John West had a really interesting and wide-ranging discussion with Michael Medved just now on the Science & Culture Update — starting with the amazing reversal since the Scopes “Monkey” Trial in 1925. The Scopes Trial is popularly portrayed as an illustration of right-wing religious censorship trying to shut down science — in fact, the story is a lot more complicated and interesting than that. But never mind. Today if you hear about an attempt to shut down discussion of evolution and silence the opposition, inevitably you’ll find that the would-be censor is a Darwinist.

Michael Medved really gets that, and so do many of his listeners, who number each week in the 3-4 million range. Michael and John got one call, for example, from a chemist in San Antonio who leads a discussion group on intelligent design with 30 members. They’ve read Signature in the Cell and are working through Darwin’s Doubt now, considering arguments for and against ID.

When did you last hear of a Darwinist willing to seriously entertain — not merely condemn and shout down — counterarguments. The most frequently employed argument in the Darwinian arsenal at the moment is “Shut up.”