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Stanford Medical School Dean’s Newsletter and Koch Foundation Redefine Freedom to Mean Censorship of Intelligent Design

The recent Dean’s Newsletter from Philip A. Pizzo, Dean of the Stanford University School of Medicine, announces a statement from the “Scientific Advisory Board” of the Koch Foundation that recommends creating a brave new world of censorship. According to Dean Pizzo’s newsletter, when giving an award recently to a biology researcher, the Koch Foundation’s “Scientific Advisory Board” stated: “Research must remain free and therefore has to be protected from non-scientific influences such as ‘Creationism,’ ‘Fundamentalism,’ ‘Intelligent Design,’ or other non-scientific ideas or religious convictions.”

Ignoring their inappropriate lumping of intelligent design with “creationism,” “fundamentalism,” “non-scientific ideas” and “religious convictions,” it seems that in the Koch Foundation’s vision of the future, being “free” means that ID cannot have any influence upon research. “Free” must be their newspeak word for censorship of ideas they don’t like.

I suppose if you don’t like the conclusion that life was designed, it’s much easier to just ban such ideas and “influences” from the scientific research community. Such censorship and suppression has been done before, and if the Koch Foundation has its way — cheered on by the Dean of Stanford’s Medical School — it will be done again.

 

Casey Luskin

Associate Director and Senior Fellow, Center for Science and Culture
Casey Luskin is a geologist and an attorney with graduate degrees in science and law, giving him expertise in both the scientific and legal dimensions of the debate over evolution. He earned his PhD in Geology from the University of Johannesburg, and BS and MS degrees in Earth Sciences from the University of California, San Diego, where he studied evolution extensively at both the graduate and undergraduate levels. His law degree is from the University of San Diego, where he focused his studies on First Amendment law, education law, and environmental law.

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Philip A. PizzoStanford University