not. Obviously, ID is an inference from the evidence, not from religious scriptures or practices. While Expelled may not have given this much detail, Boyle could at least use the definition ID scientists use, rather than simply create a straw man he can knock around for rhetorical purposes.
As a counter to the film's points about scientists under persecution, Boyle points readers to the "Expelled Exposed" web site.
Unfortunately, Expelled Exposed presents a plethora of misinformation and downright lies.
I would recommend you start by reading these posts:
Boyle rightly points out that "Expelled" breaks no new ground on the scientific front. But then that isn't the point of Expelled.
Some of the arguments long advanced by intelligent design's proponents are hinted at - for example, the claim that no new genetic information can possibly be created, even though the insertion, duplication and beneficial revision of genetic code are well-established.
I’m not a geneticist, but genetic insertion, duplication and beneficial revision are not the same as brand new genetic information.
The most common theme is that the workings of biology are just so complex that it would be impossible for life to develop through "random and undirected" processes - even though genetics and computer simulations are telling a different story (and even though the workings of evolution are not always random or undirected).
We know what ID means to Boyle, and it's clear it's not at all what actual design theorists and scientists are working on. Likewise, we don’t know what evolution means to Boyle. Is it simply change over time? Is it the idea of common ancestry? Neither of those are at odds with intelligent design theory. What he means is unstated, perhaps on purpose so it’s hard to know which works are random or undirected.
Contrary to what Boyle asserts, research ongoing at Biologic Institute (the institute’s director Doug Axe appears in Expelled, explaining some of the science Boyle claims isn’t there) is telling a completely different — and much further advanced — story than the Darwinists' tired old computer simulations of past decades.
A key point made in Expelled is that modern evolutionary theory can’t explain where new information — genetic or otherwise — comes from. And on the case of Darwinism specifically, Carroll is sadly mistaken if he thinks the ballgame is over. The next inning is just getting underway and some major non-ID biologists are next up to bat in Altenberg later this year.
Evolution Academic Freedom Bills Spread to More States: National Movement Grows
Five states are currently considering adoption of academic freedom legislation designed to protect teachers who teach both the scientific strengths and weaknesses of evolutionary theory. Introduction of similar legislation is being considered by legislators in several other states, indicating the national scope of this movement.
“Often in this debate the issues at hand get misrepresented, and so our goal is to fully and straightforwardly explain that this is about science and helping prepare the best scientists of the future for our state and for our country,” said Rep. John Moolenaar, sponsor of academic freedom legislation in Michigan. "And a big part of that is enabling them to have the academic freedom to explore and critically examine scientific theories.”
Many of the bills have been adapted from sample legislation developed by Discovery Institute, including a model statute posted online at www.academicfreedompetition.com.
“In many states public school teachers, students, and even college professors have faced intimidation and retaliation when they attempt to discuss scientific criticisms of Darwinian evolution,” said biologist Jonathan Wells, a research scientist at the Discovery Institute’s Center for Science & Culture who holds a Ph.D. from University of California Berkeley. “In educational institutions that receive taxpayer support, it is entirely appropriate for the government to ensure that teachers and students have the right to discuss freely the evidence and scientific arguments for and against evolutionary theory.”
New developments include:
Today, there will be a legislative hearing on Missouri's academic freedom bill.
Tuesday, an academic freedom bill was introduced in Michigan, bringing the number of states currently considering legislation to five.
Monday, the Louisiana state Senate passed an academic freedom bill 35-0.
Also on Monday, the Florida House passed a bill 71-43 that would require inclusion of scientific criticisms of Darwin's theory in the classroom. The Florida Senate previously passed an academic freedom bill that would protect the rights of teachers to do this. The two bodies must now reconcile their bills before the end of this year’s legislative session.
Last week, an academic freedom bill was introduced in Alabama.
Recently, a movie focused on academic freedom, Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed, has raised public awareness of attacks on educators and scientists who question Darwin’s theory of evolution. Since the film first began screening for private audiences, and since its public opening in theaters earlier this month, there has been growing support for academic freedom acts to protect teachers who want to teach both the scientific evidence for and against Darwinism.
Michigan Becomes Fifth State to Introduce Evolution Academic Freedom Bill
An Evolution Academic Freedom Bill (HB 6027) was introduced today in Michigan by Rep. John Moolenaar. The bill is similar to academic freedom legislation introduce in several other states earlier this year and, if enacted, will provide public school teachers with academic freedom to present both the scientific evidence for and against Darwinian evolution.
“Often in this debate the issues at hand get misrepresented, and so our goal is to fully and straightforwardly explain that this is about science and helping prepare the best scientists of the future for our state and for our country,” said Rep. Moolenaar. “And a big part of that is enabling them to have the academic freedom to explore and critically examine scientific theories.”
Discovery Institute has long supported academic freedom for teachers and scientists to explore and explain the strengths and weaknesses of Darwin’s theory of evolution.
“In many states public school teachers, students, and even college professors have faced intimidation and retaliation when they attempt to discuss scientific criticisms of Darwinian evolution,” said biologist Jonathan Wells, a research scientist at the Discovery Institute’s Center for Science & Culture who holds a Ph.D. from UC Berkeley. “In educational institutions that receive taxpayer support, it is entirely appropriate for the government to ensure that teachers and students have the right to discuss freely the evidence and scientific arguments for and against evolutionary theory.”
The Real Detroit Weekly is one of those free advertisers you can pick up on most downtown street corners in big cities. Some people read them for their announcements of local cultural events, others read them for their erotic personal ads, and still others use them to stay warm while living on the street. As sources of news and educated opinion, though, they’re of even less use than the politically correct mainstream media.
Last week’s issue of the Real Detroit Weekly included a piece by Jay Davis attacking Mark Mathis, one of the producers of Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed. Titled “Unevolved,” Davis’ piece calls Mathis “not qualified” to evaluate scientific aspects of evolutionary theory. In particular, he blasts Mathis for being unaware that “scientists have witnessed speciation, the arisal of a new species from an old one.“ Davis is indignant that Mathis has “just produced a film about evolution, and he’s never heard of the fact that speciation has been observed and thoroughly documented in the scientific literature? I’m stunned. I send him peer-reviewed research confirming this fact via e-mail.”
I am reliably informed that the “peer-reviewed research” Davis sent to Mathis was a link to a 1995 web page that defends Darwinism by allegedly listing “Observed Instances of Speciation.” The web page actually does include some observed cases of speciation in plants due to an increase in the number of chromosomes, or “polyploidy.” But Darwin’s theory requires the splitting of one species into two, which then diverge and split and diverge and split, over and over again. Only this — and not polyploidy — could produce the branching-tree pattern required by Darwinian evolution, in which all species are descendants of a common ancestor that have been modified by natural selection.
Unfortunately for Darwinists, there has never been a published, confirmed report of Darwinian speciation. The starting point for everything else in Darwin’s theory thus lacks any direct evidence. Some evolutionary biologists have pointed this out in the scientific literature. For details and references, see Chapter Five (“The Ultimate Missing Link”) of my Politically Incorrect Guide to Darwinism and Intelligent Design.
Darwin called The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection “one long argument.” Yet he had no direct evidence for the hypothesis represented by the title of his book. Neither do his modern followers. Where Darwin gave us one long argument, modern Darwinists — including Jay Davis — give us one long bluff.
Discovery Institute is pleased to announce two intensive summer seminars on intelligent design, science, and culture from July 11-20, 2008 in Seattle. The first seminar is for students in the natural sciences and philosophy of science; the second seminar is for students in the social sciences and humanities (including politics, law, journalism, and theology). Both seminars are designed for highly-motivated college students who seek a deeper understanding of science and its implications for society. Faculty for the seminars will include mathematician William Dembski, author of The Design Revolution; biologist Jonathan Wells, author of the Politically Incorrect Guide to Darwinism and Intelligent Design; philosopher of science Stephen Meyer, co-author of Science and Evidence of Design in the Universe; microbiologist Scott Minnich, co-author of Explore Evolution: The Arguments For and Against Neo-Darwinism; political scientist John West, author of Darwin Day in America: How Our Politics and Culture Have Been Dehumanized in the Name of Science; and Jonathan Witt, co-author of A Meaningful World: How the Arts and Sciences Reveal the Genius of Nature.
Discovery Institute will pay expenses for students who are accepted into this special program (travel, lodging, meals, books and other course materials). The deadline for applications is April 30, and complete information (including an application) can be found at www.discovery.org/summerseminar. Requests for further information should be directed to Summer Seminar Director Dr. Bruce Gordon at bgordon@discovery.org.
Florida House and Louisiana Senate Pass Evolution Academic Freedom Bills
Academic Freedom bills have now passed both the Florida House of Representatives and the Louisiana State Senate. The bills protect the rights of teachers to teach controversial scientific theories objectively, where scientific criticisms of scientific theories (including evolution) can be raised as well as the scientific strengths. The Darwinists in those states do not like this. First Florida Darwinists called academic freedom “smelly crap.” Then Louisiana Darwinists called academic freedom protections a “creationist attack” that is “Just Dumb.” Most recently Florida Darwinists used the “enlightened British will laugh at us argument” to oppose academic freedom. All I can say is, you heard it here first: “For the Darwinists who oppose the bill, this battle is about falsely appealing to people's emotions and fears in order to suppress the teaching of scientific information that challenges evolution.”
David Berlinski on The Scientific Embrace of Atheism
David Berlinski has a piece up at Pajamas Media today about the scientific pretensions of today's leading atheist, who, it turns out, include many of today's leading scientists. Why is that, wonders Berlinski?
It is curious that so many scientists should have recently embraced atheism. The great physical scientists — Copernicus, Kepler, Galileo, Newton, Clerk Maxwell, Albert Einstein — were either men of religious commitment or religious sensibility.
The distinguished physicist Steven Weinberg has acknowledged that this is what the great scientists believed: But we know better, he has insisted, because we know more. This prompts the obvious question: Just what have scientists learned that might persuade the rest of us that they know better? It is not, presumably, the chemistry of Boron salts that has done the heavy lifting.
Richard Dawkins Misrepresents Position of Intelligent Design Proponents on the Identity of the Designer
What does the media do if you are Richard Dawkins and you make some embarrassing statements in a movie that basically gives away the store on intelligent design? Apparently, at the LA Times, they let you print 1000+ word op-eds. In his recent op-ed against intelligent design (ID), Dawkins writes the following about the identity of the designer: “Intelligent design ‘theorists’ (a misnomer, for they have no theory) often use the alien scenario to distance themselves from old-style creationists: ‘For all we know, the designer might be an alien from outer space.’” He then claims that “All the leading intelligent design spokesmen are devout, and, when talking to the faithful, they drop the science-fiction fig leaf and expose themselves as the fundamentalist creationists they truly are.” So I decided to determine if this was how ID proponents really behaved. A Google search for the phrase “For all we know, the designer might be an alien from outer space”—which Dawkins attributes to ID proponents—turns up only one hit: his article. Of course ID proponents have made it clear that the theory of intelligent design permits the possibility of a natural designer, but the question must be asked, are ID proponents coy about their personal views on the identity of the designer?
Phillip Johnson writes in a very public book, Defeating Darwinism by Opening Minds, that he sees “God as our true Creator” (pg. 92).
Paul Nelson (as well as theistic evolutionist paleontologist Keith Miller) signed a public statement agreeing that “God is the creator of all things.”
William Dembski publicly stated, “As a Christian, I am a theist and believe that God created the world.”
Of course Dawkins is wrong to assert that believing that God is the designer makes you an “old-style creationist” or “fundamentalist creationist.” In his best-selling book, Darwin’s Black Box, Michael Behe specifically states that he is “a Roman Catholic” (pg. 239) who accepts common descent and sees no conflict between evolution and faith. In fact, Behe has explicitly stated his view that the designer is God in the same places where he acknowledges that ID does not foreclose the possibility of a natural designer:
"[Intelligent design] is not an argument for the existence of a benevolent God, as Paley's was. I hasten to add that I myself do believe in a benevolent God, and I recognize that philosophy and theology may be able to extend the argument. But a scientific argument for design in biology does not reach that far. Thus while I argue for design, the question of the identity of the designer is left open. Possible candidates for the role of designer include: the God of Christianity; an angel--fallen or not; Plato's demi-urge; some mystical new age force; space aliens from Alpha Centauri; time travelers; or some utterly unknown intelligent being. Of course, some of these possibilities may seem more plausible than others based on information from fields other than science. Nonetheless, as regards the identity of the designer, modern ID theory happily echoes Isaac Newton's phrase hypothesis non fingo.
(Michael Behe, "The Modern Intelligent Design Hypothesis," Philosophia Christi, Series 2, Vol. 3, No. 1 (2001), pg. 165, emphasis added.)
Behe elsewhere explains the principled reasons why ID does not identify the designer:
most people (including myself) will attribute the design to God--based in part on other, non-scientific judgments they have made--I did not claim that the biochemical evidence leads ineluctably to a conclusion about who the designer is. In fact, I directly said that, from a scientific point of view, the question remains open. … I did not claim that the biochemical evidence leads ineluctably to a conclusion about who the designer is. The biochemical evidence strongly indicates design, but does not show who the designer was.
Thus, when ID proponents state that ID does not identify the designer, they are, in Behe’s words, “not being coy, but only limiting ... claims to what ... the evidence will support.” Indeed, Behe volunteered his views on this matter in court during the Kitzmiller trial at the very beginning of his direct examination:
Q. So is it accurate for people to claim or to represent that intelligent design holds that the designer was God?
A. No, that is completely inaccurate.
Q. Well, people have asked you your opinion as to who you believe the designer is, is that correct?
A. That is right.
Q. Has science answered that question?
A. No, science has not done so.
Q. And I believe you have answered on occasion that you believe the designer is God, is that correct?
A. Yes, that's correct.
Q. Are you making a scientific claim with that answer?
A. No, I conclude that based on theological and philosophical and historical factors.
(Michael Behe, October 17 Testimony, AM Session.)
It’s worth noting that not all ID proponents identify the designer as God, and contrary to Dawkins, not "all the leading intelligent design spokesmen are devout." The famous atheist philosopher Antony Flew provides a notable example of an ID-proponent who is not a traditional theist. And I have other colleagues in the ID movement who are entirely agnostic about the identity of the designer.
But for ID proponents who are traditional theists, like Behe, Nelson, Dembski, or Johnson, science is a way of knowing, and as a scientific theory, ID informs us that life was designed. Their view that the designer is God is something they wholeheartedly believe, but it comes from a knowledge source other than science; it comes from other ways of knowing -- from non-scientific sources of knowledge outside of intelligent design. Their views about the identity of the designer are their own personal religious beliefs and do not come from the scientific theory of ID. Phillip Johnson makes this distinction perfectly clear:
“[M]y personal view is that I identify the designer of life with the God of the Bible, although intelligent design theory as such does not entail that."
(Phillip E. Johnson, “Intelligent Design in Biology: the Current Situation and Future Prospects,” Think (The Royal Institute of Philosophy), 2007)
In fact, I too believe the designer is the God of the Bible, but this is not a conclusion of ID; it is my personal religious view that stems from factors outside of intelligent design.
After seeing this evidence, it seems that Dawkins’ has misrepresented whether ID proponents are open about their views on the identity of the designer to the public, and the truth is as follows:
ID does not address religious questions about the identity of the designer, and in fact ID proponents have diverse views about the identity of the designer;
ID proponents give principled reasons why ID does not identify the designer, stemming from ID’s intent to respect the limits of science and not attempt to address religious questions that go beyond what can be scientifically inferred from the empirical data;
Whether traditional theists or not, ID proponents are entirely open about their views on the identity of the designer;
ID proponents make it clear that their views about the identity of the designer are their personal religious views, and not conclusions of ID.
In the report, “Unconscious determinants of free decisions in the human brain” authors Chun Siong Soon and colleagues at the Max Planck Institute in Germany show that brain activity in the prefrontal and parietal cortex may precede conscious decision-making by as much as ten seconds before a decision is consciously made. Each subject was asked to push a button with either the right hand or the left hand. Seven to ten seconds before the conscious decision, brain activity appeared that appeared to correlate with unconscious decision making. Sixty percent of the time, the brain activity correlated with the hand used (no correlation would be fifty percent).
The study is an interesting demonstration that brain activity as measured by fMRI (which measures local blood flow and metabolic activity) correlates to some degree with unconscious processing, as well as the well-known but weak correlation between fMRI and conscious thought. Dr. Novella notes:
What we can say at this point is that brain function is complex (duh), and that taking action involves multiple steps - including planning, preparation/organization, and finally action. We can also conclude that subconscious brain processing contributes significantly to decision-making.[“duh” in original]
No argument there. But then Dr. Novella sees evidence…to support his materialist ideology! He writes:
Given my recent posts concerning materialism vs dualism (does the brain cause mind), I also want to point out that this research falls squarely in the materialism camp. Causes precede their effects - brain activity precedes conscious awareness and action - the brain causes mind. That much seems pretty clear.
This research “falls squarely in the materialist camp”? That’s a remarkable assertion. Dr. Novella asserts that this bit of evidence for correlation (rather weak correlation) between unconscious mental processing and brain activity supports materialism. But the natural corollary to Dr. Novella’s assertion would be that lack of evidence for correlation between mental processing and brain activity would fall squarely in the dualist camp. But of course most brain activity doesn’t correlate all that well with mental activity. In this study, the correlation with the sidedness of the hand chosen was only 60%, which is quite poor correlation. Fifty percent is no correlation. If Dr. Novella is asserting that evidence for correlation is evidence for materialism, then the evidence demonstrating a lack of close correlation (which is most of the evidence in neuroscience) between mind and brain states is evidence against materialism.
It’s a safe bet that this is not at all what Dr. Novella meant. What Dr. Novella means is this: all evidence, regardless of the nature of the evidence, favors materialism.
So what does the observation that there is brain activity that correlates with unconscious mental activity really tell us about the strict materialist-dualism debate? It tells us nothing at all. Both Dr. Novella and I accept the existence of unconscious mental processes. The Nature Neuroscience article shows that brain activity is ongoing during the time that we presume unconscious mental processing is occurring, and that the brain activity correlates (weakly) with the subjects’ choice of right or left hand. But the debate about strict materialism and dualism is a debate about mental causation, not correlation. Does the unconscious mind cause the brain activity, or does the brain activity cause the unconscious mind? Chun’s study doesn’t address that question at all.
Does every bit of relevant scientific evidence support the strict materialistic understanding of the mind, as Dr. Novella claims? It does so only if you start, as Dr. Novella did, with the (unexamined) premise that strict materialism is necessarily true. If you approach the question of strict materialism and dualism with an open mind, interested in truth rather than polemics, the evidence is mixed. Strict materialism asserts that the mind is caused by the brain without remainder. Dualism asserts that the mind is caused by the brain with remainder. Some evidence supports the materialist view, and some evidence supports the dualist view. I believe that the dualist view is better supported by the scientific evidence, but reasonable people can disagree. “Reasonable” implies that you approach the scientific questions with a willingness to consider alternative explanations. But in Dr. Novella’s view, every single piece of evidence supports strict materialism, and people who disagree with him are “creationists” and “punching bags” afflicted with “ignorance”. So you know his scientific conclusion before the question is asked.
The Nature Neuroscience article provides no meaningful evidence either for or against dualism or materialism, but Dr. Novella’s citation of it to support his materialist ideology tells us a great deal about how Dr. Novella approaches scientific evidence. He’s a materialist ideologue. He views the scientific evidence through materialist glasses, and sees evidence for materialism…everywhere.
AAAS Goes from Science Organization to Movie Critic and Promoter of Religion
[Note: For a more comprehensive defense of Ben Stein's documentary Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed, please see: NCSE Exposed at NCSEExposed.org]
The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) is an influential science organization, but lately it has moved beyond science and now apparently aims to influence people in their choices of movies and religion. This week the AAAS issued a press release officially condemning the documentary Expelled as an instance of “profound dishonesty” because it “badly misrepresents the scientific community as intolerant of dissent.” Ironically, the AAAS's own behavior seems to demonstrate that the scientific community can be "intolerant of dissent"—at least when it comes to Darwinism: in 2002, the AAAS issued a press release condemning intelligent design (ID), providing proof-positive of the intolerance of the scientific community towards dissent from Darwinism. When top-science organizations issue press releases against an idea, with the obvious intent of making that idea taboo in the scientific community, then you know that they are being driven by politics, not science.
It turns out that the AAAS’s anti-ID edict has been invoked by other scientific organizations to justify intolerance towards dissent from Darwinism, the very behavior that the AAAS denies exists. In 2004, the Biological Society of Washington (BSW) cited the AAAS’s anti-ID statement as justification for why they should not have published Stephen C. Meyer's pro-ID paper in their journal. The BSW, promising to obey the AAAS’s edict in the future, wrote: “We endorse the spirit of a resolution on Intelligent Design set forth by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (www.aaas.org/news/releases/2002/1106id2.shtml), and that topic [intelligent design] will not be addressed in future issues of the Proceeding.” There you have it: the AAAS's own statements have been used to justify intolerance of dissent from Darwinism, yet the AAAS has the boldness to deny that such intolerance exists. The AAAS seems to continue its approval of persecuting ID proponents, as its present statement against Expelled claims that attempts to teach ID are “divisive and damaging.”
The AAAS also gets involved in the debate over religion and evolution, stating in its press release that Expelled “needlessly drives a wedge between science and religion.” But why is a scientific organization concerned about religion? More importantly, if they are concerned about religion, why are they attacking Expelled rather than the numerous Darwinists interviewed in the film who wield evolution as a club to beat religion? As will be seen throughout the rest of this post, there are other similar examples where the AAAS singles out Expelled for attack when the movie simply reports on the doings of Darwinists in the scientific community.
The AAAS’s “Darwinism” Blunder
The AAAS statement also attacks Expelled through the amusing comment that “[t]he multi-faceted modern science of evolution” is “inaccurately and derisively described in the movie as ‘Darwinism.’” Yet the AAAS’s own journal, Science, commonly has used the term “Darwinism” to describe modern evolutionary biology. In 2005, a Science news article promoted two pro-evolution websites by stating, “In a section on obstacles to teaching Darwinism, this primer from the University of California, Berkeley, profiles different strains of anti-evolutionism.” (“Standing Up for Darwin,” Science, 308:1847, 6/24/2005, emphasis added.) The following year, Science writer Constance Holden wrote in an article in Science titled, "Darwin's Place on Campus Is Secure—But Not Supreme" that “Public controversies over Darwinism have inspired college presidents to defend science and professors to sign petitions.” (emphasis added)
Even prominent scientists use the term in their popular writings. Richard Dawkins writes that "There are people in this world who desperately want to not have to believe in Darwinism." (The Blind Watchmaker, W.W. Norton, 1996, pg. 250) The term "Darwinism" has over 20 entries in the index to Stephen Jay Gould's magnum opus, The Structure of Evolutionary Theory.
Again, if the AAAS objects to using the term “Darwinism,” it should stop attacking Expelled and start scrutinizing its own journal and the many leading scientists who employ the term.
The AAAS’s Misrepresentations on the Origin of Life
The AAAS statement against Expelled also implies that scientists understand how the origin of life occurred: “Such verifiable evidence explains how species gradually evolved on Earth, beginning with single-celled organisms approximately 3.5 billion years ago.” This seems like an attempt to cover-up the damage done in Expelled by Richard Dawkins, who openly admits in the film that we don’t understand how the first cell arose. As Bruce Gordon puts it, “Toward the end of the film, in an interview with Ben Stein at the British Museum, Dawkins confesses he has no idea how life originated on earth — nor does anyone, he admits — but, as Nobel laureate Francis Crick once theorized, it could well be explained by having been seeded here by an alien intelligence.”
Like the case of using the term “Darwinism,” if the AAAS objects to scientists admitting that we don’t understand the origin of life, then it needs to start policing its own journal.
In 2002, Science reported on an experiment investigating the hypothesis that life originated on the surfaces of crystals. (Another hypothesis discussed in Expelled.) One scientist promoting that theory argued that a primordial soup “was probably much too dilute to bring the chemicals together to react in the first place” but “[a] mineral surface is a good way to concentrate the compounds.” However, one critic of the crystal-hypothesis, Scripps Institution for Oceanography researcher Dr. Jeffrey Bada, observed that “Life is not just chemistry. Life as we know it is based on the passage of genetic information from one generation to the next.” Another critic observed that the chemicals produced in the mineral experiments were either irrelevant or insufficient: "Acetic acid and pyruvate, adds RPI's Ferris, ‘are still pretty simple compounds. The real question is how do you build more complex biomolecules.’” (See Science, "Between a Rock and a Hard Place," Vol. 295:2006-2007 (March 15, 2002).)
The answer to that question, at present, is that nobody really knows. Yet Science’s present edict bluffs that we do understand the origin of the first cell, misrepresenting the facts of the issue. Yet in “Between a Rock and a Hard Place,” Science itself admitted that there are “questions that remain unanswered.” Again, if the AAAS objects to scientists admitting that we don’t understand the origin of life, then it should not attack Expelled but the scientists who (often in its own journal) have conceded our lack of materialist explanations for the origin of life.
Admitting, and then Denying, Intolerance towards Dissent
But what about the AAAS's denial that the scientific community is intolerant towards dissent? In 1970, the famous and influential historian of science Thomas Kuhn observed that, “No part of the aim of normal science is to call forth new sorts of phenomena; indeed those that will not fit the box are often not seen at all. Nor do scientists normally aim to invent new theories, and they are often intolerant of those invented by others.” Apparently the AAAS disagrees with Kuhn, for in its statement against Expelled the AAAS claims that the film “badly misrepresents the scientific community as intolerant of dissent.”
Ironically, the Science article “Between a Rock and a Hard Place” also admits that even scientists who promote alternative naturalistic paradigms on the origin of life face harsh opposition:
Overturning long-cherished theories, especially ones that underpin a whole field, can be a thankless task. Few theories are as iconic as the prevailing explanation of how simple chemicals in a cozy puddle of primordial soup first assembled themselves into the precursors of the earliest forms of life some 4 billion years ago.
If scientists who challenge prevailing explanations for the origin of life but offer new materialist explanations face intolerance, can you imagine the opposition faced by a scientist who suggests that life arose by intelligent design? Indeed, even the leading Darwinist philosopher of science Michael Ruse admitted that the AAAS itself exhibits opposition towards ID:
To say that Intelligent Design is controversial is to offer a truism. It is opposed, often bitterly, by the scientific establishment. Journals such as Science and Nature would as soon publish an article using or favourable to Intelligent Design as they would an article favourable to phrenology or mesmerism – or, to use an analogy to the claims of the Mormons about Joseph Smith and the tablets of gold, or favourable to the scientific creationists’ claims about the coexistence of humans and dinosaurs. Recently, indeed, the American Association for the Advancement of Science (the organization that publishes Science) has declared officially that in its opinion Intelligent Design is not so much bad science as no science at all and accordingly has no legitimate place in the science classrooms of the United States.
(Michael Ruse & William Dembski in “General Introduction” to Debating Design, pg. 3-4 (Cambridge University Press, 2004); emphasis added.)
And yet in its anti-Expelled statement, the AAAS pretends that such intolerance towards dissent from Darwinism is non-existent. The AAAS's latest anti-Expelled statement sounds like just another example of how politics, rather than science, is driving the AAAS when it comes to evolution.
Much more surprising is the sheer flat-out lying done by critics bent on denouncing the movie’s controversial linking of Darwinism and Hitlerism.
Now, I happen to think that the Darwin-Hitler link is pretty darn well established, as I’ve argued on National Review Online, Jewcy, and in this space. The major Hitler biographers agree with me that Hitler in Mein Kampf and elsewhere used transparently Darwinian arguments to motivate fellow Jew-haters to actuate the Final Solution.
I don’t care if somebody insists on disagreeing with my interpretation of the relevant texts – though frankly that would be hard to do if your powers of reading comprehension rise above sixth-grade level. Just please don’t lie in your representation of what I’ve written.
In fact all I said was that Hitler drew on Darwinian theory, and yes, that should give us pause about what Darwin wrote. No more than that.
A picture of reality, after all, such as the one Darwin offers in his books, naturally suggests ethical corollaries. But maybe, if judged strictly from a Darwinist perspective, Hitler drew the wrong corollaries. On that point I’m agnostic. But certainly, given that Darwin in The Descent of Man prophesied the extermination of the inferior by the superior races, it should surprise nobody that Hitler, influenced by the Darwinian worldview, sought to bring Darwin’s prophecy to fruition.
Of course sometimes Darwinists aren't lying. They are simply unaware of the facts. Thus on National Review Online, John Derbyshire chides me: "As always when the Darwin-Hitler business comes up, I note that guilt by association cuts two ways. Islamic fundamentalists are Darwin-hating creationists to a man."
Anyone who believes John's simplistic assertion should consult Andrew G. Bostom's useful new book The Legacy of Islamic Anti-Semitism. Bostom recounts how certain Islamic sources "differentiate" Muslims from unbelievers "quite graphically in a derogatory, Darwinian manner. Thus Jews are compared with apes, Christians with pigs, and women with dogs." However, another Muslim text refers to the "Jewish ape Darwin."
Also on National Review Online, Jonah Goldberg graciously admitted his unintended goof: "I think I was unfair to the narrow claims in Klinghoffer's piece."
Jonah made the honest mistake of not reading me carefully.
Is there, in any case, something in the psychological profile of many a Darwin-partisan that leads such a person not simply to misunderstand or insult those who disagree with him but to purposefully misrepresent what we say?
From a press release sent out for the Expelled producers:
Yoko Ono and others have now filed lawsuits challenging the film's use and critique of John Lennon's song Imagine. One of the suits seeks to ban free speech through preliminary injunctive relief which essentially means that they are trying to expel EXPELLED as it is now being shown in theaters. ...
But the irony of this lawsuit was not lost on the film's star Ben Stein, "So Yoko Ono is suing over the brief Constitutionally protected use of a song that wants us to 'Imagine no possessions'? Maybe instead of wasting everyone's time trying to silence a documentary she should give the song to the world for free? After all, 'imagine all the people sharing all the world...You may say I'm a dreamer But I'm not the only one I hope someday you'll join us And the World can live as one.'"
Think There Is No Link Between Darwinism and Nazism? Watch This
Those like Arthur Caplan who claim that Nazi ideology did not draw on Darwinism should watch this clip from a 1930s Nazi propaganda film justifying forced sterilization. Near the beginning of the clip the narrator warns that modern society is transgressing against a fundamental law in preserving the unfit. Just what law is he talking about? (Hint: You find it mentioned repeatedly in The Origin of Species and The Descent of Man.)
Executive Producers of EXPELLED: No Intelligence Allowed Statement on Lawsuit by Yoko Ono
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
April 23, 2008
Executive Producers of EXPELLED: No Intelligence Allowed Statement on Lawsuit by Yoko Ono
The fair use doctrine is a well established copyright principle based on the belief that the public is entitled to freely use portions of copyrighted materials for purposes of commentary and criticism.
We are disappointed therefore that Yoko Ono and others have decided to challenge our free speech right to comment on the song Imagine in our documentary film.
Based on the fair use doctrine, news commentators and film documentarians regularly use material in the same way we do in EXPELLED: No Intelligence Allowed .
Premise Media acknowledges that Ms. Yoko Ono did not license the song for use in the Film. Instead, a very small portion of the song was used under the fair use doctrine.
Unbiased viewers of the film will see that the Imagine clip was used as part of a social commentary in the exercise of free speech and freedom of inquiry. Unbiased viewers of the film will also understand that the Imagine clip was used to contrast the messages in the Documentary and that the clip was not used as an endorsement within Expelled.
The Center for Science and Culture supports Biologic Institute, a research lab opening new frontiers for scientific discovery. Biologic Institute demonstrates the value of intelligent design for the practice of biological science and tests specific empirical claims of neo-Darwinism, intelligent design, and other theories of biological origin.
Building off of the theoretical work of the scientists and researchers before them, scientists at Biologic Institute have been quietly and patiently working in the laboratory to test the predictions of intelligent design.
Heading up this team is Biologic Director and former Cambridge University research scientist Douglas Axe, whose work has appeared in journals like Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Journal of Molecular Biology, and Biochemistry, and has been reviewed in Nature.
Senior scientists at Biologic include Dr. Axe, evolutionary biologist Dr. Richard Sternberg, and Dr. Ann Gauger, a former post-doctoral fellow at Harvard and recipient of both a National Science Foundation pre-doctoral fellowship and an American Cancer Society post-doctoral fellowship.
"The Devil’s Delusion is an incendiary and uproarious work of learned polemical writing"
For those of you lucky enough to be National Review subscribers, you will be treated to an insightful review of David Berlinski's The Devil's Delusion by our own George Gilder:
The Devil’s Delusion is an incendiary and uproarious work of learned polemical writing, unique in its scientific sophistication and authority. Rather than criticizing science from the outside, Berlinski excoriates its atheist pretensions from within. Refusing to defer to scientistic credentialism, he makes the compelling argument that the anti-God fetish of modern science has driven many scientists into a mad nihilism that has crippled their scientific work as well.
Gilder concludes:
The Devil’s Delusion is a promethean work that clears away this debris of modern science and culture. It liberates conservatism from its thralldom to a spurious scientism and establishes the foundations for a realignment with real scientists, among whom there are many potential friends. Bill Buckley, in his final days, declared: “Berlinski’s book is everything desirable; it is idiomatic, profound, brilliantly polemical, amusing, and of course vastly learned. I congratulate him.” Buckley was right, as usual. It is the definitive book of the new millennium.
Is Ben Stein a Holocaust Denier? No, But "Expelled” Star Is Smeared by MSNBC Columnist Anyway
[Note: For a more comprehensive defense of Ben Stein's documentary Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed, please see: NCSE Exposed at NCSEExposed.org]
In an over-the-top “review” of the film Expelled, bioethicist and MSNBC columnist Arthur Caplan has made the preposterous claim that Ben Stein is a Holocaust denier. Caplan's so-called review is so inaccurate that one can’t help but wonder whether Caplan even watched the film he denounced. If he did, he obviously didn’t pay attention. For the record, here's a catalog of Caplan’s most egregious errors:
The movie seeks to explain why, as a matter of freedom of speech, intelligent design should be taught in America’s science classrooms and presented in America’s publicly funded science museums.
Actually, it doesn’t. The film does not focus on what "should be taught" in public school classrooms or museums. Instead, it simply defends the academic freedom of individual scientists and college professors to research, write, and speak publicly about their intelligent design views.
what is really on display in this film is … a very repugnant form of Holocaust denial from the monotone big mouth Ben Stein.
Given that Expelled explicitly discusses the horrors of the Holocaust (and Stein visits Nazi killing centers at Hadamar and Dachau), the charge of Holocaust-denial is patently absurd. Caplan obviously doesn’t like Stein’s exploration of the intellectual roots of Nazi ideology. But it is dishonest—indeed, ethically contemptible—for him to claim that Stein somehow denies the Holocaust.
We get a long running start toward irresponsibility early in the film in the form of case studies of persons supposedly fired from their jobs for subscribing to a belief in intelligent design. The movie implies that this is just the tip of a McCarthyesque cleansing of the faculty ranks by jack-booted Darwinians. In fact, in the few cases presented in the movie, the removal of faculty members seems more closely tied to their either wandering away from the subjects they were hired to teach or getting into subject areas outside their area of expertise. At most universities that I am familiar with, a belief in intelligent design would make you the object of gossip but hardly the target of dismissal.
At the same time he demonizes anyone who believes in intelligent design, Caplan feigns disbelief that they would face any persecution in academia. How reassuring! If you want to know the real story about what can happen if you challenge Darwin or embrace intelligent design as a scientist, start here.
we get deep, sincere ruminations mainly from some monumentally pompous thinker no one has ever heard of who is nevertheless stylishly attired and living in a gorgeous apartment in Paris.
The speaker Caplan thinks “no one has ever heard of” is mathematician and writer David Berlinski, a Discovery Institute Fellow whose current book The Devil’s Delusion was #226 on the Amazon sales list this morning, and whose previous books include A Tour of the Calculus (Pantheon 1996), The Advent of the Algorithm (2000, Harcourt Brace), Newton's Gift (The Free Press 2000), The Secrets of the Vaulted Sky (Harcourt, 2003), and Infinite Ascent: A Short History of Mathematics for the Modern Library series at Random House (2004). In the words of The Chicago Tribune, “David Berlinski plus any topic equals an extraordinary book.” If Caplan doesn’t know who Berlinski is, he simply displays his own parochialism. As for who is “monumentally pompous,” Caplan might try looking in the mirror.
Then, and most culpably in terms of the downright immorality of the movie and everyone associated with it, we are presented with what will happen if we keep teaching Darwinism in our schools. The logical consequence of Darwinism is Nazi eugenics: the state directed murder of the handicapped, mentally ill, political dissidents and racial "inferiors"! ...
Stein finishes this sequence by bravely visiting a statue of Darwin where he stares the long deceased now marbleized evil-doer down while making it clear who is directly to blame for Hitler, the sterilization of tens of thousands of German children, the death of 6 million Jews and the deaths of countless other millions of victims of Nazism and those who died fighting the Nazi regime.
This is called attacking a straw man. The film nowhere claims that Darwin “is directly to blame for Hitler.” In fact, the experts interviewed in the film such as David Berlinski and Richard Weikart make clear that Darwinism in and of itself is not sufficient to produce Nazism. What they do claim is that Darwinism played a key role in Nazi ideology, and despite Caplan’s protestations to the contrary, that point is substantiated by a mountain of evidence. For the evidence, go here.
Ben, who calls upon each one of us to rise up in defense of freedom and knock down a few walls in order to get creationism back into the curriculum at Iowa State, Baylor, and other dens of American secular iniquity.
Another straw man. The cases of persecution discussed in the film at Iowa State and Baylor have nothing to do with creationism, and indeed, they aren’t primarily about what should be in the curriculum at those schools. They are about the freedom of scientists to research, write, and speak publicly about their views on intelligent design free of harassment and discrimination.
There were many nations, such as Brazil, where Darwinism led to no political ideology. There were some such as Britain which embraced Darwinism but saw a considerable number of their population killed trying to eliminate Nazism. There were other nations, such as the Soviet Union, where Darwinism was seen as so dangerous and subversive to state sponsored dreams of social engineering that those who espoused it were killed or exiled and a complete biological fairy tale, Lysenkoism, put into classrooms and agricultural policy ultimately leading to the deaths of millions from starvation.
Again, the film makes clear that it is not claiming Darwinism inevitably leads to Nazism. But it does suggest that there is a logical connection between Darwinism and the devaluation of life found in Nazism, and there is. And this link between Darwinism and the devaluation of life can certainly be found in many other countries, including Britain, the Nordic countries, the United States, and Russia. As for the debate between the Mendelians and Lysenkoists in the Soviet Union, Caplan apparently doesn’t understand that BOTH sides of that debate considered themselves Darwinists. For documentation, see chapter six of my book Darwin Day in America.
Ben Stein apparently understands none of this. He flags Darwin but does not bother to go and stare at the busts of Adam Smith, Herbert Spencer, Ernst Haeckel, Thomas Malthus so much beloved by American proponents of survival of the fittest.
If Caplan had watched the film, he would have known that Ben Stein explicitly highlights the role of Thomas Malthus, who according to Darwin himself was the key inspiration for Darwin’s theory of natural selection. When Stein brings up the role of Malthus, it’s the director of the museum at Hadamar who responds that Darwin was more influential on German thought—so the Nazis got the influence of Malthus through Darwin. But the film certainly recognizes the role of Malthus.
And there were some nations where Darwinism was greeted with glee because it seemed so compatible with the prevailing ideology of the day. In particular the United States at the turn of the 20th century where robber-baron capitalists like the Carnegies, Mellons, Sumners, Stanfords and yes, even Jack London, could not stop rattling on about how the "survival of the fittest" justified crushing unions, exploiting immigrant labor or being left unregulated to amass huge fortunes while administering monopolies.
The one place Caplan acknowledges the impact of Social Darwinism, he gets his facts wrong, relying on an outdated caricature of the past supplied by left-wing historians like Richard Hofstadter. As I document in chapter six of Darwin Day in America, few capitalists actually drew on Darwin to promote capitalism. In fact, many of them disliked Darwinism because of its link to Malthus’s pessimistic view of the world. As for Jack London, Caplan apparently doesn’t realize that London was a socialist who supported unions and opposed survival-of-the-fittest policies applied to crush workers. Again, for a discussion of London’s views, see Darwin Day in America.
Worse yet, while frowning at Darwin’s statute in a manly fashion, Stein makes no mention of the key factors driving Nazi ideology — racism, homophobia and hatred of the mentally ill and disabled.
It’s hard to believe that Caplan—a distinguished bioethicist—is quite so breathtakingly ignorant of the roots of Nazi ideology. Racism and hatred for the mentally ill and disabled were certainly key factors in driving Nazi policies. But how did the Nazis justify racism and hatred for the disabled? By appealing to the doctrines of Darwinism, especially natural selection! The same was true for the leaders of the eugenics movement in America, who thought we were sinning against natural selection by trying to care for the poor and the handicapped, and who also believed that natural selection had made blacks inferior to whites. I document this fact extensively in chapter 7 of my book Darwin Day in America. (You can read a free excerpt from this chapter here.)
Des Moines, IA – Iowa State University alumni — upset by the recent denial of tenure to former ISU assistant professor Guillermo Gonzalez — are taking matters into their own hands.
“As alumni at ISU, we are appalled that the current Iowa State administration would stoop to expelling a brilliant young scientist and gifted instructor from the classroom, not for teaching about intelligent design or even mentioning it in his classroom, but for simply committing the thought crime of advocating it as science,” said ISU alumnus David Eaton.
After reviewing evidence showing that Gonzalez’s tenure denial was based on his personal convictions rather than on his record as a professor, a group of concerned ISU alumni met at the ISU Memorial Union during Dr. Gonzalez’s tenure appeal. As the Iowa State Board of Regents denied Dr. Gonzalez’s request to defend his position in writing or in person as they reviewed his case, this alumni group decided to take action on his behalf, forming FreeGonzalez.com in order to publicize Dr. Gonzalez’s tenure situation and provide financial support for his continuing research.
“Academic freedom is supposed to be the foundation of Iowa State University, yet Dr. Gonzalez was denied tenure there because of his support for intelligent design,” Eaton said. “Something is very wrong with the ISU administration, and as committed ISU alumni we have the responsibility to do what we can to fix it.”
To that end, FreeGonzalez.com has set up a fund to support Dr. Gonzalez’s continuing research into the properties of stars with planets and the Galactic Habitable Zone (GHZ), a concept he invented which has been featured in Science and Nature and featured on the cover of Scientific American.
With what amounts to Dr. Gonzalez’s termination by ISU this May, the fund will help provide the resources he needs to keep his groundbreaking research moving ahead.
For more information on the fund and how to support Guillermo Gonzalez, visit www.FreeGonzalez.com.
[Note: For a comprehensive rebuttal to critics of Ben Stein's documentary Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed, please see: NCSE Exposed at NCSEExposed.org]
It does not seem that Arthur Caplan, the toast of MSNBC, has even seen the film Expelled, his representations of it are so uninformed. Yet he is prepared to charge in public that Ben Stein is a "Holocaust denier," someone whose name should be forever "a source of scorn."
Would this be same Ben Stein who takes his Expelled audience through Dachau to show them where the Holocaust took place? Some denier!
So Caplan is smearing Stein, that is all there is to it. He distorts the message of the movie and then attacks it as a straw man. He probably should add to his list of scorn targets David Berlinski, Richard Weikart (also in the film) and a host of historians who have written about the Nazi era (See these articles).
Darwin himself didn’t cause the Holocaust and no one is saying he did. Darwinian theory, as promoted in Germany in the decades before Hitler took power, did strongly influence both the eugenics and race theories of the Nazis. The film shows that.
But do the facts even matter?
Reckless name-calling is all the rage. I see in the past couple of days that Bill Clinton is being called a "racist" and Hilary a "bigot." Whatever the Clintons’ failings, those terms are simply false. Then there is the amusing kerfluffle on the Darwinist blogs, where a journalist and a film-maker are being called "creationists" because they acknowledge that Expelled already has been more successful at the box office than all but a few film documentaries. That is not the party line (which is that the film is a "flop"), so the two—both of them Darwinists!—are being sent to re-education camp. (Maybe they will be more careful themselves whom they call a "creationist" in the future.)
Caplan, in his article, has the nerve to term Stein’s work "McCarthyesque." Yet McCarthyism as it was actually experienced was the application of the false label of "communist" to anyone on the Left one didn’t like. It was a smear. Caplan doesn’t like Stein, so he feels free to let his emotions—and his words—run riot.
I hope Stein gets equal time to answer Caplan’s slander.
"Poof, there goes another major prop in the battle against intelligent design"
Richard Dawkins' concession that the design we see in nature could be the result of alien activity continues to be a hot topic. CSC senior fellow David DeWolf e-mailed me with some interesting insights.
The point of Dawkins’ concession in the movie [Expelled] is not that panspermia is a preferable alternative to evolutionary theory, but rather THAT IT CAN BE STUDIED SCIENTIFICALLY. (Sorry for shouting, but I get excited about these things.)
Dawkins concedes that you could scientifically investigate whether or not the origin of life reflected natural processes or whether it was likely the result of intervention from an external, intelligent source. If you concede this point, which Dawkins appears to do on camera, then Robert Pennock, Eugenie Scott, Judge Jones et al. are dead wrong in postulating “that ID is an interesting theological argument, but that it is not science.” (Kitzmiller, 400 F.Supp.2d 707, 746.)
Whether intelligent design is a *true* theory of course is another question. You could find that there is “overwhelming evidence” (cue the orchestra here) that a Darwinian mechanism is responsible for the first life on earth, but you have to show that it is more likely than a competitor explanation, which involves intelligent agency.
Poof, there goes a major prop in the battle against ID.
Is the “Science” of Richard Dawkins Science Fiction?
Following closely on the heels of Bruce Gordon, Jonathan Wells --himself a player in Expelled-- has just published a response to Richard Dawkins' recent LA Times opinion piece.
Atheist Richard Dawkins is hopping mad at the makers of Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed. Dawkins accuses the filmmakers of “lying for Jesus” because they make it seem that he believes in intelligent design and space aliens.
Dawkins is an outspoken critic of intelligent design (ID). In his 1986 book The Blind Watchmaker, Dawkins defined biology as “the study of complicated things that give the appearance of having been designed for a purpose.” Design is only an appearance, because (as the subtitle of the book indicated) “the evidence of evolution reveals a universe without design.” According to Dawkins, evolution shows that the universe and everything in it can be explained by undirected natural processes such as random mutation and survival of the fittest. By ruling out design, “Darwin made it possible to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist.”
According to intelligent design, however, it is possible to infer from evidence in nature that some features of the world and of living things are better explained by an intelligent cause than by undirected natural processes. Although ID says nothing about the nature of the designer (other than calling it intelligent), it leaves open the possibility that the designer is God.
Clearly, Darwinian evolution and intelligent design have different implications for God’s existence.
Richard Dawkins has got himself in a bit of a pickle and, in an effort to wash off the brine, now appears to be in a bit of a lather. In an op-ed this morning in the L.A. Times (see here), he is at pains to distance himself from remarks he made in the newly released movie Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed. Toward the end of the film, in an interview with Ben Stein at the British Museum, Dawkins confesses he has no idea how life originated on earth — nor does anyone, he admits — but, as Nobel laureate Francis Crick once theorized, it could well be explained by having been seeded here by an alien intelligence. Of course, he demurs with great gravity, this alien race would itself have evolved elsewhere in the universe by Darwinian means.
In other words, Dawkins recognizes that blind evolutionary processes seem an insufficient explanation for how life originated on earth — no one knows how it could have happened and intelligent design is a real possibility — but miraculously enough, he asserts, elsewhere in the universe under conditions we have no access to and can’t really imagine, blind evolutionary forces are completely sufficient to the task! After all, we have to terminate the regress somehow and we can’t possibly terminate it with God.
Expelled Posts 3rd Best Opening for A Documentary Ever
[Update: A certain Iowa astronomer who shall remain nameless has alertly pointed out that the opening I refer to here was in Ames, not Des Moines.]
Across the country this weekend, people did a rare thing and turned out in droves for a documentary. In Des Moines Ames, Iowa the line to get into Expelled stretched around the block Friday night. In Seattle theaters were crammed with students — on a Saturday afternoon, no less.
Expelled had a huge opening weekend for a documentary film. According to Box Office Mojo, the film was #8 for the weekend, raking in a whopping $3.15 million overall.
Based just on its opening weekend alone, Expelled is now #26 on the all-time box office list of documentaries. Among those documentaries, only Fahrenheit 9/11 and Tupac The Resurection had better opening weekends.
Never mind the critics — people are giving the movie thumbs up with their wallets. Here's just a few of the comments from viewers that I received in e-mail this weekend.
One theatre in Clark County, WA presented "Expelled". It seats 321 (I asked) and I estimate there were no more than 10 or 15 empty seats.
We attended a 7:00 Friday night showing in the San Diego area. The three-hundred-seat Edwards Cinema was almost completely full and the film received enthusiastic sustained applause at the end. Overall, I'm pleased with the finished product. This morning, some friends told us they saw "Expelled" yesterday (Sat.) afternoon at 1:30 at the same theater--300 or so seats. They said the house was 2/3 - 3/4 full and the film received warm applause at its conclusion.
I saw the movie at a 6:30 pm showing in a Kerasotes theatre in Skokie, IL, a northern suburb of Chicago -- the showing wasn't full, but was well-attended (most of the seats were filled, with significant applause at the end)
Northern California, 7:15 pm showing, looked sold out or practically sold out. One guy was handing out Darwin $10,000 bills. The audience was audibly impressed. I thought it was really good and could hardly restrain myself during the cell video portion and Dr. Axe's excellent explanations. Big kudos to everybody.
We went to the opening last night in Independence, OR which is about 15 minutes southwest of Salem. Our little town theater was packed for the opening night of this movie. Young and old alike were present. Everybody clapped at the conclusion.
I took a couple of friends to the 9:15 showing of Expelled at Bellevue's (WA) Lincoln Center last night. The theater was more than half full (pretty good, I thought) and the crowd was friendly — even applauding at the end of the film.
Haven't gotten to the theater yet (will do so tonight), but by sending hoards of our students, greedy for bonus points, we made a big showing at 5:30, sold out at 7:45, and almost certainly sold out 10 (tickets for that show were going fast at 7:30!). I expect more of the same Saturday.
I took friends to the 7:40 showing but it was sold out. Only one theater in town had it on the schedule.
We had about 45 people in a theater that holds 4-5x as many, but we too had applause at the end. Note Eugene (OR) likens itself to a Berkley of the Northwest and that might be a massive turn out for us.
We were not sold out (north of Houston), but we went to a late night showing due to time schedule constraints.
San Bernardino, California: It's nice to know that I am living in the deep south, according to the various critics of this movie. Not sold out, but very full on a Friday evening when our baseball team was playing rival High Desert Mavericks on 50cent Fridays.
I have offered my students extra credit if they go see it. When I went last night I found about 70 - 100 people in my showing (which is only 1 of three theaters in the Lexington, KY area that are showing it. And I was pleased to say that only 1 of the other attendees was one of my students (I had feared that my students would make up half or more of the audiences).
I saw the movie yesterday — it was awesome! (Knoxville, Tn)
The theater here in Ontario (Calif.) was near to full at the Friday night 7:40pm showing. The audience seemed to really enjoy the film and applauded at the end.
Expelled Critics: So Bored They Can't See Straight
[Note: For a more comprehensive defense of Ben Stein's documentary Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed, please see: NCSE Exposed at NCSEExposed.org]
I saw "Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed," the controversial new documentary film by Ben Stein on the intelligent design debate, at one of the private screenings that was part of the grassroots marketing for the film, and I was disappointed. That's right. Here I made a trip all the way to Louisville, Kentucky from my home in Danville (almost 2 hours away), I go get a big bag of popcorn and a drink, climb the steps in the stadium seating at the Tinseltown Theater for the private screening and, as it turns out, not a single, solitary Darwinist tried to sneak past the big, scary looking octogenarian security guards to try to get in.
So I watched the movie instead, which was excellent. Now I know why the Darwinists are having such a fit--and spending so much time and effort throwing it: This is a powerful expose of academic intolerance. If this one gets wide exposure, they get a well deserved black eye.
"Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed" is effective in its presentation of its views. It is by turns funny, ominous, clever, illuminating, and entertaining, which is more than you can say about some of the reviews of this movie which are merely hostile. Apparently their strategy is to convince people that the movie is not very good, something they have spilled a lot of ink trying to do.
There are several things the critics are saying to accomplish this apparent objective, some of which have nothing to do with the quality of the movie at all.
The movie, say the critics, wasn't honest with the Darwinists who were interviewed for the film. In other words, they lied. They didn't tell them what the film was about--sort of like one of those soft drink commercials where the clueless attorney is interviewing the prospective clients who want to sue for copyright infringement. The producers, of course, dispute this, and point out that they not only told them what the film was about, but gave them the questions in advance and answered whatever questions they had about the film.
But they didn't reveal to them the title, say the critics. No, and they probably didn't tell them who the clapper loader and lighting gaffer were either. So what?
What difference would it have made to what people like Dawkins would have said anyway? Would they have been less honest about what they believed? If so, then wouldn't not telling them what the movie was about at all have been a greater contribution to the truth about which the critics say they are so concerned? Would Dawkins, et al. not have been willing to state their case at all if they knew more about the film than they apparently wanted to know? Well that would have been big of them.
But the main point is that that has nothing to do with the quality of the movie. Even if it were true, it has nothing to do with whether, when you leave the theater, you thought the hour and a half was well spent.
The film, some say, is intellectually garbled. Read: It it didn't come to a conclusion they agree with. Are there really people going to this movie to witness a visual academic treatise? Look, the movie is self-consciously (and self-confessedly) channeling Michael Moore--with the appropriate ideological adjustments. This is infotainment folks, get used to it.
There's the charge that the film doesn't give a definition of intelligent design. This could be a problem for dull minds that can't put two and two together to make four. But I have asked myself the question, if I did not know what intelligent design was before I saw this film, would I know afterward? I certainly would. What I would not think, after seeing this film, is that intelligent design is creationism, which is what the reviewers making this charge wanted to see, and are now upset because they didn't.
In fact, this is the best thing about this movie: it completely dispels the notion that intelligent design is just warmed over creationism. Let's face it, it's just hard to the square the image of, say, David Berlinski, the polymath Princeton PhD, postdoctoral fellow at Columbia University in mathematics and molecular biology, analytic philosophy, and philosophy of mathematics, and former professor at Stanford, Rutgers, the City University of New York, and the Universite de Paris with the stereotype of the creation scientist.
There are very few secular Jewish polymath creation scientists living in exquisitely decorated flats on the rue Montmorency. Trust me on this.
Then there is the assertion that no definition of evolution is offered. But evolution is discussed again and again, in detail, with shades of meaning parsed and commented on. Again, the lack of a definition isn't the problem for the critics: Rather, it's the lack of a positive portrayal of Darwinism as they see it is.
The movie, say others, caricatures Darwinism. Well let's face it: any 90 minute movie covering any topic is going to caricature anything it deals with. Caricature is when you take the significant aspects of something and exaggerate them for dramatic effect. And the alternative for an hour and half documentary is? Besides, if the Darwinist critics of this film don't like caricature, they ought to check out their portrayals of ID sometime. They can start with the charge that ID is the same thing as creationism.
In fact, ID critics seem to find it singularly profound to judge this movie on criteria that have little to do with the purpose of the movie. The movie doesn't prove ID; the movie doesn't give an accurate and detailed scientific description of this or that; the movie doesn't give a balanced treatment of the issue; yada, yada, yada. Of course, these are not things the movie even purports to do, much less attempt. This is not a movie about intelligent design or evolution. This is a movie about the debate over intelligent design and evolution. Any criticisms that don't take account of this are simply nonsensical and irrelevant.
If you slog through the comments from critics and keep your eye peeled, you can find an occasional criticism that, right or wrong, actually belongs in a movie review. One of these rare specimens is the charge that the film is "boring." C'mon. Unless you fall within the category of totally ignorant of the issue of evolution and uncaring (in which case you didn't buy a ticket to go see the movie in the first place), you're going to be mad--either at the Darwinists' ideological cartel, or at the producers for making the movie. You're either going to be cheering Ben Stein on or gnawing on knuckles in frustration. But bored? No way.
In fact, one wonders how such a boring film can elicit such hostility. Peter McWilliams once defined boredom as "hostility without enthusiasm." But these people are not only hostile, they are enthusiastic in their hostility. If they're bored, they sure are worked up about it.
The negative reviews of Expelled are primarily written by people who disagree with the film's central contention, just as the positive reviews are largely from people who agree with it. When it comes to a film like this, there is little room for objectivity. Darwinists aren't going to give this film a positive review any more than a conservative would give a positive review to a Michael Moore film. If you agree with it you like it, if you don't you don't. It's pretty simple.
I actually went to the movie not expecting much. Call me gullible, but I actually believed some of the rhetoric coming from the critics. I was thinking, okay, here these people were nice enough to invite me to the sneak preview and I'm going to walk out feeling obligated to write up something nice about it when I may think it was just a shameless piece of propaganda. Maybe I just won't say anything. Yeah. That's what I'll do.
I needn't have worried.
The thing that I was expecting to be particularly turned off by was the communist and Nazi allusions I had heard were in the film. The film, said one reviewer, "wanders off to blame the theory of evolution for Communism, the Berlin Wall, Fascism, the Holocaust, atheism and Planned Parenthood." Well, to say that this constitutes "wandering off" is, I suppose, the right of the critic concerned about the integrity of a film, but I doubt that is the motive behind the criticism. The point of the film is whatever the filmmaker wants the point of the film to be, and if part of the point is to analyze the ideological origins and implications of the idea of Darwinism, then it's not "wandering off."
In fact, the Nazi and communist imagery was perfectly appropriate to the filmmakers' point. They were talking about ideological totalitarianism. So why isn't imagery that shows totalitarianism in its political form not relevant to it? While I think the more relevant comparison is McCarthyism here, I'll also readily admit that that analogy is not nearly as dramatic, and probably less useful for a filmmaker.
Is the imagery overdone? Perhaps. But those critical of this aspect of the film have to answer the charges included in the film that, in fact, National Socialism and communism relied on a Darwinian view to help ground their political ideologies. Are they denying that they did? All I've heard is squealing that the charge was made. Was Charles Darwin a Nazi or a communist? Of course not. And, being the gentleman that he was, he would undoubtedly have been appalled at the use to which his theory was put.
But he was not just a gentleman: he was a Victorian gentleman. And the whole Victorian project was to try to maintain the traditional moral system without the religious system that engendered and undergirded it. In that respect (and a few others) Darwinism was a product of its time. But the Victorian project was accounted a failure: their moral system could not be maintained without the religious foundation, as Friedrich Nietzsche had predicted. Darwin himself accepted it, good Victorian that he was, but his theory only served to undermine it.
The film doesn't give us a complete account of all this, partly because it can't. But it does call attention to the historical connections, and to connections with the eugenics movement as well. The question is whether these connections are a coincidence or not? Is there something about Darwinism that lends itself to this? When morality is undermined, are we supposed be surprised when it is violated?
The reaction to "Expelled" has not only been hostile, but sometimes ugly (not that that should come as a surprise to anyone familiar with the rhetoric of those opposed to Intelligent Design). The review that ran in my local paper was by Roger Moore of the Orlando Sentinel, who urged readers not to see the film because Ben Stein might profit from it: "Ben Stein wins your money if you go to his expose on bias against intelligent design." One wonders whether that is an equally good reason not to read Moore's review.
Then there is FOX News' Robert Friedman: "After seeing a new non-fiction film starring Comedy Central's Ben Stein, you may not only be able to win his money, but also his career ... But that career may be over come April 18." It sounds like Friedman would love it if he were a university department chair and Stein was a professor. In that case, he could just fire him. Or deny him tenure. Or write nasty e-mails to his colleagues besmirching his reputation behind his back and then denying it.
Whatever Darwinism's ramifications for morality, it certainly doesn't do much for your temper.
The frustration level at The New York Times over Ben Stein’s new documentary Expelledcan be gauged by the tone of its movie “review,” which might be described more accurately as a tantrum. It opens:
One of the sleaziest documentaries to arrive in a very long time, “Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed” is a conspiracy-theory rant masquerading as investigative inquiry.
One of the sleaziest documentaries in a very long time? This comes from the same paper that hailed Michael Moore as “a credit to the Republic” and praised his dishonest Fahrenheit 911 as “achieving an eloquence that its most determined critics will have a hard time dismissing.” And it comes from the same movie reviewer who just last month lavished praise on an “endearing” gay sex comedy for “its breezy shots of male genitalia and characters nicknamed Long John and Tripod.”
As I’ve said before, it’s getting really hard to parody the Darwinists. They parody themselves.
But perhaps I should feel sorry for those at the Times, as they obviously had a bad week. The same day the Times blasted Expelled, after all, it reported that its “main source of revenue—newspaper advertising in print and online—fell 10.6 percent, the sharpest drop in memory.” Why am I not surprised?
[Note: For an extensive response to critics of Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed, please see: NCSE Exposed at NCSEExposed.org]
Expelled Audience in Iowa Gives Standing Ovation to Persecuted Astronomer
The movie theater screening Expelled in the home town of Iowa State University (ISU) apparently couldn't handle all the people who showed up last night, and the audience responded with a standing ovation for ISU astronomer Guillermo Gonzalez, who was denied tenure by ISU because of his pro-ID views. According to The Ames Tribune,
A line for the 7:10 p.m. premiere showing of "Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed" at the Varsity II theater on Lincoln Way stretched back five storefronts to the Bali Satay House Friday... Those who made it into the theater before it filled up generally responded positively to the film. They greeted the ending credits with applause and, after Gonzalez wrapped up a brief discussion following the film, treated him with a standing ovation.
[Discovery Institute President Bruce Chapman just asked me to post this on his behalf:]
Discovery Salutes Expelled
by Bruce Chapman
The producers of Expelled have high hopes as the film opens today.
Practical questions of theater exposures and audience awareness are things that we, as a think tank, cannot assess, of course. But we are cheering the filmmakers on. First signs look positive. The over-the-top attacks of most official reviewers--offended by the film's message, not its quality--may turn out to help in some quarters. These are the exact same reviewers who commonly tell us not to object to offensive Hollywood products, but just to judge a film for its production quality. By now a large share of the population is wise to such hypocritical standards.
Some other things already are clear. Just making a major documentary film on subject so serious--although it is packaged in Ben Stein's unique and uproarious humor--and opening it in so many theaters nationally is a huge achievement. The preview screenings that Premise media conducted around the country brought the story of Darwinism's attack on objective science to the attention of thousands of people who didn't know about it before, let alone understand it. The initial theater run will be followed by small-group screenings, TV and DVDs.
This film is going to be a classic and there is nothing the fulminating opposition can do about it. (In recent days they even resorted to threatening lawsuits, just confirming their growing reputation for ill-liberal spite.)
There is no way that we, for our part, could have persuaded the evangelizing atheists in science--that is, the big guns of Darwinism--to let their true personalities appear in front of a camera so people actually could witness their furious, unreasoning contempt.
Expelled has done that. Hearing and seeing Richard Dawkins criticize the disingenuous and propagandistic approach of the National Center for Science Education (a part of the film the Darwinists simply do not want to acknowledge in public, let alone discuss) was worth it all for me. And that was before Dawkins went on to explain the space alien theory of life's origin that Carl Sagan, Francis Crick and many other Darwinians promote as their own creation story. (This theory is real science, right, Richard? Testable, falsifiable, based on evidence you have researched?)
The film has one moment after another like that. The second time I saw it brought out aspects I had missed in the first. I'll see it in a theater this weekend. Already one can tell that this is a documentary that will be watched for years; it is authentic and path finding.
Almost all the main elements of the struggle in which the Discovery Institute Center for Science and Culture has been engaged are in this film pulled together in an artful, witty, memorable account. It is a great credit to the writers, editors, Ben Stein of course (who has found, as one does, that defending those under attack is to bring attack on oneself), and most of all the producers--and, most notably, Walt Ruloff.
Oh, if we had been making the film, there would have been even more about the scientific flaws in Darwin's theory and even more about the scientific case for intelligent design. If the filmmakers had been able to wait a few months we would have been able to provide them with some exciting new scientific studies and books to cite. But I have to concede that the resulting film would have been twice as long and probably unusable as a Hollywood feature!
In any case, this is not our film. We didn't come up with the idea and we didn't come up with the money (critics who think we did flatter us!).
Frankly, I not only was skeptical, but also suspicious when I first heard about the film project a couple of years ago. That suspicion was wrong. While it is not our film our fellows are the focus of much of the attention and Ben Stein has electrified his audiences with their story. It is brilliant. And for all this we are grateful. It moves the whole question of "what it means to be human" forward. It opens new doors. And it forces many potential allies who would prefer to avert their eyes to recognize that the fight for academic freedom in science is inevitably their fight, too.
[Note: For a comprehensive response to critics of Ben Stein's documentary Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed, please see: NCSE Exposed at NCSEExposed.org]
Hitler understood something about Judaism that even many Jews today don’t grasp.
I mention this because you’re soon going to be hearing a lot about a new movie, Expelled, which understands something about Hitler that, in turn, many Jews and non-Jews don’t or don’t want to understand.
Starring comic actor Ben Stein, Expelled is a snarky theatrical documentary about the suppression of American scientists who dissent from Darwinist evolutionary orthodoxy. Controversial stuff. What’s really turning critics apoplectic, though, is the case made in the film that Darwinism inspired the Nazis.
In an illuminating irony, not one but two theatrical documentaries open today that trace the genealogy of the Holocaust back to earlier literary texts. One is Expelled, in which Ben Stein touches upon the use Hitler made of Darwinism. The other documentary is Constantine’s Sword, based on the bestselling book of the same name, by James Carroll.
Carroll tells the history of the Christian churches from the perspective of their countenancing of anti-Semitism. As Carroll argues, it all goes back to “the Jews hatred we so easily detect in the New Testament, and that would flower in anti-Jewish violence.”
Now which of these films do think has been savaged in the liberal press, and which has gotten raves? Clearly, to blame Christianity for Auschwitz is an industry standard in the mainstream media, while considering the role that Darwinism played is simply forbidden.
In previous posts this week, I’ve demonstrated Hitler’s debt to Darwin. The extermination of a supposedly inferior people for purposes of advancing racial hygiene is an idea with roots in Darwin’s Descent of Man. I said yesterday that the only major element in Nazism with no blatant reference point in Darwin’s literary corpus is the hatred of Jews in particular.
Today on the Jewish hipster website Jewcy, however, I uncover the deeper Darwinian logic of Hitler’s Jew-hating obsession. Not, I emphasize, that Darwin himself ever said a word against the Jews.
But his worldview is all about explaining life and its mysteries in reductively natural terms. In Mein Kampf, in the chapter where his use of Darwinist rhetoric is most pronounced, Hitler decries the Jews for their “effrontery” in representing a philosophical doctrine diametrically opposed to naturalism: “Millions thoughtlessly parrot this Jewish nonsense and end up by really imagining that they themselves represent a kind of conqueror of Nature.”
In Darwinism, Nature sweeps all inexorably before her. In Judaism, we are called on to defy Nature, bending our personal natures to God’s will.
In Jewish number symbolism, this transcendence of nature is represented by the numbers seven and eight. In Scripture’s narrative, the world was created in seven days. To go beyond natural limits is then represented by seven plus one, or eight.
The Maharal of Prague (1525-1609) gives many examples of how this works. One is appropriate to mention today. This coming Saturday night, Jews inaugurate the festival of Passover, recalling the Exodus from Egypt.
Passover is followed seven weeks later by the festival of Shavuot, a remembrance of the giving of the Ten Commandments to Moses. In Jewish tradition, the progression through those seven weeks, or 49 days, is a time for self-conquering, of conquering our nature. When we emerge on the 50th day, it is time for Shavuot and receiving God’s wisdom in the Torah.
I mention this not for the purpose of haranguing you with a sermon but rather to point out something many of Expelled’s bitterest critics have failed to grasp. They complain that Darwinism bears no responsibility for atrocities committed by people motivated by a twisted reading of Darwin’s books.
They don’t extend the same benefit of the doubt to Christianity. But the truth is that a worldview represented in literary texts naturally bears fruit in the actions of those who believe in it. A worldview is a picture of how the world works. It may be a false picture, of course.
How you understand reality naturally influences how you interact with the world and the people in it. The commandments of a religion are not arbitrary rules. They follow organically from the way that religion envisions the world.
If that’s true of Judaism, or Islam or Buddhism, it’s also true of a myth like Darwinism. A mythical idea system isn’t, by being a myth, necessarily false. A myth, like a religion, tries to explain reality.
If a religion can be held responsible for the actions by its faithful, actions guided by imperatives generated by that religion, we should be able to hold the myth of Darwinism responsible as well. That, in the end, is all Expelled has tried to do.
Bozell on Expelled: "I went into the screening bored. I came out of it stunned."
Brent Bozell III's column at Townhall says he was invited to preview Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed, the Ben Stein film that screens for the public at a reported 1000 theaters this weekend. "I went into the screening bored," he writes. "I came out of it stunned."
This makes a point that needs underscoring. Anybody who is bothered by the malign conformity of contemporary politics and culture in academia and the media should be paying attention to the evolution debate. It isn't marginal. It's central. The refusal to allow debate and the reckless determination to punish dissent aren't limited to the sciences, but they are crucially present there. Materialist science is being allowed to define all reality far too often and, as Stein shows brilliantly, it is hypocritical in its standards. Darwinist spinmeisters make mere politicians look amateur. And they have imperial ambitions to shape the culture of public life altogether.
Summary:
The filmmakers' intentions are kept deliberately vague--is this about free speech or about teaching religion in the classroom?--but it's a surprisingly entertaining and informative doc that at least tries to address the debate over intelligent design from another angle.
Story:
Ben Stein takes a look at intelligent design and how scientists and teachers who've dared to address it have come under attack from the scientific community using Darwin's theories of evolution.
I like rebels, especially ones who go against type. Take Ben Stein in his latest film, Expelled, which comes out this Friday. Dressed in a sport coat, tie, and tennis shoes, he’s not who you expect — the deadpan, monotone-voiced but ever-likable teacher he portrays in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off and The Wonder Years.
Stein retains his characteristic deadpan affect, but this time he’s playing himself — a deceptively erudite and well-educated interviewer, who is passionately skeptical of evolutionary biology and its leading proponents.
In Ben Stein's new film "Expelled," there is a great scene where Richard Dawkins is going on about how evolution explains everything. This is part of Dawkins' grand claim, which echoes through several of his books, that evolution by itself has refuted the argument from design. The argument from design hold that the design of the universe and of life are most likely the product of an intelligent designer. Dawkins thinks that Darwin has disproven this argument...
Opponents of Academic Freedom on Teaching Evolution Using Outlandish Rhetoric
A modified version of the Louisiana Academic Freedom Bill moved out of the Louisiana Senate Education Committee on Thursday, following testimony from both proponents and opponents of the bill. I recently predicted that, "For the Darwinists who oppose the bill, this battle is about falsely appealing to people's emotions and fears in order to suppress the teaching of scientific information that challenges evolution." If you don't believe me, consider the latest testimony from Darwinists encouraging legislators to oppose the bill yesterday before the Louisiana Senate Education Committee:
One Darwinist appealed to bleak fear, arguing that if the bill passes, Louisiana will suffer "lost industries and jobs from companies who want their students to learn science." This person went on to attack the bill because he felt it would permit the teaching of "primitive religious perspectives." These attacks were oddly vague; he gave no names of any companies that were actually threatening to leave Louisiana, and all the bill permits is the objective teaching of science.
Another Darwinist claimed that the bill might permit the teaching of "skinhead theory" (which sounds quite sick, although the person never elaborated on exactly what that was). One evolutionary biologist bluffed that among professional biologists "there is absolutely no debate about whether evolution occurs." (Of course, he probably would define evolution as uncontroversial change over time, while ignoring the Dissent from Darwinism list.)
One Darwinist used the classic New Yorkers will mock us argument, stating that he opposed the bill because "we need to think about how people in New York will think about this bill." (Note that this appeal to vanity refuses to consider the validity of Darwinism. For some people, it’s more important to be accepted in fashionable circles than it is to equip students to make informed judgments based on the scientific evidence.)
But the shining moment for the Louisiana Darwinist lobby came when Louisiana Senator Bill Cassidy exclaimed "Praise God!" when endorsing the suggestion of a Darwinist speaker (who I'm told is with the ACLU) to amend the bill to delete any explicit references to biological evolution or chemical evolution from the bill.
Unfortunately, Senator Cassidy's amendment seems to have passed into the revised version of the bill; however, the bill still contains good language encouraging school boards "to create and foster an environment ... that promotes critical thinking skills, logical analysis, and open and objective discussion of scientific theories" and also sanctioning the rights of teachers to "help students understand, analyze, critique, and review scientific theories in an objective manner."
Florida Darwinist Scientist appeals to Emotions and “Enlightenment” to Oppose Academic Freedom
Meanwhile in Florida, Darwinists are promoting similarly outlandish opposition to the Florida Academic Freedom Bill. Earlier this week, a prominent chemist, Harold Kroto, opposed Florida's Academic Freedom bill because of the fact that humans and fruit flies share some of the same genes. No, I'm really not kidding you. This was printed in the Herald Tribune:
Humans and fruit flies share the same genes.
"You may not like that but it's not my fault," Kroto, 68, said in front of the state Capitol on Monday.
"It's the way it actually is."
Brilliant. Case closed. Evolution is a fact, right? Not necessarily. As discussed in the book Explore Evolution, critics of neo-Darwinism believe that such similarities are easily explained as the result of functional requirements, not because humans and fruit flies necessarily share a common ancestor or because they evolved by random mutation and natural selection.
But don't worry, Kroto has a backup argument to oppose academic freedom in Florida: Like the Louisiana Darwinist who feared the opinion of New Yorkers, Kroto makes the enlightened British will laugh at us argument. Again, this is not a joke:
His friends back home in England, where he was a professor in Sussex, have been sending him e-mails asking why he stays, he said.
"We're the laughingstock of the enlightened world," Kroto said.
So there you have it: we shouldn't protect the academic freedom of teachers in Florida to challenge evolution because humans share genes with fruit flies and because the British will laugh at us. I'm sure glad that people like Kroto weren't the ones fighting for freedom during the American Revolutionary War.
(Note: Kroto seems to have his own materialist motives in this debate. He was one of the 39 Darwinists who wrote the Kansas State Board of Education back in 2005 to tell them that evolution is "the result of an unguided, unplanned process of random variation and natural selection.")
Given all of the outlandish arguments that Darwinists are making to oppose these bills, it seems that my prediction was correct: "For the Darwinists who oppose the bill, this battle is about falsely appealing to people's emotions and fears in order to suppress the teaching of scientific information that challenges evolution."
David Klinghoffer nails the Darwinists’ noisome effort to deny Darwinism’s influence on Nazi ideology in today’s National Review Online. He knocks down the straw man arguments they employ—the pretense that the film is mainly or even substantially about this topic, or that the film blames the bulk of the Nazi enterprise on Darwin or that the film calls today’s Darwinists Nazis. But mainly he simply marshals the historians. (The very best current history, of course, is Darwin to Hitler, by Richard Weikart of Cal State.)
It is appalling to see a snarling movie review like that of Stephen Whitty of Newhouse News Service today. He seems he didn’t bother to see the film. He writes sarcastically that he “thought evolution had something to do with the Galapagos and ‘Inherit the Wind’.” The Galapagos, of course, may demonstrate micro-evolution, which no one questions and therefore is irrelevant, and ‘Inherit the Wind,’ Mr. Whitty, is a fictional film! If that is where movie reviewers get their history, no wonder the culture is such crumby shape
Michael Shermer’s Fact-Free Attack on Expelled Exposes Intolerance of Darwinists towards Pro-Intelligent Design Scientists (Part 3)
[Note: For a more comprehensive defense of Ben Stein's documentary Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed, please see: NCSE Exposed at NCSEExposed.org]
In Part 1 and Part 2 I discussed how Michael Shermer’s review of Expelled applies one-sided skepticism to anything that challenges Darwinism, withholding skepticism of claims made by pro-evolution sources. When claiming that Richard Sternberg faced no discrimination after sympathizing with Darwin-skeptics, but simply invented a “conspiracy," Shermer failed to scrutinize the blatantly false and contradictory claims by Darwinists trying to cover up what really happened. In that case, Eugenie Scott made private concessions that Sternberg did not do anything mortally wrong in his handling of the publication of Stephen C. Meyer’s paper on intelligent design (ID), and spoke as if Sternberg had been ousted. As I observed, Shermer’s methodology when dealing with the persecution of pro-ID scientists is as follows:
(1) Ignore all the facts showing there was persecution;
(2) E-mail the persecutor and ask them if there was any anti-ID discrimination;
(3) Withhold all skepticism from the statements of the persecutors, and then trumpet their response as evidence that there is no persecution against ID proponents, blaming the victim for losing their job and then claiming those who feel there is persecution are just promoting a “conspiracy.”
In this post, I will assess how Shermer uses this same methodology when accepting wholesale the explanations of Eugenie Scott and Iowa State University (ISU) President Gregory Geoffroy regarding why pro-ID astronomer Guillermo Gonzalez was denied tenure.
Shermer Blames-the-Victim Case #2: Guillermo Gonzalez
Shermer blames pro-ID astronomer Guillermo Gonzalez for being denied tenure at Iowa State University (ISU). Who is the expert that Shermer consults on Gonzalez's case? None other than Eugenie Scott, Executive Director of the National Center for Science Education (NCSE). Scott had many complaints against Gonzalez's academic record, which I'll scrutinize one at a time below.
First, Scott claimed that while at ISU, Gonzalez’s “publication record tanked” while at ISU. But as I explained here, according to the Smithsonian/NASA Astrophysics Data System, Gonzalez has published 34 publications since 2001 (the year he joined ISU) and his normalized publication score is 2nd among all astronomers in his department. As Rob Crowther observed:
[H]e peaks in 2003 but ends in 2006 just as high as he was when he started at ISU. Moreover, he outperformed all ISU astronomy faculty in normalized publications during that period. The one year that is obviously less happens to be the same year that he co-authored an astronomy textbook published by Cambridge University Press.
Not only that, but as explained here, Gonzalez led astronomers in his department in a normalized count of citations to his work in other scientific papers:
Gonzalez joined ISU in 2001, and for his publications since 2001 he has the highest normalized citation count of all astronomers in his department, including both tenured and untenured faculty! Moreover, despite the fact that he is much younger than many of the tenured faculty members in the department, he has the second highest lifetime normalized citation count among all astronomers in his department.
Given that Gonzalez apparently led all tenured ISU astronomers who voted against his tenure in both normalized publications and normalized citations since 2001, it's hard to see what grounds they have for complaining about his publication record. If Gonzalez's publication record went down at all during his probationary period at ISU, it still remained at an extremely impressive level that warranted tenure. If anything, this indicates that scientists should not be penalized for extraordinarily high academic achievements early in their careers if, like Gonzalez, they continue to produce outstanding publication rates during their tenure probationary period.
Next Shermer quotes Eugenie Scott claiming that Gonzalez “didn't have very many graduate students, and those he had never completed their degrees.” First, this is a blatant falsehood, first promulgated by anti-ID groups in Iowa. As I explained to Iowa Citizens for Science when they made the same claim:
“Again, that statement is completely false. The truth is that in 2001, soon before Gonzalez left the University of Washington (UW) [to] join the faculty at ISU, he served as the primary advisor to a UW doctoral student in astronomy, Chris Laws. Gonzalez served as Laws’ primary scientific advisor over the course of Laws’ entire doctoral thesis, and Laws successfully graduated from UW with a Ph.D. in astronomy in December, 2004. Gonzalez also served on the committee of another Ph.D. student at UW, Rory Barnes, and this student also successfully graduated in 2004. You may want to also correct this false information as well and issue a retraction immediately.”
Second, it's worth noting that pre-tenure faculty typically aren't expected to have as many graduate students as tenured faculty, because pre-tenured faculty are supposed to focus primarily on research. So even if they were accurate, Scott's complaints here are of little relevance. Shermer should start applying some of his skepticism to the false claims of the pro-Darwin lobbyists like Eugenie Scott.
Finally Shermer asserts that Gonzalez lacks grants, but in their tenure guidelines, Dr. Gonzalez’s department does not even list grants as a criterion they consider for gaining tenure. Nonetheless, Gonzalez was awarded a $50,000 grant from Discovery Institute that allows him to collect more than enough observational astronomy data each year for the next 5 years to conduct a successful research program. In short, Dr. Gonzalez has precisely the money he needs to have a successful research program at ISU.
So if Gonzalez's department doesn't list grants as a requirement for tenure, what do their guidelines state? They state, "For promotion to associate professor, excellence sufficient to lead to a national or international reputation is required and would ordinarily be shown by the publication of approximately fifteen papers of good quality in refereed journals." In this regard, Dr. Gonzalez has over 350% more peer-reviewed science articles than what his department ordinarily requires for indicating the type of reputation that demonstrates research excellence. Having observed this, one external reviewer summarized Dr. Gonzalez's tenure application as follows:
"Dr. Gonzalez is eminently qualified for the promotion according to your guidelines of excellence in scholarship and exhibiting a potential for national distinction. In light of your criteria I would certainly recommend the promotion."
Indeed, 2/3 of the external reviewers who gave an opinion about whether Dr. Gonzalez deserves tenure agreed that he should receive tenure.
Shermer ignores these accomplishments of Gonzalez, and continues his usual method of quoting the persecutor in their denials of discrimination as if that settles the case. Thus, Shermer writes, “According to Gregory Geoffroy, president of Iowa State, ‘Over the past 10 years, four of the 12 candidates who came up for review in the physics and astronomy department were not granted tenure.’" That is irrelevant, for Shermer forgets that Dr. Gonzalez’s academic achievements, whether good or bad, do NOTHING to negate the undeniable evidence of bias and prejudice against him in the department because he supports ID:
ISU Physicist John Hauptman explicitly admitted in an op-ed that he voted against Gonzalez’s tenure because of ID: "I participated in the initial vote and voted no, based on this fundamental question: What is science? … It is purely a question of what is science and what is not, and a physics department is not obligated to support notions that do not even begin to meet scientific standards."
During tenure deliberations in November 2006, Dr. Gonzalez’s department chair Eli Rosenberg devoted a full third of his chair’s statement in Gonzalez’s tenure file to discussing intelligent design, instructing voting members of ISU’s Department of Physics and Astronomy to make ID a litmus test where Gonzalez’s support for ID as science "disqualifies him from serving as a science educator."
In the summer of 2005, atheist professor of religion at ISU, Hector Avalos, e-mailed ISU faculty, inviting them to sign a statement calling on "all faculty members to ... reject efforts to portray Intelligent Design as science" because of the "negative impact" due to the fact that "Intelligent Design … has now established a presence … at Iowa State University."
ISU physicist Joerg Schmalian endorses a plan to release an anti-ID statement from his department, intending to send a message to Gonzalez: "If we go on record, we give Gonzalez a clear sign that his ID efforts will not be considered as science by the faculty." Other faculty (see below) endorse such statements from Schmalian with an intent to directly target Gonzalez, with another scientist in Gonzalez's department stating that ISU “is not a friendly place for him to develop further his IDeas.”
Two tenure-voting faculty in Gonzalez's department had links to an NCSE anti-ID petition publicly denouncing intelligent design as "creationist pseudoscience."
ISU physicist Bruce Harmon wrote in an e-mail, “As Joerg [Schmalian] says, I think Gonzalez should know that some faculty in his department are not going to count his ID work as a plus for tenure. Quite the opposite.”
It seems clear that ID did play a major negative and inappropriate role in Gonzalez's tenure denial. Shermer ignores all of this evidence, finding ways to ignore inconvenient facts that make it clear what really happened at ISU. In his one-sided skepticism, he is only skeptical of the claims of ID-proponents and never doubts the demonstrably false words of Eugenie Scott. Readers can decide for themselves whether Shermer and ISU are correct to claim that ID played no significant role in Gonzalez's denial of tenure.
NCSE-Sanctioned Discrimination?
But what does Scott's organization, the NCSE, have to say about Gonzalez and ID? In fact, the NCSE has sponsored an anti-Expelled website, "Expelled Exposed," that takes an intolerant mindset that justifies discriminating against Gonzalez because he supports ID.
The "Expelled Exposed" site says that Gonzalez's "distracting work on an unscientific enterprise like intelligent design," among other things, "make[s] it impossible for supporters to legitimately claim that the decision not to grant him tenure was unfounded." When discussing Gonzalez, the NCSE site also argues that ID proponents do not deserve the protection of academic freedom, stating, "A scientist should not expect his colleagues to ignore his advocacy of a perspective that those in his field have overwhelmingly rejected." In other words, when ID-proponents like Gonzalez come up for tenure, the NCSE thinks that ID should count as an automatic and absolute negative. Clearly the NCSE endorses discriminating against Gonzalez simply because he supports ID. We have seen clear evidence that Gonzalez's Darwinist colleagues at ISU felt exactly the same.
Yet Gonzalez's work on ID has clear academic legitimacy that deserves the protection of academic freedom. Indeed, the ISU faculty handbook says that "academic freedom is the foundation of the university." Gonzalez didn't teach ID in the classroom, but his book on ID, The Privileged Planet, was written using a grant from the prestigious Templeton Foundation (a grant which ISU accepted). Moreover, leading scientists, such as Simon Conway Morris, Owen Gingerich, and Philip Skell praised his book on ID. His book was even favorably reviewed by David Hughes of the Royal Astronomical Society. Even if some ISU faculty disagree with Gonzalez's views on intelligent design, his work clearly has academic legitimacy that deserves the protection of academic freedom.
Gonzalez's tenure debate has never been, as Lauri Lebo misrepresents it to be, a case where we have argued that "it is unfair to take intelligent design into consideration." Intelligent design can be considered during tenure evaluations. The question is: how should faculty respond to it? Will they count ID as an automatic and absolute negative, as the NCSE suggests they should, or will they consider the possibility that a commitment to true academic freedom requires that scientists be granted the right to hold such minority viewpoints? Scientists have every right to dissent from ID and express their views in disagreement with ID. The relevant question here is, will scientists be given the right to support ID? The NCSE unambiguously suggests that the answer to that question should be no.
As noted, the ISU faculty handbook claims that "academic freedom is the foundation of the university." But ISU faculty in Gonzalez's department chose to follow the NCSE's approach, counting Gonzalez's support for ID as a pure negative, failing to grant academic freedom for minority, dissenting scientific viewpoints that clearly have academic respectability. Academic freedom doesn't just give scientists the right to agree with the majority viewpoint. If Lauri Lebo and the NCSE had their way, ID proponents would be dismissed simply because they support ID, taking away any academic freedom to hold such a minority scientific viewpoint.
Shermer extensively quotes the NCSE's Executive Director (Eugenie Scott) regarding Gonzalez's case, clearly showing that Shermer is taking the side of the persecutors, not the persecuted.
Shermer and Eugenie Scott’s Hypocrisy regarding Defining Science
Eugenie Scott’s misrepresentations about Guillermo Gonzalez are not her most incredible statements in Shermer’s review. In Expelled, Ben Stein makes the point that scientists should not reject intelligent design a priori by defining science so as to exclude ID. Stein never tells people how to define science, he just suggests that scientists should not rule out ID due to what they think science is supposed to be. In response, Shermer quotes Eugenie Scott as follows:
"Who is Ben Stein to say what is science and not science? None of us speak for science. Scientists vary all over the map in their religious and philosophical views—for example, Francis Collins [the evangelical Christian and National Human Genome Research Institute director], so no one can speak for science."
This statement sounds reasonable, but it is both hypocritical and wrong on various levels.
First, as I noted, in the movie Stein never says “what is science and not science.” Stein simply says that there should be academic freedom for these ideas, and scientists should not be excluded because they hold unpopular views. This is an important point, because as noted in Part 1 and Part 2, both Shermer and Scott imply that Richard Sternberg’s reputation should be diminished because he has sympathized with various groups that are critical of neo-Darwinism.
Second, Eugenie Scott says that, “none of us speak for science,” but it’s highly hypocritical for her to suggest that people should not speak about the definition of science. Not only did Scott bless Judge Jones — a non-scientist — in his efforts to define science in the Kitzmiller ruling, but she constantly purports to speak for science. To give just one example, she writes in an article entitled “Science, Religion, and Evolution,” that “science restricts itself to explaining the natural world using natural causes. This restriction of evolution to explanation through natural cause is referred to as ‘methodological materialism’, materialism in this context referring to matter, energy, and their interaction. Methodological materialism is one of the main differences between science and religion … There also are philosophical reasons for restricting science to methodological materialism, having to do with the nature of science itself.” In fact Scott cites herself as an authority for defining science! She cites “Scott, 1995” and “Scott, 1998” to justify these statements.
Eugenie Scott clearly thinks that she can speak for science, she just doesn’t like it when other people have opinions about science that differ from her own. This sounds like a familiar theme among the Darwinists who are interviewed in Expelled.
Conclusion
But what else does Shermer have to say? Shermer does not dispute the admissions by Darwinists in the film that scientists lack a natural chemical explanation for the origin of life. Shermer also claims that there is no persecution because some critics of natural selection -- like Lynn Margulis or William Schopf -- are embraced by the scientific community. But these critics are fully within the mainstream Darwinian mindset: they wholly reject intelligent design and they believe that unguided processes built all of life’s complexity. So they don’t threaten the core of neo-Darwinism, making it unsurprising that Shermer finds they have experienced no persecution.
Shermer also gives a fairly incomprehensible rant about Expelled’s discussion of the evidence that Hitler relied upon Darwin. I see no need to respond to Shermer directly on this because Shermer’s arguments made little sense, and besides I’m no expert on Nazis or the Holocaust. (Erudite treatments of this question, with all the important caveats and expected quotations from Darwin and other experts, have been provided by Richard Weikart, a professor of history at California State University, Stanislaus, at "Re-examining the Darwin-Hitler Link " and "Darwin and the Nazis".)
I may not be a historian, but I am a lawyer (and a half-Jewish lawyer at that), and I have some training about how to evaluate the credibility of witnesses. As a lawyer interested in finding credible witnesses, I find it compelling that the person in Expelled who makes the most forceful argument that Hitler made reliance upon Darwin was the curator of a museum in Germany dedicated to remembering the horrors of the Nazis, who has no apparent personal agenda in the debate over Darwin. She is an expert, a neutral third party who has no reason to take a particular side, and who seems to have no stake in the debate over Darwin. Yet she is the one arguing that Hitler needed Darwin. I'm no expert on questions about whether Hitler relied upon Darwin. But if Hitler didn't rely on Darwin, then it seems that curators of Holocaust remembrance-museums in Germany must also be in on the big conspiracy to make it seem that he did.
(Important note: Denyse O'Leary rightly reminds us of the context of this debate: "Does that mean that typical modern-day Darwinists have anything in common with Hitler? No, of course not. But it does mean that we cannot understand Hitler without understanding the role that Darwin, especially as Darwin was understood in Germany, played in his thinking.")
In the end, what does Shermer really have to say against the movie? He calls the film “dishonest” because some Pepperdine biology professors complained that it brought in students as extras for a scene where Ben Stein gives a speech to...students. A movie that used extras? Shocking.
If Michael Shermer should learn any lesson from this episode, it is this: Rather than levying unrestrained skepticism against anything that challenges Darwin, he should start using some of the skepticism that made him famous upon the claims of people on his own side in this debate.
Last night in Dallas the official theater run of Expelled was kicked off with a gala premiere complete with red carpet, film narrator Ben Stein, and the film's main stars, the Expelled scientists. Here's a few pictures. (For full disclosure, I took the crummy one, the others were supplied by an attendee with a camera that far outclassed my phone.)
Click for full size images.
Expelled scientists, Drs. Richard Sternberg, Guillermo Gonzalez, Robert Marks and Discovery's Dr. John West at the world premiere of Expelled.
Drs. Gonzalez, West, and Marks on the red carpet.
Attendees partied before the actual screening of the film.
Some of the attending Expelled scientists being introduced to attendees by the executive producers. (Left to right: Robert Marks, Michael Egnor, Guillermo Gonzalez, Caroline Crocker, Richard Sternberg, Walt Ruloff, John Sullivan and Jeffrey Schwartz.)
Supporters of free speech partied long into the night at Expelled's VIP after party.
Finally, a writer known to me personally to be a smart and honest guy, no ignoramus nor a propagandist, attacks the Hitler-Darwin thesis in Expelled.
Ronald Bailey, who used to write book reviews for me at National Review, comments on the movie in the libertarian magazine Reason. He complains that linking Darwinism with Nazism is the “most egregious part of the film.” He harrumphs that the Expelled filmmakers “overlook the fact that people down through the millennia have found all sorts of justifications for why they are permitted to murder each other, including plunder, tribal competition, and, yes, religion.”
OK, but when Muslims today commit mass slaughter in the name of their religion, or when Christians once did so, it becomes reasonable on that basis to ask probing questions about the truth of Islam or Christianity. For that matter, it’s fair to question my own faith, Judaism, for the Hebrew Bible’s countenancing of Joshua’s bloody war against the natives of Canaan.
It would be ridiculous to say that any of this adds up to a slam-dunk argument for rejecting Islam, Christianity, or Judaism. Similarly, Hitler’s appropriation of Darwinian language in Mein Kampf is by itself no case for rejecting Darwinism.
Yet, Darwin in his writing presents a certain picture of reality, just as the three monotheist religions do in their different ways. If that worldview lends itself naturally to framing an appeal for genocide, truthfulness demands that be recognized as a difficulty in Darwin’s legacy.
For, in fact, the Darwinian legacy is one that seems well suited for plundering by a catastrophically wicked movement like Nazism. If you had a chance to open Mein Kampf and read for yourself yesterday, now open up Darwin.
The moral relativism of The Descent of Man, the doctrine of violence and death as the path to species advancement as found in The Origin of Species, these are accompanied by the warning about the consequences of letting the worst animals reproduce freely, and the prophecy of genocide by the superior races against the inferior.
From the Descent:
Thus the weak members of civilized societies propagate their kind. No one who has attended to the breeding of domestic animals will doubt that this must be highly injurious to the race of man. It is surprising how soon a want of care, or care wrongly directed, leads to the degeneration of a domestic race; but excepting in the case of man himself, hardly any one is so ignorant as to allow his worst animals to breed.
Or this, also from the Descent: “At some future period, not very distant as measured by centuries, the civilized races of man will almost certainly exterminate and replace throughout the world the savage races.”
I don’t think that the prophet Muhammad would approve of the 9/11 attacks. Yet the infamous deed was, in part, a consequence of words he wrote almost 1,400 years earlier. Just so, Darwin and Hitler.
Almost all the major ingredients of Hitlerism are in Darwin. That is, all but the obsession with Jews, though more on that tomorrow, when I’ll also be able to share links to pieces I’ve written on this material, crystallizing it to essentials, for a general audience.
Seattle Times Publishes "An Intelligent Discussion about Life"
Today The Seattle Times is sure to provoke a reaction from Darwinists with an article by Discovery Institute president Bruce Chapman, "An Intelligent Discussion about Life."
"Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed" is a trenchant new film by actor/economist Ben Stein, the man first made famous in "Ferris Bueller's Day Off." He's now tackling with humorous dudgeon the classic example of ideological science, Darwinian evolution. Stein shows Darwinists insistently misrepresenting the scientific case against their theory. Where facts and reason might fail to persuade, personal attacks are employed, sometimes even by organizations supposedly committed to civil discourse.
When I was taught Darwin's theory in college more than four decades ago, it was represented as unassailable. But I also was taught in those days to respect academic freedom, which is a good standard to apply in any field. In the 1990s, before intelligent design was added to the ideas studied at Discovery Institute, I learned about an assault on the academic freedom of Dean Kenyon, a biologist and author at San Francisco State University who had come to view Darwin's theory as flawed. At first, the effort to restrain him from teaching seemed like just another skirmish over political correctness.
Historian R. Weikart On the Valid Way to Understand Darwinism’s Influence on Development of Nazi Ideology
[Note: For a detailed response to critics of Ben Stein's documentary Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed, please see: NCSE Exposed at NCSEExposed.org]
The Darwinists claim that anyone who cites historical works in defense of the proposition that Darwin's theory influenced Nazi ideology is "quote mining." As usual, that is a cover-up. So is the straw man argument that the film Expelled is trying to blame poor old Darwin for the Holocaust or to claim that Darwinism originated anti-Semitism or that Darwinism was the sole source of Nazi ideology. Any such straw man intentionally exaggerates the message of the one segment of Expelled where the Nazi ideology of eugenics and race is explored.
Another straw man is the pretense that the film tries to stigmatize as Nazi-prone any contemporary Darwinist. Not so. The attempt here is to smear the film’s star, Ben Stein, by putting words in his mouth.
And please don’t say that applications that diminish the dignity of the human person merely derive from something separate called “Social Darwinism.” There is no such significant distinction in the actual history of Darwinism, at least not in Europe. Social Darwinism, especially in Germany, was the dogma of evolutionism applied to public issues.
This article by German history scholar Richard Weikart of Cal State should set any fair-minded person straight. That person then should repair to the wealth of primary and secondary sources Weikart cites in his book, From Darwin to Hitler.
Oh, yes, what was that secondary title for On the Origin of Species again? As David Berlinski, author of the new book from Random House, The Devil’s Delusion, reminded his audience at Benaroya Hall in Seattle last night, it was “The Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life.”
Michael Shermer’s Fact-Free Attack on Expelled Exposes Intolerance of Darwinists towards Pro-Intelligent Design Scientists (Part 2)
[Note: For a more comprehensive defense of Ben Stein's documentary Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed, please see: NCSE Exposed at NCSEExposed.org]
In part 1 I observed that the famous skeptic Michael Shermer’s attack upon the movie Expelled over at Scientific American adopts the following approach when denying the persecution experienced by intelligent design (ID) proponents:
(1) Ignore all the facts showing there was persecution;
(2) E-mail the persecutor and ask them if there was any anti-ID discrimination;
(3) Withhold all skepticism from the statements of the persecutors, and then trumpet their response as evidence that there is no persecution against ID proponents, blaming the victim for losing their job and then claiming those who feel there is persecution are just promoting a “conspiracy.”
Shermer Blames-the-Victim Case #1: Richard Sternberg
The conversation with Michael Shermer in the Expelled film revolves around the publication of Stephen C. Meyer’s pro-ID peer-reviewed scientific paper in the journal Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington. The editor who oversaw the publication of that article was Dr. Richard Sternberg, who, according to investigations by both the U.S. Office of Special Counsel and also by subcommittee staff of the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Government Reform, was subsequently was harassed, intimidated, and demoted because he broke ranks with the unwritten (or sometimes written) rule among Darwinists that you must keep ID out of science journals.
Here's the truth of the matter: Before Meyer's paper was published, the pro-Darwin lobby had long-claimed that ID was not science because it wasn’t in peer-reviewed journals. But once ID was undeniably and explicitly supported in a peer-reviewed scientific journal article, Darwinists panicked, and the National Center for Science Education (NCSE) prompted the journal’s publishing society, the Biological Society of Washington (BSW) to attack the paper. The BSW gladly obeyed the NCSE, issuing a statement that Meyer's paper should not have been published because ID allegedly is not science. If that doesn’t sound like circular logic, consider the proof that the NCSE orchestrated the whole thing, according to the findings of an investigation by subcommittee staff of the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Government Reform (“Report”):
Early on in the controversy, the NCSE circulated a set of “talking points” to the BSW Council and NMNH officials on how to discredit both Sternberg and the Meyer article. The OSC investigation found that the “NCSE recommendations were circulated within the SI and eventually became part of the official public response of the SI to the Meyer article.” (Report, pg. 22)
To attack Meyer's article, Shermer cites the NCSE-inspired statement from the BSW stating that, "Contrary to typical editorial practices, the paper was published without review by any associate editor; Sternberg handled the entire review process. The council, which includes officers, elected councilors and past presidents, and the associate editors would have deemed the paper inappropriate for the pages of the Proceedings." Shermer should have applied some of his famous skepticism here, because that statement is in fact a falsehood: Eugenie Scott herself admitted that “other editors have not always referred all articles to the Associate Editors, and because editors justifiably have discretion,” that therefore the BSW should not “come down too hard on Dr. Sternberg for errors in the procedure followed in accepting this article.” (See Report, pages 25-26.) Shermer conveniently spares the BSW from skepticism over Eugenie Scott’s behind-closed-doors concession, which contradicts the BSW's public statement.
Moreover, Shermer and the BSW ignore that in less-politicized statements, Dr. Roy McDiarmid, the President of the BSW and a scientist at the Smithsonian, admitted that there was no wrongdoing regarding the peer-review process of Meyer’s paper:
I have seen the review file and comments from 3 reviewers on the Meyer paper. All three with some differences among the comments recommended or suggested publication. I was surprised but concluded that there was not inappropriate behavior vs a vis [sic] the review process. (See Report, e-mail from Roy McDiarmid, “Re: Request for information,” January 28, 2005, 2:25 PM to Hans Sues, emphasis added.)
So the truth is that Meyer’s paper WAS peer-reviewed, and that Darwinists have invented the claim that it was not peer-reviewed or that there was wrongdoing regarding the publication of the article. Shermer, the famous skeptic, seems unwilling to apply his skepticism to anything the Darwinists say about this situation, blindly accepting the denials from Darwinists that any discrimination against ID took place, instead blaming the victim.
Shermer should just drop his attempts to defend the Smithsonian, but he doesn’t, calling the attacks upon Sternberg part of Ben Stein’s “case for conspiracy.” So let’s review the findings of a congressional staff investigation to see if there really was any discrimination against Dr. Sternberg (who holds two Ph.D.s in evolution), or if Shermer is right and this is all just a conspiracy inside the heads of Dr. Richard Sternberg, Ben Stein, the U.S. Office of Special Counsel, and a bunch of people working at Congress. The Congressional Staff Report found the following:
Congressional Staff Report: “Officials at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History created a hostile work environment intended to force Dr. Sternberg to resign his position as a Research Associate in violation of his free speech and civil rights.” As NMNH officials wrote in e-mails:
“I suppose we could call [Sternberg] on the phone and verbally ask him to do the right thing and resign?” (Dr. Jonathan Coddington)
“a face to face meeting or at least a ‘you are welcome to leave or resign’ call with this individual, is in order.” (Dr. Rafael Lemaitre)
“if [Sternberg] had any class he would either entirely desist or resign his appointment.” (Dr. Jonathan Coddington)
Congressional Staff Report: “In emails exchanged during August and September 2004, NMNH officials revealed their intent to use their government jobs to discriminate against scientists based on their outside activities regarding evolution.” As NMNH officials wrote in e-mails:
“Sternberg is a well-established figure in anti-evolution circles, and a simple Google search would have exposed these connections.” (Dr. Hans Sues)
“In a memo prepared on February 8, 2005, NMNH scientist Marilyn Schotte admitted that after publication of the Meyer paper, Dr. Coddington wanted to know ‘if Dr. Sternberg was religious.’ Dr. Schotte further admitted telling Coddington that Sternberg ‘was a Republican.’ Schotte even conceded that Coddington may have asked her whether Sternberg ‘was a fundamentalist’ and whether ‘he was a conservative.’” (Description of a memo in discussed in the Report)
Congressional Staff Report: “NMNH officials conspired with a special interest group on government time and using government emails to publicly smear Dr. Sternberg; the group was also enlisted to monitor Sternberg’s outside activities in order to find a way to dismiss him.” As one NMNH official wrote in an e-mail:
“From now on, I will keep an eye on Dr. (von) Sternberg, and I’d greatly appreciate it if you or other NCSE specialists could let me [know] about further activities by this gentleman in areas poutside [sic] crustacean systematics.” (Dr. Hans Sues)
Michael Shermer apparently has unlimited skepticism when it comes to the claims of Darwin-skeptics--he's unwilling to believe any of their statements that they have experienced persecution. But Dr. Sternberg summarized the discrimination taken against him as follows:
I was transferred from the supervision of a friendly sponsor (supervisor) at the Museum to a hostile one… I was twice forced to move specimens from my office space on short notice for no good reason, my name plate was removed from my office door, and eventually I was deprived of all official office space and forced to use a shared work area as my work location in the Museum.…I was subjected to an array of new reporting requirements not imposed on other Research Associates… My access to the specimens needed for my research at the Museum was restricted. (My access to the Museum was also restricted. I was forced to give up my master key.)
Rather than admit that any of this evidence exists, Shermer happily applies infinite skepticism to the persecuted, and withholds all skepticism from the statements of the persecutors: Shermer even e-mailed Jonathan Coddington, the chief persecutor of Richard Sternberg, asking him about the situation. It comes as no surprise that Coddington personally wrote back to Shermer claiming there was nothing to see here. In Coddington's words: “Sternberg was not discriminated against, was never dismissed, and in fact was not even a paid employee, but just an unpaid research associate who had completed his three-year term!” This is consistent with Coddington’s prior behavior, as the congressional staff investigation's report concluded, “Given the factual record, the Smithsonian’s pro-forma denials of discrimination are unbelievable.” So are Shermer’s denials.
And how did Eugenie Scott handle this situation? Unlike Coddington, Scott didn't deny that Sternberg was ousted when she spoke to the Washington Post, but rather she admitted that there was an ousting of Sternberg, and tried to justify it:
[S]aid Eugenie Scott, the group's executive director[:] "If this was a corporation, and an employee did something that really embarrassed the administration, really blew it, how long do you think that person would be employed?" ... Scott, of the NCSE, insisted that Smithsonian scientists had no choice but to explore Sternberg's religious beliefs. "They don't care if you are religious, but they do care a lot if you are a creationist," Scott said. "Sternberg denies it, but if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it argues for zealotry."
So there you have it: Everything that Jonathan Coddington denies, Eugenie Scott essentially admits--and justifies--because she thinks it's permissible to persecute and investigate someone if they sympathize with the "creationists." If Michael Shermer should be skeptical of anything, it is the contradictory claims of the Smithsonian and leading Darwinists like Eugenie Scott which expose the attempts to cover-up the unfair treatment of Dr. Sternberg.
Thus, we see Shermer's method of dismissing the discrimination of Darwin-skeptics is as follows:
(1) Ignore all the facts showing there was persecution;
(2) E-mail the persecutor and ask them if there was any anti-ID discrimination;
(3) Withhold all skepticism from the statements of the persecutors, and then trumpet their response as evidence that there is no persecution against ID proponents, blaming the victim for losing their job and then claiming those who feel there is persecution are just promoting a “conspiracy.”
Exploding Shermer’s Cambrian Argument
While attacking Stephen Meyer’s article in Proceedings for the Biological Society of Washington, Shermer briefly discusses the Cambrian Explosion, a major topic in Meyer's paper. Shermer states that the explosion is just an illusion because “according to paleontologist Donald Prothero, in his 2007 magisterial book Evolution: What the Fossils Say and Why it Matters (Columbia University Press): ‘The major groups of invertebrate fossils do not all appear suddenly at the base of the Cambrian but are spaced out over strata spanning 80 million years—hardly an instantaneous 'explosion'! Some groups appear tens of millions of years earlier than others. And preceding the Cambrian explosion was a long slow buildup to the first appearance of typical Cambrian shelled invertebrates.’" Is that correct? Prothero’s book is hard to take seriously because, as we shall see, it reads more like a polemic than a serious academic treatment. Consider these statements from Prothero's book:
“[T]he creationist political pressure, propaganda, and lies are not restricted to public schools. In many smaller colleges … the professors are just as intimidated by creationist bullies who are eager to disrupt class.” (Prothero, pg. 354; Note that Prothero provides zero documentation here of this anecdotal evidence.)
“If the fundamentalists continue to expand their political power, are we in for another Inquisition, with the religious fanatics suppressing and destroying books and evidence, and harassing anyone who doesn’t agree with them?” (Prothero, pg. 355)
“Many scientists and authors have written how uplifting and liberating the scientific worldview can be for humankind, especially in comparison to the vengeful God of the Old Testament.” (Prothero, pg. 358)
Prothero’s book is one with an agenda that clearly falls short of a calm, collected, objective scientific analysis. Incidentally, directly following the last quote from Prothero, he goes on to praise none other than Michael Shermer—the unreligious skeptic—for purportedly showing how religious people can accept evolution. You know, the same Shermer who wrote that, “[t]here is no God, intelligent designer, or anything resembling the divinity as proffered by the world’s religions.”
Regardless, if we want to understand the Cambrian explosion, we have to turn to serious scientific treatments, not Prothero’s polemic. So what do textbooks say? A 2001 invertebrate zoology textbook (that is a serious science textbook) states:
Most of the animal phyla that are represented in the fossil record first appear, “fully formed,” in the Cambrian some 550 million years ago...The fossil record is therefore of no help with respect to the origin and early diversification of the various animal phyla.
(R.S.K. Barnes, P. Calow & P.J.W. Olive, The Invertebrates: A New Synthesis, pages 9–10 (3rd ed., Blackwell Sci. Publications, 2001).)
In fact, Richard Dawkins conceded in 1986 regarding the Cambrian fauna that, “It is as though they were just planted there, without any evolutionary history.” (The Blind Watchmaker, 1986, pg. 229-230.) In another very serious treatment of the subject, John Maynard Smith and Eörs Szathmáry, leaders in evolutionary biology, wrote in 1995 that the “Cambrian explosion remains a puzzle” for Darwinian theorists despite the discovery of a some Pre-Cambrian fossils:
Some 540 million years ago, at the beginning of the Cambrian, there appeared an array of multicellular marine animals, including the major phyla that exist today—coelenterates, platyhelminths, annelids, arthropods, molluscs, echinoderms and others. Chordates are also present in the Cambrian: they are not known from the earliest deposits, in which only hard parts are preserved, but are present in the slightly later Burgess Shale, in which soft-bodied forms are preserved. Forty years ago, this sudden appearance of metazoan fossils was not only a puzzle but something of an embarrassment: the absence of any known fossils from earlier rocks was a weapon widely used by creationists. Today, the fossil evidence for prokaryotes goes back 3000 million years, and for protists some 1000 million years. The Cambrian explosion remains a puzzle, however, which has been only fitfully illuminated by the discovery of the enigmatic soft-bodied Ediacaran fauna, which had a worldwide distribution between 580 and 560 million years ago. There are still doubts about how these fossils should be interpreted (Simon Conway Morris, 1993).
(John Maynard Smith and Eörs Szathmáry, The Major Transitions in Evolution, page 203 (Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1995).)
It seems that Prothero has glossed over the real problems with evolutionary explanations of the Cambrian fauna in a book that hardly looks like a serious treatment of this subject. In the end, Shermer needs to apply some of his famous skepticism to his own sources. Moreover, Meyer’s peer-reviewer-approved argument still carries great weight. As Meyer explains, the explosion of new biological information in the Cambrian period is best explained by an intelligent cause:
Analysis of the problem of the origin of biological information, therefore, exposes a deficiency in the causal powers of natural selection that corresponds precisely to powers that agents are uniquely known to possess. Intelligent agents have foresight. Such agents can select functional goals before they exist. They can devise or select material means to accomplish those ends from among an array of possibilities and then actualize those goals in accord with a preconceived design plan or set of functional requirements. Rational agents can constrain combinatorial space with distant outcomes in mind. The causal powers that natural selection lacks--almost by definition--are associated with the attributes of consciousness and rationality--with purposive intelligence. Thus, by invoking design to explain the origin of new biological information, contemporary design theorists are not positing an arbitrary explanatory element unmotivated by a consideration of the evidence. Instead, they are positing an entity possessing precisely the attributes and causal powers that the phenomenon in question requires as a condition of its production and explanation.
In the final installment, I will assess Shermer’s lack of skepticism concerning the claims of Eugenie Scott regarding the discrimination against pro-ID astronomer Guillermo Gonzalez.
President Bush’s welcome of Pope Benedict XVI today was noted for its evocation of the pontiff’s words that “all human life is sacred, ‘each of us is loved and each us is necessary.” It is a pro-life message, after all.
The lead in to the quoted words is found on little prayer cards available at Vatican City gift shops and is also worth noting: “We are not some meaningless product of evolution. Each of us is the result of a thought of God. Each of us is willed, each of us is loved, each of us is necessary.”
[Note: For a more comprehensive defense of Ben Stein's documentary Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed, please see: NCSE Exposed at NCSEExposed.org]
It has become the main angle of attack against Expelled to express outrage at the film’s linking of Darwinism with Hitlerism. We need to look today at what Hitler himself wrote in Mein Kampf.
Thus, London’s Guardian newspaper publishes a hit piece on Expelled by Adam Rutherford of Nature magazine. He hasn’t seen the movie but believes gentlemen like P.Z. Myers who “indicate that Expelled suggests the Holocaust was a direct result of Darwinian thought.” That’s not what the film suggests, but never mind. Rutherford dismisses the “absurdity” of the “reductio ad Hitlerum” as “specious and simplistic.”
What Expelled has to say about the Darwin-Hitler connection is more along the lines of something a far more distinguished writer had to say in the very same newspaper just a month ago.
John Gray, political philosopher at the London School of Economics, wrote an essay in the Guardian. In passing, he noted how,
Always a tremendous booster of science, Hitler was much impressed by vulgarized Darwinism and by theories of eugenics that had developed from Enlightenment philosophies of materialism.
Which is entirely correct.
The key chapter in Mein Kampf is Chapter XI, “Nation and Race,” where Hitler discusses the imperative to defend the Aryan race from the Jewish menace.
His argument is couched from the start in transparently Darwinian terms. He writes:
In the struggle for daily bread all those who are weak and sickly or less determined succumb, while the struggle of the males for the female grants the right of opportunity to propagate only to the healthiest. And struggle is always a mean for improving a species’ health and power of resistance and, therefore, a cause of higher development.
He praises “the iron logic of Nature” with its “right to victory of the best and stronger in this world.”
But what if the strong (Aryans) choose not to dominate and exterminate the weak (Jews)? This would be against Nature, whose “whole work of higher breeding, over perhaps hundreds of thousands of years, might be ruined with one blow.” And so on and on.
As Discovery Institute fellow Dr. Richard Weikart explains in his outstanding book From Darwin to Hitler, Hitler absorbed his twisted Darwinian worldview from the poisonous popular Viennese press, which was full of the stuff. He calculated that an appeal to the Germans to make war on the Jews would be most likely to succeed if framed in scientific-sounding terms.
Hitler could have couched his argument here any way he wanted. He chose the language of Darwinism. Mein Kampf was hugely popular and influential, selling six million copies by 1940.
In The War Against the Jews: 1933-1945, Lucy Dawidowicz seeks to explain what motivated the German people either to do their evil work in the racial struggle or to stand by and passively accept the results of the racial war. Her answer: “They were mesmerized by [Hitler’s] voice, and they responded to his message.”
Critically important to that message was the science-flavored myth embodied in the work of Charles Darwin, whose own writings in this vein we’ll look on Thursday. Darwin, I emphasize, was no anti-Semite. On Friday, however, I’ll explain the deeper Darwinian logic of Hitler’s obsession with the Jews in particular.
Michael Shermer’s Fact-Free Attack on Expelled Exposes Intolerance of Darwinists towards Pro-Intelligent Design Scientists (Part 1)
[Note: For a more comprehensive defense of Ben Stein's documentary Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed, please see: NCSE Exposed at NCSEExposed.org]
Scientific American has a long history of opposing intelligent design (ID), so it comes as no surprise that they have tasked their columnist Michael Shermer with the job of attacking Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed. Michael Shermer is the founder of Skeptic Magazine, who loves to boast about how evolution liberated him from belief in God. In fact, he does just that in his article attacking Expelled, opening it by saying: “In 1974 I matriculated at Pepperdine University as a born-again Christian who rejected Darwinism and evolutionary theory,” but when he “finally took a course in evolutionary theory in graduate school I realized that I had been hoodwinked.” In his book, Why Darwin Matters: The Case Against Intelligent Design, Shermer tries to convince the reader that he believes that evolution and religion are compatible, but ultimately concedes that, “were we to take a strictly scientific approach to the God question, we would have to reject the God hypothesis.”[1] It’s tough to take Shermer’s calls for peace between religion and Darwin seriously when he has elsewhere declared his view that “[t]here is no God, intelligent designer, or anything resembling the divinity as proffered by the world’s religions.”[2]
Shermer is interviewed in the documentary Expelled, and he basically denies that there is any persecution of ID proponents. Since the film provides extensive documentation of the discrimination faced by ID proponents in the academy, Expelled disproves Shermer’s one-sided skepticism.
Shermer’s day job is literally being a professional skeptic. He makes a living telling people that they should be skeptical of religion. But Shermer virtually never applies his skepticism to modern Darwinian theory. This film shows that sometimes his skepticism against ID goes too far. Shermer certainly has a huge stake in the debate over this film—in fact, it seems that his entire worldview, livelihood, and de-conversion experience depend heavily upon the veracity of Darwinian evolution. It therefore comes as no surprise that in his review of Expelled, he paints evolutionists as the saints, and Darwinism as a pure and unadulterated religion.
Shermer’s General Approach to Handling Persecution of ID Proponents: One-Sided Skepticism, Denial, and Blaming the Victim
Having seen Expelled, Shermer now knows that his denial that ID proponents get persecuted serves as a foil for the impressive documentation of such persecution presented throughout the film. His response is not to amend his answer in light of the facts presented in the movie, but rather to issue even more forceful denials that there is any persecution of ID proponents taking place. Shermer’s method of dealing with these persecution instances is as follows:
(1) Ignore all the facts showing there was persecution;
(2) E-mail the persecutor and ask them if there was any anti-ID discrimination;
(3) Withhold all skepticism from the statements of the persecutors, and then trumpet their response as evidence that there is no persecution against ID proponents, blaming the victim for losing their job and then claiming those who feel there is persecution are just promoting a “conspiracy.”
Shermer’s record of consistently taking the side of the persecutors shows that he is part of the problem and is in no way an objective source to analyze this subject. For example, Shermer implies that Richard Sternberg’s credibility is diminished because he’s a fellow of the International Society for Complexity Information, and Design or because he “is a signatory of the Discovery Institute's ‘100 Scientists who Doubt Darwinism’ statement.” (By the way, it’s over 700 scientists now, Dr. Shermer.) This shows that Shermer himself could be a potential persecutor of Darwin skeptics, for he isn’t interested in giving Darwin-skeptics equal treatment.
If only Shermer would turn some of his skepticism against the perpetrators instead of waging all of his skepticism against the victims. This is typical behavior of persecutors: Deny and blame the victim, telling them they are conspiracy theorists. This unwillingness to believe the facts fits perfectly with Shermer’s modus operandi: unyielding and eternal skepticism…unless it supports Darwinism.
In the next two installments I will provide a closer analysis of Shermer’s claims, one by one, with dose of a healthy skepticism that Shermer studiously leaves out of his analysis of the film.
References Cited:
[1]: Michael Shermer, Why Darwin Matters: The Case Against Intelligent Design, page 122 (Times Books 2006).
[2]: Michael Shermer in What We Believe but Cannot Prove: Today’s Leading Thinkers on Science in the Age of Certainty, page 38 (John Bockman ed., Harper-Perennial 2006).
Berlinski's Fingernails Rake Slate: Or, "A Crank's Progress" across America
Tonight the ever entertaining David Berlinski will continue his cross-country trek presenting his new book The Devil's Delusion with a stop in Seattle.
Even though he seems somewhat charmed with Berlinski, Daniel Engber, writing for Slate, is doing his part in warning America not to be taken in by the professional skeptic.
According to Daniel Dennett, Berlinski exudes a "rich comic patina of smug miseducation"; Richard Dawkins implies that he may be wicked to the core; and blogger-ringleader P.Z. Myers has called him a "pompous pimple" and a "supercilious snot." (Berlinski, for his part, makes no effort whatsoever to remain above the fray; he delivers some colorful rejoinders in the course of this interview he conducted with himself for an intelligent design blog.)
Enberg exudes his own comic patina of smug miseducation when he calls Discovery Institute a "religious think tank." Religious? Really? Pray tell me which religion? Where should I, an agnostic myself, go to worship? Derasar? Temple? Synagogue? Church? Mosque? Wat? I would surely like to know which religion this "religious think tank" endorses.
No matter. By all means get out and see David Berlinski speak if you can. How can you pass up a chance to hear a "smug", "wicked", "supercilious snot." Thursday night he's in Minnesota, and next week he'll be in Texas and California.
April 17th
Join Dr. Berlinski for a book presentation at 7:00 p.m. on Thursday, April 17, at Nicholson Hall, Room 275, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis. This event is sponsored by Mars Hill Students. This event is free and open to the public.
April 21st
Join Dr. Berlinski for a book presentation at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary at 7pm in Riley Center, 1701 W. Boyce Ave., Fort Worth, TX 76115.
April 22nd
Join Dr. Berlinski for a book presentation at 4:30 p.m. on Tuesday, April 22nd, in Lynch Auditorium at University of Dallas, 1845 East Northgate Dr. Irving, Tx. This event is free and open to the public.
April 24th
Join Dr. Berlinski for a book presentation at 3:30 p.m. on Thursday, April 24th, at Cowell Hall, Room 113, University of San Francisco, 2130 Fulton St. San Francisco, Ca. This event is free and open to the public.
People such as New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof and author Susan Jacoby have been calling for an improved intellectual climate and reasoned, informed debate on hot topics such as the question of origins. OK, let's give it a try.
Did you know that most of the evidence claimed for evolution is actually not evidence for evolution? That's right. Remember the mountain of evidence that evolutionists say is supposed to make evolution a fact? Well, most of it consists of biological findings that merely have been interpreted according to evolution.
Here is an example: a prestigious scientific journal, the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, published last week detailed findings about how DNA information is used to make proteins in our cells. The research team, led by Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory professor Michael Zhang, discovered subtle signals in the DNA that help guide incredibly complex molecular machinery when editing the DNA information. The findings are not in any way evidence for evolution, yet the headlines proclaimed, "Scientists Find a Fingerprint of Evolution Across the Human Genome."
This was not merely a case of journalistic naivete. One can hardly blame the science writer when the journal paper itself presented the results as elucidating the evolutionary process. The paper's title alone ("RNA landscape of evolution for optimal exon and intron discrimination") suggests a new finding about evolution, and the paper concludes that human genes seem to have been optimized "during evolution."
But the "during evolution" part is gratuitous. The key findings are about how the genetic signals work, not that they evolved. There is, in fact, nothing in the findings to indicate evolution. The science writer concluded that "the researchers found signs that evolution rejects some types of mutations," but there simply was no such finding. What the researchers actually found was the presence of certain subtle signals in the genome. They found no evidence that the signals were produced by evolution.
This dynamic is common and, not surprisingly, influences popular thinking. For reports such as this are taken to be objective, scientific confirmations of evolution. They often find their way into the popular literature, text books, Internet discussions, origins debates and so forth. Is there not a mountain of undeniable evidence for evolution? Are not those who deny this up to no good?
Do Kristof and Jacoby worry about this sort of anti-intellectualism? Do they worry that there are erroneous evidential claims being made about evolution? Do they worry that their own misstatements and ridicule of evolution skeptics are fueling something ugly? I doubt it. My worry is not that evolutionists work within their paradigm and force-fit all findings into their theory, or that the findings later are erroneously concluded to be yet more confirmations of Darwin's theory. My worry is that this dynamic, as well as the other intricacies of the origins debate, has been steamrolled by an us-versus-them demonization frenzy, and that thinkers like Kristof and Jacoby are none the wiser.
The NCSE Exposed: Clunky Attack on “Expelled” Reveals More Than Intended
[Note: For a more comprehensive defense of Ben Stein's documentary Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed, please see: NCSE Exposed at NCSEExposed.org]
The National Center for Science Education has just unveiled its expanded website denouncing the upcoming movie “Expelled,” but the website’s clunky attacks merely provide confirmation that the film’s essential thesis is correct: Darwinists really don’t believe in academic freedom regarding evolution, and they’re more than willing to smear any scientist who disagrees with them.
The basic thrust of the NCSE’s website seems to be the preposterous claim that pro-ID scientists never, ever face harassment, intimidation, or persecution. Not ever! Scientists who claim otherwise—such as biologist Richard Sternberg, astronomer Guillermo Gonzalez, and Baylor University engineering professor Robert Marks—must be cry-babies or worse.
The NCSE's approach is otherwise known as “blaming the victim.”
Given that the NCSE is part of the very evolution lobby that is seeking to suppress intelligent design, its effort to further malign the victims of Darwinist intolerance is rather tacky. But tackiness doesn’t stop the NCSE from trying to depict its director Eugenie Scott as a veritable Mother Teresa, selectively quoting from her emails to make it appear that she was trying to protect evolutionary biologist Richard Sternberg from persecution at the Smithsonian! Yeah, right. This is the same person who circulated “talking points” to Smithsonian officials to guide them in their campaign against Sternberg. This also is the same person who was asked to spy on Sternberg’s outside activities by a Smithsonian official in order to find a way to get rid of Sternberg. And this is the same caring person who when asked about Sternberg’s plight by The Washington Post, seemed to suggest that Sternberg was lucky more wasn’t done to get rid of him: “If this was a corporation, and an employee did something that really embarrassed the administration, really blew it, how long do you think that person would be employed?” Fortunately, if you want to find out what really happened to Sternberg at the Smithsonian, you don’t have to depend on the NCSE’s highly selective rendition of the facts. You can read for yourself the results of two separate federal investigations into the matter, here and here.
The NCSE also goes after Iowa State University astronomer Guillermo Gonzalez, asserting that “ISU was justified in rejecting his application for tenure.” But the NCSE mangles the facts about Gonzalez’s publication record, misrepresents the role of grants in ISU’s tenure determinations, and ignores the extensive email traffic clearly showing that ISU officials lied when they claimed that intelligent design was not the reason for his tenure rejection. Indeed, the emails show Gonzalez’s department colleagues actively plotting to suppress evidence that would show they had created an illegal hostile work environment targeting Gonzalez. For the full truth about what happened to Gonzalez go to Free Gonzalez.com, or for more detailed info., go here.
The NCSE similarly does its best to cover up the facts about what happened to Baylor University engineering professor Robert Marks, making it appear that the only consequence he faced was the loss of a research website. The NCSE neglects to mention Baylor also forced Marks to return a grant he had received for intelligent design-related research (after the university had duly accepted the grant). The return of the grant meant that Marks was deprived of funding for a post-doc position for pro-ID mathematician William Dembski. The NCSE also neglects to mention that university officials pressured Marks to stop pursuing his intelligent design-inspired research. For more details, see here.
Time magazine and Variety have published the latest attack reviews of Expelled, in advance of opening day this Friday. As with previous hostile responses, the focus of outrage is on the film’s argument that Hitler drew inspiration from Darwin’s intellectual legacy.
In Time, reviewer Jeffrey Kluger fumes: “Theories of natural selection, it’s claimed, were a necessary if not sufficient condition for Hitler’s killing machine to get started. The truth, of course, is that the only necessary and sufficient condition for human beings to murder one another is the simple fact of being human.”
As more attacks come in, making either this bewilderingly inane point — or the one made by Scientific American editor-in-chief John Rennie that the role of Christianity in fomenting Nazism should have been discussed in the film — just keep in mind the response to recent books that have put blame for the Holocaust on the churches.
Those books, by writers like John Carrroll (Constantine’s Sword: The Church and the Jews) and Daniel Jonah Goldhagen (A Moral Reckoning: The Role of the Catholic Church in the Holocaust and Its Unfulfilled Duty of Repair), were hailed in media as works of genius, guts, and honesty. I don’t recall any reviewers complaining that, really, the only thing you have to know about the Nazis was that they were people, and, hey, people kill people!
Fortunately, serious historians of the past half century have been freer than media hacks to explore the complexity of Nazism’s actual genealogy. One thing that these expert scholars have almost universally agreed on is that Darwinism contributed mightily to Hitlerism.
In her classic 1951 work The Origins of Totalitarianism, Hannah Arendt wrote: “Underlying the Nazis’ belief in race laws as the expression of the law of nature in man, is Darwin’s idea of man as the product of a natural development which does not necessarily stop with the present species of human being.”
Or just pick up any standard biography of Hitler.
In Hitler: A Study in Tyranny, Alan Bullock writes: “The basis of Hitler’s political beliefs was a crude Darwinism.” What Hitler found objectionable about Christianity was its rejection of the conclusions that followed from Darwin’s theory: “Its teaching, he declared, was a rebellion against the natural law of selection by struggle and the survival of the fittest.”
Joachim C. Fest, in Hitler, describes how the Nazi tyrant “extract[ed] the elements of his world view” from various influences including “popular treatments of Darwinism.” Hitler, like lots of other Europeans and Americans of his day, saw Darwinism as offering a total picture of social reality. In his biography, Hitler: 1889-1936: Hubris, Ian Kershaw explains that “crude social-Darwinism” gave Hitler “his entire political ‘world-view.’”
John Toland’s Adolf Hitler: The Definitive Biography, finally, says this of Hitler’s “Second Book” (1928), never published in his lifetime: “An essential of Hitler’s conclusions in this book was the conviction drawn from Darwin that might makes right.”
You get the idea. I’ll be blogging every day this week on the Darwin-Hitler connection. Tomorrow we’ll open up Hitler’s own work and see what he said about his philosophy’s grounding, not Christianity, but in modern biology.
Expelled does NOT try to "blame Darwin for the Holocaust”
[Note: For a more detailed response to attacks on Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed, please see: NCSE Exposed at NCSEExposed.org]
With the attacks on Expelled from distraught Darwinists coming faster and sharper, I thought I'd ask Discovery senior fellow --and columnist for the Jewish Forward-- David Klinghoffer to provide us with some commentary to help put various aspects of the film into context. Here then is his first installment.
This week I’ll be blogging about a contentious issue raised by Expelled, its linking of Darwinian theory with Hitlerian ideology. Critics have misconstrued the point Ben Stein makes in the film. Expelled does not – repeat: DOES NOT -- try “to blame Darwin for the Holocaust,” as the subhead on an attack piece at the Scientific American website puts it.
Instead it shows the indebtedness of Nazism to ideas expressed in Darwin’s writing.
Darwin’s theory of evolution is enmeshed in a worldview, Darwinism, that emerges clearly in The Origin of Species and, more so, in The Descent of Man. Hitler gave to Darwinism his own evil twist. Yet Hitler without Darwin’s influence, however indirect, would not have been the same Hitler we know from history. Without Darwin’s legacy to draw on, Hitler would have been compelled to frame his appeal to the German people in greatly altered terms.
That’s different, it should be obvious, from blaming gentle Charles Darwin for genocide.
Yet the author of the SciAm review, editor-in-chief John Rennie, feels that the movie should have given a fuller picture of Nazism’s philosophical genealogy:
"The most deplorable dishonesty of Expelled, however, is that it says evolution was one influence on the Holocaust without acknowledging any of the other major ones for context. Rankings of races and ethnic groups into a hierarchy long preceded Darwin and the theory of evolution, and were usually tied to the Christian philosophical notion of a ‘great chain of being.’”
This reminds me of cloddish literary feminists who used to complain that Huck Finn is a sexist novel because Mark Twain includes no major female characters. The obvious reply to the critique is that Huck Finn isn’t about women. It’s a story about two men on a raft!
Expelled isn’t about Christianity’s legacy as it pertains to Jews. It’s about Darwinist suppression of dissent in American academic life. But when it does widen its focus to take in the broader legacy of Darwin’s ideas, it very reasonably touches on the way Hitler took Darwinism to a conclusion that should not be surprising.
To insist that the movie deliver a complete accounting of all the threads of thought that, woven together, resulted in Nazi mass murder is an expectation that would have made it cumbersome verging on impossible for Expelled to raise the subject it does.
Hitler’s debt to Darwin has long been known to mainstream scholars, from Hannah Arendt down to the latest Hitler biographers, as I’ll discuss tomorrow. Keeping that debt from wider public awareness is perhaps what John Rennie would prefer.
[Note: For a more comprehensive defense of Ben Stein's documentary Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed, please see: NCSE Exposed at NCSEExposed.org]
[UPDATED] Richard Dawkins and the evolution lobby do not see eye to eye on strategy. But it seems that the National Center for Science Education and “Expelled Exposed”, the NCSE’s website assailing the film Expelled, don’t want you to know that. The situation is evident in the film that opens Friday, for all to see. The interviews with Dawkins are dispositive.
First we meet Eugenie Scott of NCSE, sounding so invincibly cheery that one suspects she must moonlight for the Oakland, CA Chamber of Commerce. She relishes telling about all the nice religious people she has lined up around the country to support Darwinian theory.
But then, here comes Dawkins, backed by a parade of voluble atheist scientists who far outrank Scott. They are the famous experts, she is a lobbyist with a political approach that is too-smart-by-half. They don’t want any more confusion raised in people’s minds about whether religion is compatible with an accurate understanding of evolution.
It is not a question of who is more of an atheist. The NCSE is stuffed with atheists. The difference is over whether to lead with atheism, or hide it while you charge that the other side—the ID supporters—are the ones with a religious agenda. Indeed, Eugenie Scott makes this religious case against ID “creationism” in one speech after another, including, without irony, speeches to one atheist conclave after another.
But the evangelizing atheism that Dawkins and other top Darwinian scientists present to the Expelled audience—even including personal witness accounts of how they variously came to faithlessness upon hearing the Gospel of Darwin--is a political embarrassment for the NCSE. It probably is not a topic in the film the NCSE would like to discuss. It also is not a subject its close allies in the media and higher education want aired.
In turn, the NCSE’s coy reticence about the end-game plainly annoys the world’s most famous Darwinist. Dr. Dawkins rejects the pretense that real Darwinism is neutral on religion. Oh, you can believe that if you want, just as you can believe in “fairies at the bottom of the garden.” But, believing that Darwin and religion are compatible doesn’t make them compatible. Interviewed for Expelled, Dawkins makes clear that neo-Darwinism, properly understood, virtually compels atheism and leaves no room for religion, and, further, that this truth is being fudged by people in the “science lobby, evolution lobby” (the NCSE).
“There's a kind of science defense lobby or an evolution defense lobby, in particular,” he tells the camera. “They are mostly atheists, but they are wanting to --desperately wanting -- to be friendly to mainstream, sensible religious people. And the way you do that is to tell them that there's no incompatibility between science and religion.”
This plainly rankles.
“If they called me as a witness, and a lawyer said, 'Dr. Dawkins, has your belief in evolution, has your study of evolution turned you toward (atheism)?' I would have to say yes. And that is the worst possible thing I could say for winning you that court case. So people like me are bad news for...the science lobby, the evolution lobby.”
He adds,
“By the way, I'm being a helluva lot more frank and honest in this interview than many people in this field would be.”
Dawkins wants an end put to pussy footing. The NCSE, however, wants to pussy foot as long as possible. That way they can enlist nominally religious people and people who wrongly think they can be both Darwinists (holding that there there is no guidance in nature) and theists (holding that there is guidance in nature, however disguised). If there are ministers and scientists who want to “believe” in Darwinism and also in a God who actually plays some active role in the world, or in the Easter Bunny, for that matter, the NCSE wants them on board. In fact, they must be pushed forward so they can gull the public and, one might add, the media and the courts.
Trouble is, here is Richard Dawkins in Expelled--exposing the NCSE.
Apparently, relations are strained between Oxford and Oakland and have been for some time. Now that story is real, unlike the straw men the NCSE’s website is trying to construct.
Evolution Indoctrination on the MCAT: Doubting Darwin an “extremely dangerous idea”
I recently wrote about evolution indoctrination on a test given to measure science knowledge and intelligence in high school students. One of my friends, who is no religious fundamentalist but is a smart young pre-med student who is a skeptic of Darwinism, is presently studying hard to take the medical school entrance examination: the MCAT. Like most MCAT takers, he is studying by taking practice tests with real questions from actual MCAT tests given in the past. The MCAT has a section that tests reading comprehension skills: you read a passage, and then you answer questions about the passage. You don’t have to agree with the passages to answer the questions; you just have to be able to accurately explain what the passages are saying. My friend had the following to say about these questions:
The MCAT is supposed to not have controversial or charged topics in these questions. They wouldn’t have you answer a question about abortion or anything like that. It’s just supposed to be a way to evaluate how you process information, and they don’t want to influence your reasoning by making you answer emotionally charged questions.
But are the MCAT writers able to refrain from injecting controversial statements about evolution into their test questions? Apparently not. The MCAT writers felt it is important to slip in some evolution indoctrination in the reading comprehension section of the test, as one MCAT reading comprehension passage reads as follows:
Creationism is not science and doesn’t belong in the science classroom. However, a frank discussion of creationism with students is also important. To avoid it may suggest that perhaps there is something there, lurking in the irrationality.
The late Carl Sagan, one of the staunchest advocates of rationality and reason in the increasingly irrational and superstitious world in which we live, has defended the importance of good science teaching by saying, “In the demon-haunted world that we inhabit by virtue of being human, [science] may be all that stands between us and the enveloping darkness.” … Creation science, despite the apparent oxymoron, is a phrase that has been widely used by creationists to add legitimacy to their claims by stating that creationism is a scientific theory just as much as evolution. … This extremely dangerous idea has been at the forefront of battles waged by so-called “creation-scientists” since the early 1970s…
So here we have a passage on the MCAT that endorses Carl Sagan’s anti-religious materialism, claiming that doubting evolution brings “darkness” and “superstitio[n],” and then calling creationism “irrationality” and an “extremely dangerous idea.” Now I agree with this passage that creationism is not science, but these kinds of passages don’t belong on standardized tests that are supposed to objectively measure reading comprehension skills.
Of course, you don’t have to agree with the statements to answer the reading comprehension questions correctly. But that’s not the point: the wording used is extremely emotionally charged, and as my pre-med friend said: “It’s just supposed to be a way to evaluate how you process information, and they don’t want to influence your reasoning by making you answer emotionally charged questions.” My friend, who himself is not a fundamentalist but is highly skeptical of Darwinism, then made a revealing comment about this passage: “This passage was distracting while I was taking the test. It was distracting because it’s about an emotionally controversial topic, and I don’t agree with everything they said. This crosses the line.”
In the end, both my friend and I would agree with the MCAT writers that creationism is not science. But why are we talking about this controversial topic on a standardized test? Keep in mind that these Carl Sagan-endorsing MCAT writers likely believe (wrongly) that intelligent design (ID) is no different from creationism. With biology faculty telling students that ID is simply warmed-over creationism, and with the MCAT reinforcing the view that creationism is “irrationality” and an “extremely dangerous idea,” and that doubting evolution leads to “superstition” and “darkness,” the Darwinian education establishment has a nice one-two-punch to indoctrinate pre-med students in favor of evolution.
Thankfully, if my friend is any indication, some pre-med students are smart enough to see through the rhetoric.
Florida House Committee Passes Amended Evolution Bill
According to The Orlando Sentinel, today the schools and learning committee of the Florida House of Representatives passed 7-4 an amended version of a proposal originally designed to protect the rights of teachers to present scientific evidence relating to the full range of scientific views regarding biological and chemical evolution. This means that versions of the bill have been passed out of committee in both the House and Senate, making floor votes much more likely. The amended version adopted by the House committee is not yet online, but the amended proposal that the committee was scheduled to vote on today would have changed the bill from simply promoting academic freedom to requiring teachers to provide a "thorough presentation and critical analysis of the scientific theory of evolution." The official text of the amended House version should eventually appear here.
Much to my surprise, when I opened my email this morning, I found this letter, obviously not intended for me. It was intended for Larry Moran, from one 'C.D.' (a pseudonym no doubt). I guess it’s about the latest kerfuffle among Darwinists.
I decided to pass it on.
To: Larry Moran, PhD.
Professor of Biochemistry
University of Toronto
From: The Central Committee
Office of Framing
Dearest Larry,
It’s hard for me to write this, given my affection for you and my admiration for all of your work for our cause. But the Central Committee is not pleased. Brayton and Myers aren’t talking to each other. Mooney keeps shouting ‘framing…framing’ at our meetings, and Nisbet, in particular, is beside himself. It’s fratricide. You really must do something to rectify this.
‘Rectify what?’, you ask.
You know. Your inopportune musings about the proper fate of undergraduate students who aren't 'Bright' enough. Your casual threats to destroy the careers of graduate students who deny Our Faith. Your proclamations that could be interpreted (not implausibly) as bigotry. ...Oh, now you’re starting to remember…
Perhaps this will refresh you. Four months ago you wrote:
Of course, we all recognize the problem here. How do you distinguish between a good Christian who is lying for Jesus and one who has actually come to understand science? It seems really unfair to flunk the honest students who admit that they still reject science and pass the dishonest ones who hide their true beliefs…As we've seen time and time again on the blogs (and elsewhere), the Christian fundamentalists have erected very strong barriers against learning. It really doesn't matter how much they are exposed to rational thinking and basic scientific evidence. They still refuse to listen…This is one of the reasons why I would flunk them if they took biology and still rejected the core scientific principles. It's not good enough to just be able to mouth the "acceptable" version of the truth that the Professor wants. [emphasis mine]
And a year and a half ago, referring to members of the freshman class (17 and 18 year olds!) at the University of California at San Diego who doubt Our Faith in Darwin you wrote:
Flunk the IDiots...40% of the freshman class [at UCSD] reject Darwinism... the university has become alarmed at the stupidity of its freshman class and has offered remedial instruction for those who believe in Intelligent Design Creationism...UCSD should not have required their uneducated students to attend remedial classes. Instead, they should never have admitted them in the first place...[T]he University should just flunk the lot of them and make room for smart students who have a chance of benefiting from a high quality education.
And if that weren't enough, in your reply to that infernal pest Egnor (that IDiotic bastion of sh*t-headed egnorance…steaming pile of…sorry, I get carried away) about your long history of public threats against students and scientists who doubt Our Faith and who retain their own silly religious beliefs, you wrote:
Michael Egnor has posted a number of quotations from me about how I would deal with people who don't understand the basic principles of science…[h]e get it mostly right. If they are undergraduates who don't understand that evolution is a scientific fact, the Earth is 4.5 billion years old, and humans share a common ancestor with chimpanzees, then they flunk the course. If they are graduate students in a science department, then they don't get a Ph.D. If they are untenured faculty members in a science department, then they don't get tenure.
The only method of ferreting out religious believers that you left out was pre-natal testing.
What were you thinking! The Committee will have none of 'Oh...gee...I can't believe I said that...' You're a senior professor and a highly prominent proponent of our cause. Our whole goal here— our Frame— is to keep the creationist dupes who pay tuition and fund our grants from realizing that we have an agenda. If they get a whiff that this is about atheist metaphysics, we’re sunk. I mean, they could put this stuff in a movie. Why reveal so much?
Do you think that revealing our goal helps us? This is the difference between us and the IDiots. They’re afraid the public won’t understand what they mean. We’re afraid the public will understand what we mean. Their strategy is exposition; ours is suppression. They give lectures and write books about their theory. They keep trying to debate us. They even publish papers about their theory, although we try our damndest to stop them. We deny tenure, we shred careers, we ridicule, we frame. But we must never publicly link our version of science to atheism. We must never— NEVER— link what we say to what we mean. Do you think we’re IDiots? We don’t do candor. Get with the program, Larry.
So these are the instructions from the Central Committee, unanimous (except for Myers):
Zip it.
Leave it to the professionals. NCSE, Nisbet, Mooney, all those guys. They’re on board with you, 100 %, but they know how to do it right. They really don’t need biochemists to fight this battle. You don’t think Eugenie Scott got where she is because of her scientific acumen. We need 'Framers'. Hardcore types like you can't spin it like they can. In fact, very few of our big boys are working scientists. Candidly, you're not the first one who's stepped over the line. We’ve had to assign a politruk to Dawkins. But let them do their work, and we’ll end up where you want, with less mess.
So hush up. Keep talking about ‘science’ of course, but no more bragging about ruining the careers of Christian freshmen in your classes. Despite all that you've said, the creationist dupes still think of you as a teacher. Don’t be so explicit about our ultimate solution to the problem of religious believers in science. We can solve that problem— we have been solving that problem— far more effectively, and far more subtly, with less explicit measures.
But we do appreciate all that you have done. Don’t get us wrong. It’s your candor, not your ideology, that we oppose. We’re all together on this:—Breaking the Spell— The God Delusion— God Is Not Great— The End of Faith. You’ve been to the rallies. You know the Doxology. We all work for the same cause.
Oh, speaking of rallies, mark your calendar. We’re planning a big rally next Darwin Day. It will be a little chilly (why couldn’t He have been born in July!), but it’s going to be great. The stadium opens at 10:00 pm; Dawkins is speaking. He’s very impressive, and we’ve got better loudspeakers this year. And there’s something about the torchlight that inspires.
Dawkins Outraged at Exposure of Link Between Darwinism and Nazi Ideology
[Note: For a more comprehensive defense of Ben Stein's documentary Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed, please see: NCSE Exposed at NCSEExposed.org]
Richard Dawkins has been ranting that he's outraged (I'll just bet he is) that Expelled exposes for all to clearly see the connection between Darwinism and Nazi ideology.
According to Dawkins:
The alleged association between Darwinism and Nazism is harped on for what seems like hours, and it is quite simply an outrage. We are supposed to believe that Hitler was influenced by Darwin.
Actually the discussion of the influence of Darwinism on the Nazis in Expelled lasts only about ten minutes, and outside that segment of the film there's no references at all to the Nazis.
Dawkins of course has said he would hate to live in a Darwinian society. Jerusalem Post columnist Jonathan Roseblum explained back in December that maybe we already do. He wrote about Richard Weikart's meticulously researched book From Darwin To Hitler, which proves the point and then some.
As Professor Richard Weikart chillingly details in From Darwin to Hitler: Evolutionary Ethics, Eugenics, and Racism in Germany, Mengele's experiments on "inferior" Jewish children for the benefit of the Master Race have to be viewed in the context of German Social Darwinism in the seven decades leading up to the Nazi takeover.
In Weikart's estimate, a majority of German physicians and scientists subscribed to the naturalistic Darwinian world view and ideas that constituted a sustained assault on the traditional Judeo-Christian concept of the sanctity of life. Among those ideas are the claim that there is no fundamental distinction between humans and animals; human beings do not possess a soul that endows them with any rights or superiority to any other species; within the species homo sapiens, there are "inferior" and "superior" individuals, and inferior and superior races; and it is the iron will of nature that the species should evolve through the survival of the superior members and the death of the inferior.
Darwin's cousin Francis Galton founded the modern eugenics movement on the basis of Darwinian arguments, and nowhere did eugenics catch on with greater enthusiasm than in Germany (though many prominent intellectuals in the United States, England and France were also enthusiastic supporters.) In Germany, many took the next step - from eugenics to involuntary euthanasia for the mentally ill and other defectives.
Florida Evolution Academic Freedom Bill Moves Forward
The Florida Academic Freedom bill has moved forward today past Florida’s Senate Judiciary Committee. It has now been approved by both Senate committees and will soon get a vote on the floor of the Florida Senate. Unfortunately, the Florida newsmedia continues to misrepresent the bill, as the Orlando Sentinel wrongly claimed that, under the bill, “Florida teachers could mention religious theories about human origins.”
The Florida newsmedia seems to be taking their talking points directly from Florida Citizens for Science. If one reads the text of the bill, it's clear that it only protects the teaching of “scientific information” and does not cover the teaching of religion. Darwinist groups have attacked the academic freedom bill as being "smelly crap" or "Just Dumb." I explained recently what is really going on here:
Those who are interested in academic freedom legislation should have no misconceptions about what is really happening here: For the Darwin-skeptics, this is about upholding the important value of academic freedom and the freedom to pursue legitimate scientific inquiry. For the Darwinists who oppose the bill, this battle is about falsely appealing to people's emotions and fears in order to suppress the teaching of scientific information that challenges evolution.
Apparently the "smelly crap" that is "dumb" is moving forward in the Florida legislature. Academic freedom legislation has also been submitted in Missouri and Louisiana.
David Berlinski's response to the new atheists and their scientific pretensions is engagingly literate and thoughtful — if you missed it when it aired this weekend, watch it online during your lunch break.
Is ID Falsifiable? Of Course It Is. Its Falsification Is Darwinism
Darwinist Steven Novella asks and answers a question central to the intelligent design/Darwinism debate: is intelligent design falsifiable? Dr. Novella predictably answers in the negative, and concludes that because ID cannot be falsified it is not science. I’ve long thought that the claim of unfalsifiablility of ID is one of the most bizarre claims of Darwinists. But, as we’ll see, there is method to the claim.
Let’s take a look at Dr. Novella’s arguments. I’ve condensed them, because he characteristically rambles. He first makes the bizarre claim that design in nature isn’t necessarily intelligent.
So the ID proponents are asking the wrong question - always a fatal problem in science. The question is not whether or not there is design in nature, but what is the nature of that design. Evolution is a bottom-up process whereby design and complexity emerge out of blind but non-random processes. “Intelligent” design, by contrast, is a top down process where the final result is known ahead of time by the designer and is achieved with purpose.
No. Design is always the result of intelligent agency — by definition. It's always top-down. Design is a mental act. Complexity can arise without intelligent design, but complexity is not the same thing as design. All design arises by intelligent agency, because that’s how design is defined. Consider the definition of design:
de•sign
v. de•signed, de•sign•ing, de•signs
v.tr.
1.
a. To conceive or fashion in the mind; invent: design a good excuse for not attending the conference.
b. To formulate a plan for; devise: designed a marketing strategy for the new product.
2. To plan out in systematic, usually graphic form: design a building; design a computer program.
3. To create or contrive for a particular purpose or effect: a game designed to appeal to all ages.
4. To have as a goal or purpose; intend.
5. To create or execute in an artistic or highly skilled manner.
v.intr.
1. To make or execute plans.
2. To have a goal or purpose in mind.
3. To create designs.
Design is always the product of a mind. There is no such thing as 'bottom-up' design. Design always has purpose, and purpose is always a hallmark of intelligent agency. When things happen in nature without intelligent cause, they are not design. They may be uncanny, extraordinary, astonishing, but without intelligent cause, they are not designed. As Richard Dawkins wrote: "Biology is the study of things that appear designed, but aren’t." Even Richard Dawkins understands the distinction. Dr. Novella not only struggles with the science. He struggles with definitions.
Dr. Novella goes on to draw an astonishing analogy:
There are many analogies we can draw to illuminate this difference. For example, a city that grew over decades without any central planning, but based upon the decisions and actions of individuals acting in their own interest is like an evolved city. An ID city, however, is one planned and mapped out ahead of time, by a committee, corporation, or some other body. In the evolved city there will still be design — streets and utilities will follow residences and business, for example. Shops will tend to pop up and survive to meet the demand. But it will be messy, with lots of redundancy, with abandoned buildings where neighborhoods collapsed or business failed. Streets would likely not be optimally arranged. A planned city, however, would look vastly different — more clean, purposeful, and direct. The streets would be laid out in a deliberate way — one that could not have emerged spontaneously with use.
There are no ‘evolved’ cities. All cities are designed, in that they are the product of human minds. Not all designed aspects of cities are carefully designed, of course, and not all designs are coordinated with other designs. But shops and streets don’t ‘pop up’; they are put there by conscious agents acting for purposes. And the changes that take place in cities that are not the product of intelligent design, such as erosion, wear and tear on infrastructure, and so on, are changes that would never be mistaken for intelligent design. You can tell the difference between architecture and grafitti, on one hand, and rust on the other.
Dr. Novella's blunder is an example of 'Berra's Blunder'. Tim Berra is a Darwinist biologist who, in his 1990 book Evolution and the Myth of Creationism, used the example of changes over time in Corvettes to illustrate the enormous power of natural selection. Of course, Dr. Berra's example was a designed change in the automobiles with time. Corvettes don't 'evolve' by natural selection. They are the product of very intelligent designers.
It’s ironic that neither Dr. Novella nor Dr. Berra, in searching for an analogy to Darwinist ‘design,’ could think of a single example of design that wasn’t the product of a mind. Darwinists fall into the trap of Berra's Blunder often. It's not simply because they don't understand the issues, although that no doubt plays a role. Darwinists genuinely have trouble drawing analogies between natural functional biological complexity and undesigned non-biological structures, because most biological complexity is analogous to intelligently designed artifacts. Living things are full of DNA codes and nanotechnology that in any other area of science would be recognized as artifacts of intelligent design. Berra's Blunder is almost inevitable for a Darwinist trying to find analogies to biology. Biology is replete with hallmarks of intelligent design.
Next Dr. Novella meanders through common descent and irreducible complexity, claiming with tangential anecdotes that science provides evidence against ID. He argues, in effect, that intelligent design is contradicted by the evidence, and is untestable as well. You can’t make this up. It's witless.
His final argument is that ID is a ‘negative’ theory, defined by what it denies:
The notion of ID falsifiability also has a deeper logical problem — that ID is defined entirely but what it isn’t — namely evolution.
Here Dr. Novella gets to the root of the issue, and characteristically does so in a way that destroys his own argument. Here's how. Darwin’s theory is this: all natural biological complexity arose by the mechanism of random non-teleological heritable variation and non-teleological natural selection. Intelligent design theory is this: some aspects of natural biological complexity show evidence of teleology. By teleology, I mean purpose, intelligent agency — design. It is on the question of evidence for intelligent design in biology that the ID-Darwinism debate turns.
Thus ID and Darwinism are merely two opposite conclusions drawn from the same question: is there teleology in biology? If there is, ID is true. If there isn’t, Darwinism is true. The falsification of intelligent design is Darwinism. The falsification of Darwinism is intelligent design. Either biology shows evidence of intelligent agency, or it doesn’t. Either intelligent design and Darwinism are both science, or neither is science. If you can’t test the hypothesis of intelligent agency in biology, then you can’t test Darwinism, and Darwinism is immune from evidence and must simply be accepted on faith.
Darwinism is intelligent design's doppelganger. So why would Darwinists like Dr. Novella claim that ID isn’t falsifiable, when their own theory is the falsification of ID? As it turns out, there’s a method and a reason. If ID isn’t falsifiable, then the question of design in biology can’t be adjudicated by science, and this renders Darwinism immune from evidence. Darwinism must then be accepted on faith.
The truth is that Darwinists aren’t concerned that intelligent design isn’t falsifiable. They’re concerned that it isn't false.
Here's another one for my "you can't make this stuff up" file. I kid you not, this is a news story about a new peer-reviewed paper in PLoS Biology by Brian Paegel and Gerald Joyce of The Scripps Research Institute which explains that (all emphasis from here on is mine)
they have produced a computer-controlled system that can drive the evolution of improved RNA enzymes.
I couldn't write a funnier script if I tried. Sadly, these guys just don't get the joke.
The evolution of molecules via scientific experiment is not new. The first RNA enzymes to be “evolved” in the lab were generated in the 1990s. But what is exciting about this work is that the process has been made automatic. Thus evolution is directed by a machine without requiring human intervention-other then providing the initial ingredients and switching the machine on.
But wait it gets better.
Throughout the process, the evolution-machine can propagate the reaction itself, because whenever the enzyme population size reaches a predetermined level, the machine removes a fraction of the population and replaces the starting chemicals needed for the reaction to continue.
What? Predetermined? Predetermined by whom or by what? Oh, the evolution machine, which itself is a result of intelligent agency.
The authors sum it all up very nicely.
This beautifully illustrates what about evolution is random and what is not.
Schools are in recess this time of year, so busloads of girls using "like" as a verbal crutch and wise cracking, baggy pants boys are wending their way through the cherry blossoms of America's capital. In these security-conscious times it is harder than ever to get a tour of the White House or Capitol, so parents and chaperones are quick to steer the young to the Mall.
A traditional favorite is the National Museum of Natural History, where for several years now Darwinian fairytales have been presented in an exhibit on mammals that encourages our offspring to have a family reunion with their "relatives", including chimps, dogs, and mice. Here are strange just-so stories proposed as fact, telling the gullible, for example, how the giraffe evolved its neck. Presto-change-o. At the core of the exhibit is a tiny rodent whom the adorable, if naïve, teens are supposed to venerate as their direct ancestor. It cost a lot of money to bamboozle the folks this way. And you taxpayers paid for it.
Yes, this is the same Natural History museum where an affiliated scientist
bragged in one of the emails the House of Representatives found a couple of years ago that her own son uses "under dog" instead of "under God" when saying the
Pledge of Allegiance.
For the more discerning visitors, a trip to Mt. Vernon is recommended. Thank goodness for old-fashioned philanthropy and a non-ironic perspective. George Washington's home boasts a lavish new visitors' center and education program that puts government museums to shame. The heroic history of the Revolution is evoked in a stirring orientation film written by Lionel Chetwynd.
Mt. Vernon is not hesitant to hail our true ancestor-in-patriotism as the hero he was, the flesh-and-blood Father of his Country. It's a lot easier for a kid to look up to George than down to a rodent.
World Mag's Olasky Says Expelled is "Seriously Funny"
Marvin Olasky has a great review of Expelled in the new issue of World magazine.
Ben Stein takes on the debate-phobic Darwinian establishment"The shot heard round the world" that started the American Revolution came on April 19, 1775. On April 18 this year, a seriously funny documentary is scheduled to hit 1,000 theaters across America and fire a shot that will go unheard if debate-phobic Darwinists get their way.
The 100-minute documentary, Expelled, is perfect for adults and children of middle-school age or above: It should be rated R not for sex or violence but for being reasonable, radical, risible, and right. (It is rated PG for thematic material, some disturbing images, and brief smoking.) The expelling of Intelligent Design (ID) proponents from universities is not a laughing matter, but star Ben Stein is amusing as he walks, in dark suit and bright running shoes, from interview to interview with scientists and philosophers on both sides of the evolution debate.
Expelled rightly equates Darwinian stifling of free speech with the Communist attempt to enslave millions behind the Berlin Wall. One Expelled scene shows Stein, mathematician David Berlinski (a sophisticated Paris resident), and nuclear physicist Gerald Schroeder (wearing a yarmulke), all now ID advocates, discussing the importance of freedom as they visit a remnant of the Wall. All three are Jewish, and they don't look or talk like the hicks portrayed in Inherit the Wind.
Berlinski and The Devil's Delusion on C-SPAN this Weekend
Last week CSC senior fellow David Berlinski gave a presentation based on his new book The Devil's Delusion in the Discovery Institute Washington DC offices. C-SPAN's Booknotes was there and will broadcast the event at least twice this weekend, so set your DVRs for Saturday at 11pm EDT / 8PM PDT.
The Devil's Delusion: Atheism And Its Scientific Pretensions Author: David Berlinski
Upcoming Schedule
Saturday, April 5, at 11:00 PM
Sunday, April 6, at 6:30 AM About the Program
David Berlinski, teacher and author of books on mathematics, challenges the fields of science and atheist thought by arguing that science has not been able to prove the inexistence of a God nor explain the start of the universe. This event was hosted by the Discovery Institute in Washington, D.C. About the Author
David Berlinski is the author of several books, including "A Tour of Calculus," and "Newton's Gift." A former fellow at the Institute for Applied System Analysis, Mr. Berlinksi is currently a senior fellow at the Discovery Institute.
Dr. Larry Moran and Censorship of Intelligent Design
Commenting on the recommendations by Matt Nesbit and Chris Mooney that Darwinists tone down the venality of their attacks against religious faith and against scientists who support intelligent design, atheist "evolutionist" Dr. Larry Moran, professor of biochemistry at the University of Toronto, replied:
I'm opposed to censorship of any kind but I really wish Matt Nisbet and Chris Mooney would voluntarily decide to keep their stupid mouths shut for a few years.
Is Dr. Moran genuinely "opposed to censorship of any kind"? Consider his statement a few months ago on the moral dilemma that Darwinists face regarding students who are Christians:
Of course, we all recognize the problem here. How do you distinguish between a good Christian who is lying for Jesus and one who has actually come to understand science? It seems really unfair to flunk the honest students who admit that they still reject science and pass the dishonest ones who hide their true beliefs…As we've seen time and time again on the blogs (and elsewhere), the Christian fundamentalists have erected very strong barriers against learning. It really doesn't matter how much they are exposed to rational thinking and basic scientific evidence. They still refuse to listen…This is one of the reasons why I would flunk them if they took biology and still rejected the core scientific principles. It's not good enough to just be able to mouth the "acceptable" version of the truth that the Professor wants. You actually have to open your mind to the possibility that science is correct and get an education. That's what university is all about. [empahsis mine]
Dr. Moran insists that professors investigate students’ religious beliefs in order to ascertain whether or not Christians who "mouth the acceptable version" (i.e., who pass their exams) genuinely believe "science," which Dr. Moran defines as materialist metaphysics. If they don’t accept Dr. Moran's personal atheist ideology, he "would flunk them," regardless of their grades.
Dr. Moran’s inquisition isn’t merely theoretical. He applauded the denial of tenure to Dr. Guillermo Gonzalez, the highly qualified Iowa State University astronomy professor who supports intelligent design. Commenting on an email written by Iowa State astronomy department chairman Eli Rosenberg in which Rosenberg candidly admitted that Dr. Gonzalez’s support for intelligent design was the reason that he was denied tenure, Dr. Moran notes approvingly:
I see nothing wrong here. I looks to me like this is grounds for tenure denial.
Consider Dr. Moran’s chilling comment about Kirk Durston, a Ph.D. candidate in biophysics at the University of Guelph. Mr. Durston has pointed out that intelligent design theory may be applied to an understanding of the enormous complexities of protein folding, which remains one of the deepest problems in molecular biology. Mr. Durston offered to visit and present his evidence at the University of Toronto. Dr. Moran replied:
I admire Kirk for his willingness to subject his scientific evidence for intelligent design to a group of experts on protein folding. It's very courageous of him since he's putting his scientific reputation on the line.
Why should Mr. Durston’s willingness to present his scientific evidence for intelligent design to other scientists require courage? Isn't the presentation of evidence a routine part of science? Why should presenting evidence for intelligent design put Mr. Durston’s "scientific reputation on the line"?
Dr, Moran has even less tolerance for undergraduate students who express support for intelligent design. How would Dr. Moran deal with undergraduate students at the University of California at San Diego who do not believe in Darwinism? Dr. Moran:
Flunk the IDiots...40% of the freshman class [at UCSD] reject Darwinism... the university has become alarmed at the stupidity of its freshman class and has offered remedial instruction for those who believe in Intelligent Design Creationism...UCSD should not have required their uneducated students to attend remedial classes. Instead, they should never have admitted them in the first place...[T]he University should just flunk the lot of them and make room for smart students who have a chance of benefiting from a high quality education.
Dr. Moran believes that students and untenured scientists who accept the possibility of intelligent design in nature and who don’t share his atheist metaphysical beliefs should be investigated regarding their beliefs, should be flunked regardless of their grades if their beliefs are found wanting, and should be denied tenure if they get past the materialist filter and make it through graduate school. Is Dr. Moran genuinely "opposed to censorship of any kind"?
On the other hand, Dr. Moran strongly opposes censorship against some members of the academic community:
On the other hand, if you already have tenure then you have jumped these hurdles and your right to say silly things is protected by academic freedom. That right must be upheld at all costs.
Expelled continues to generate buzz. Earlier today, Ben Stein spoke in support of the Academic Freedom Act introduced this week in the MIssouri state legislature, and both he and the film were praised by Governor Blunt. With all the academic freedom issues coming to a boil the film is receiving more attention than ever.
We get a lot of e-mail asking how people can find out if Expelled will be showing in their local theater. Well, here's where to check. The Expelled website features a theater locator which will tell you the theater closest to you that will be screening the film when it opens on April 18th.
If you don't find a theater near you in the list generated from the locator, or you know of a particular theater that you'd like to see carry the film but currently isn't on that list, here's what to do.
CALL YOUR THEATER. BUY GROUP TICKETS. RENT A THEATER. Help us make sure that Expelled has a great opening weekend by buying tickets ahead of time. Youth groups, companies, schools, churches, any organization can buy group tickets, or even by out an entire screening.
Here's How
1. Identify your local movie theater's corporate affiliation (Regal, AMC, Cinemark, etc.) by looking in the newspaper for their ads.
2. Call the corporate headquarters (see the list below) and tell them to book EXPELLED at your local theater (give them your state and home town.)
3. Visit www.expelledthemovie.com and download a free poster.
4.Call or stop by your local theater and ask for the manager. Tell him that your school, church, or organization wants to see EXPELLED. Ask about group rates and/or renting the theater for a night. Leave a note with the EXPELLED poster.
We will contact you: Leave a message on our Group Sales Hotline at: 800-705-0485, send an email to groupsales@getexpelled.com.
Please forward this email to friends and contacts!
Missouri Becomes Third State to Introduce Academic Freedom Legislation on Teaching of Evolution
Following on the heels of Florida and Louisiana, Missouri legislators have now filed an academic freedom act bill, and a companion bill to protect scientists and researchers, along with educators.
Legislators in Louisiana and Missouri have introduced academic freedom bills that would ensure the freedom of teachers to help students understand, analyze, critique, and review in an objective manner the scientific strengths and scientific weaknesses of theories of biological and chemical evolution. Florida legislators introduced a similar bill recently which passed through its first committee hearing on a 4-1 vote.
In Louisiana, Sen. Ben Nevers introduced SB 561, and in Missouri Rep. Wayne Cooper has introduced HB 2554. Both bills would protect teachers’ academic freedom to teach scientific information that supports or challenges biological and chemical evolution, but expressly do not protect the teaching of religion.
Thursday morning, Ben Stein will be at a press conference in Jefferson City, MO, to throw his support behind the efforts. One state was a breakthrough, two states was great, but three states clearly indicates a growing trend. I know other states have considered such bills in the past, so it will be interesting to see if more states step forward on this issue this year. Read more about the bills here.
Darwinist Objections to Louisiana Academic Freedom Bill Based (Predictably) upon Misinformation
An academic freedom bill has been submitted in the state of Louisiana, and Darwinists have been quick to claim that the bill promotes religion. Columnist James Gill followed the Darwinist talking points perfectly in his editorial in The Times-Picayune, using the fear-mongering tactic of claiming that this bill is part of a "creationist attack" and that "[t]he bill is of no conceivable benefit to anyone but Christian proselytizers."
So what exactly does this bill's dangerous "attack" say? The language of the bill simply states that "teachers shall be permitted to help students understand, analyze, critique, and review in an objective manner the scientific strengths and scientific weaknesses of existing scientific theories pertinent to the course being taught." The only people who would find such language threatening are those who would oppose an objective discussion of the scientific strengths and weaknesses of scientific theories like neo-Darwinism.
Moreover, the bill expressly states that it "only protects the teaching of scientific information" and that it "shall not be construed to promote any religious doctrine, promote discrimination for or against a particular set of religious beliefs, or promote discrimination for or against religion or non-religion." How this bill only benefits "Christian proselytizers" is beyond me--it should benefit anyone who truly cares about objective scientific inquiry, regardless of their religious beliefs. James Gill dismisses the actual text of the bill because his reasons for opposing this legislation are clear: what he finds objectionable about this bill is that it makes it very difficult to suppress the teaching of scientific information that is critical of Darwinism.
The debate over academic freedom legislation is predictably political, and it nearly always goes something like this:
First, Darwin-skeptics submit legislation that does NOT protect the teaching of religion and ONLY protects the teaching of scientific information, even if it is critical of Darwinian evolution. This is a perfectly reasonable proposition.
Next, dogmatic Darwinists in the media and the educational establishment get scared that teachers might actually start giving scientific criticisms of Darwinism in schools, so they scramble to respond. They dogmatically try to shut down dissent from Darwinism by claiming (wrongly) that there are no scientific critiques of Darwinism. But they realize that the text of the bill is completely reasonable, so the only way to combat the bill is to resort to fear-mongering tactics and misrepresent what it says.
Thus, as a last-resort strategy, these Darwinists make baseless accusations that academic freedom legislation will promote "religion" or "creationism" in the classroom. To do so they completely ignore or dismiss the actual text of the bill, which could never sanction such a thing. Or, in James Gill's case, he employs the genetic fallacy, attacking the bill because it is supported by some Christian groups that he apparently does not like.
Those who are interested in academic freedom legislation should have no misconceptions about what is really happening here: For the Darwin-skeptics, this is about upholding the important value of academic freedom and the freedom to pursue legitimate scientific inquiry. For the Darwinists who oppose the bill, this battle is about falsely appealing to people's emotions and fears in order to suppress the teaching of scientific information that challenges evolution. If you don't believe me, read the text of the bill and ask yourself if the attacks of the Darwinists bear any relation to the reality of what the bill actually says.
New Book By David Berlinski Tackles New Atheists Efforts To Hijack Science
The so-called new atheists like Richard Dawkins have hijacked science in an attempt to bolster the foundations of their anti-religious views and in so doing are enshrining a new secular religion of scientism.
And now, along comes an agnostic to challenge them.
In a refreshing counterpoint, agnostic science writer David Berlinski, an urbane scholar with a withering wit to delight and entertain, vigorously defends religious thought against a movement of intolerance which now includes much of the scientific elite.
Click here to see when and where Dr. Berlinski will be speaking
“If science stands opposed to religion, it is not because of anything contained in either the premises or the conclusions of the great scientific theories,” Berlinski writes. “Confident assertions by scientists that… they have demonstrated that God does not exist have nothing to do with science, and even less to do with God’s existence.”
A secular Jew, Berlinski nonetheless delivers a brisk defense of religion.
An acclaimed author who has spent his career writing about mathematics and the sciences, he turns the scientific community’s cherished skepticism back on itself, daring to ask—and answer—some rather embarrassing questions.
According to Harvard University Professor of Government Harvey Mansfield, The Devil’s Delusion is a “powerful riposte to atheist mockery and cocksure science, and to the sort of philosophy that surrenders to them.”
The Devil’s Delusion was one of the last books William F. Buckley Jr. reviewed before his recent death. He called it “everything desirable: it is idiomatic, profound, brilliantly polemical, amusing, and of course vastly learned.”
A Discovery Institute Senior Fellow, Dr. Berlinski is currently on a speaking tour through America, featuring talks at universities and other venues in Washington, D.C., Los Angeles, Minneapolis, Dallas and Seattle.
David Berlinski received his Ph.D. in philosophy from Princeton University and was later a postdoctoral fellow in mathematics and molecular biology at Columbia University. He has authored works on systems analysis, differential topology, theoretical biology, analytic philosophy, and the philosophy of mathematics, as well as three novels. He has also taught philosophy, mathematics and English at such universities as Stanford, Rutgers, the City University of New York and the Universite de Paris. In addition, he has held research fellowships at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) in Austria and the Institut des Hautes Etudes Scientifiques (IHES) in France.
Recent articles by Dr. Berlinski have been featured in Harper's Magazine, Commentary, Forbes ASAP, and the Boston Review. Two of his articles, "On the Origins of the Mind" (November 2004) and "What Brings a World into Being" (March 2001) have been anthologized in The Best American Science Writing 2005 , edited by Alan Lightman (Harper Perennial), and The Best American Science Writing 2002, edited by Jesse Cohen, respectively.
He is author of numerous books, including A Tour of the Calculus (Pantheon 1996), The Advent of the Algorithm (2000, Harcourt Brace),.Newton's Gift (The Free Press 2000), The Secrets of the Vaulted Sky (Harcourt, October 2003), A Short History of Mathematics for the Modern Library series at Random House (2004), and The Devil's Delusion: Atheism and Its Scientific Pretensions (Crown Forum, 2008).
Why P. Z. Myers should be wearing the short pants and sneakers
I have theorized elsewhere about the Darwinists' diminishing status in the gene pool, but there is new and even more alarming evidence of the deterioration of the Darwinist subspecies--further proof that those who believe in the survival of the fittest are less fit for survival. It is becoming increasingly evident that there is a serious lack of creativity among a few Darwinists that could threaten their station on the evolutionary tree.
These days I get most of my news via my Google Reader, and about half of it over the last week seems to be about an attempt by biologist P. Z. Myers to sneak into a private viewing of the new movie "Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed," Ben Stein's expose of Darwinist thought control in our institutions of higher learning. Myer's attempt to get into the private screening (which was invitation only) was foiled when he was recognized and told that the private screening was, well, private.
From the indignation with which this incident has been received by the anti-ID crowd, one would think that he was beaten with truncheons by big men in steel-toed boots and physically dragged away from the theater. But, alas, it is not so. Turns out he was just standing there dumbly in line waiting to get in to see the movie, was recognized, and was then asked by theater security to go away, which he did, according to reports, without a struggle.
Such is the state of the Darwinist mindset these days that so unimpressive a performance is considered the stuff of heroism. But P. Z. thought it was something, and he has recounted several times now how he bravely endured his confrontation with theater security (and we know their reputation). I mean, what was he supposed to do? They had badges.
But P. Z.'s story about being "thrown out" gets even more gut-wrenching. After being separated from his family (who security apparently let in to see the movie), Myers ended up at a local Apple store at the Mall of the Americas, where he blogged about his experience.
Talk about being in the belly of the beast.
In any case, what are we supposed to make of all this hoopla? Well according to the Darwinists, this is an example of the hypocrisy of Intelligent Design advocates, who "throw out" people who disagree with ID from the showing of a movie about how people who disagree with Darwinism are thrown out of the academy.
But is limiting the attendance at the pre-screening of an admittedly partisan movie by its creators to invitees only really the same thing as throwing professors out of their academic jobs for having beliefs at odds with the prevailing orthodoxy in their particular discipline--particularly when the institutions engaging in the heave-ho make so much of their respect for academic freedom?
Let's just say the question answers itself.
Memo to Richard Dawkins, P. Z. Myers, et al.: Go make your own movie and invite only the people you want to come and we promise we won't whine about it when we're not on the V.I.P. list. Oh, and if we decide to crash your party, and are so uninspired in the attempt that we can't even fool a few theater employees, we promise to do the honorable thing and blush in shame.
Hand it to Richard Dawkins: at least he was wily enough to actually succeed in getting in (his passport lists him as "Clinton Richard Dawkins")--evidence that Dawkins may possess important survivability traits Myers apparently lacks.
But wait a minute: do we really want them to go away and leave the movie alone? The irony of the sophomoric attempts by the neo-atheist crowd to crash the ID party is that the more they do it--and the more they draw attention to the fact that they did it (or, in P. Z.'s case, tried to do it)--the more public attention they draw to the movie.
According to BlogPulse, which apparently measures such things, "Expelled" was the number one topic of conversation in the blogosphere last Monday. If I'm the producer of "Expelled," I pop a champaign cork every time a famous Darwinist tries to sneak into a sneak preview of my movie. More attention = more press coverage = more viewers at theaters when it opens in April.
So where are the rest of them? Maybe Sam Harris could avoid detection by using a false beard--and perhaps Daniel Dennett could avoid scrutiny by shaving his off. Or how about if Christopher Hitchens got a friend to open the exit door for him. We did this when we were kids at the local cineplex. Trust me. It works.
All we ask is that you don't embarrass other members of the species by trying to infiltrate the theater with attempts so unimaginative that you can't even get past theater security. In fact, they created the Darwin Award for just this kind of thing. Wouldn't it be fitting if it went to a prominent Darwinist?
New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof made a call for reason this past weekend. Citing Susan Jacoby’s work, Kristof points out the need for an improved intellectual climate to foster informed and reasoned debate. “How can we decide on embryonic stem cells if we don’t understand biology?” asks Kristof.
Amen. Let’s understand the technical details, the relevant history and philosophy, and all sides of an issue. Then we can have informed and reasoned debate. At least that is what comes to my mind when I hear a call for reason. Not necessarily, however, for folks such as Kristof and Jacoby.
As an example of what he views as a failure in our intellectual climate, Kristof points to evolution and sarcastically uses President Bush as his foil:
President Bush is also the only Western leader I know of who doesn’t believe in evolution, saying "the jury is still out." No word on whether he believes in little green men.
So much for reasoned debate. For Jacoby and Kristof, the intellectual climate is right only when dogmatic adherence to evolution is mandated. Even merely allowing for the possibility that evolution may not explain everything must be expelled. Evolutionists are seeing the need for a multitude of universes to explain how evolution could possibly have occurred. But never mind, one way or another we must believe evolution to be true.
Their calls for an improved intellectual climate ring hollow. When Jacoby and Kristof advocate for informed and reasoned debate, what they really mean is something very different. The irony is that, far from reasoned debate, today’s elite demand straight-jacket agreement where it matters to them, and allow debate only within narrow boundaries that don’t challenge their pre-conceived viewpoints.
A traditional favorite is the National Museum of Natural History, where for several years now Darwinian fairytales have been presented in an exhibit on mammals that encourages our offspring to have a family reunion with their "relatives", including chimps, dogs, and mice. Here are strange just-so stories proposed as fact, telling the gullible, for example, how the giraffe evolved its neck. Presto-change-o. At the core of the exhibit is a tiny rodent whom the adorable, if naïve, teens are supposed to venerate as their direct ancestor. It cost a lot of money to bamboozle the folks this way. And you taxpayers paid for it.
The Devil's Delusion: Atheism And Its Scientific Pretensions 
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David Berlinski received his Ph.D. in philosophy from Princeton University and was later a postdoctoral fellow in mathematics and molecular biology at Columbia University. He has authored works on systems analysis, differential topology, theoretical biology, analytic philosophy, and the philosophy of mathematics, as well as three novels. He has also taught philosophy, mathematics and English at such universities as Stanford, Rutgers, the City University of New York and the Universite de Paris. In addition, he has held research fellowships at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) in Austria and the Institut des Hautes Etudes Scientifiques (IHES) in France. 
