noreply@blogger.com (Sean) — Wed, 17 Aug 2005 20:20:00 +0000

Censoring God: Why is the Science establishment so threatened by the Intelligent Design movement?

Right off the bat, the tone of this article is set by the insistance that by not publishing ID papers in peer reviewed journals, the "science establishment" is practicing some for of religious persecution. You can't have it both ways, either ID is scientific or religous.

Furthermore, the very obvious reason that ID "threatens" science is because it is not science, despite attempts to establish itself as such>

Controversy over the exclusive teaching of evolution to the nation's students has reaching a boiling point, with President Bush now coming out publicly in favor of teaching intelligent design side by side with evolution, "so people can understand what the debate is about."

<As useful as the opinion of a man with no proper scientific qualifications whatsoever is in considering what should or should not be taught in science classes, the fact is that ID is not testable, makes no predictions and relies upon unfalsifiable, supernatural explanations, it is not science and should not be taught as such. While it would obviously be a good thing to "teach the controversy" in a social studies or religious studies class, the science class room is for teaching science>

Most Americans have been led to believe the evolution debate is a tug of war between science and religion – a view that originated with the Scopes "monkey trial," immortalized by the mega-hit movie "Inherit the Wind." In the film, ignorant and near-rabid Christian fundamentalists come close to lynching a courageous high school teacher named Bertram Cates. In fact, in the opening scene, the Christian mob marches to the high school where Cates is teaching evolution, has him arrested and jailed, burns the young teacher in effigy and throws a rock through the jail window, injuring him.

But the movie was pure propaganda. In real life, the teacher, John Scopes, never spent any time in jail, never paid a fine – in fact, apparently never even taught evolution. The whole affair was instigated, not by "Christian fundamentalists," but by the ACLU, which was eager to challenge Tennessee's Butler Act that prohibited the teaching that humans descended from lower orders of animals. Although the film depicted drooling religious nuts singing about hanging Scopes' famous lawyer, Clarence Darrow, from a tree, in real life the townspeople gave Darrow a banquet, with the lawyer later writing that he had "been better treated, kindlier and more hospitably" than he could have imagined.

<How this is relevant to the actions of peer review boards and science teachers I'm not entirely certain. "Inherit the Wing" is fiction and may well give an unfair, false impression of the Scopes Monkey trial. The solution to this is fairly simple, we shouldn't include "Inherit the Wind" in science classes either (though this may cause a controversial clash with some teachers choices for the all important Drama and Literary Criticism section of high school science courses>

Ironically, it is only now, in today's America – 80 years after the famed 1925 "monkey trial" – that the scary specter of censorship and persecution raised by "Inherit the Wind" is actually occurring. Just like in the movie, intolerant guardians of sacred orthodoxy are persecuting high school science teachers. Keepers of the faith – gravely offended at the slightest challenge – insist on unquestioning adherence to the accepted teachings, shunning and persecuting any who dare to buck the established order. Freedom of academic inquiry is unwelcome.

But in a bizarre twist, in 2005 it is the evolutionists who are the agitated defenders of orthodoxy. And it is science teachers – at least those who dare to inform their students of any fact or evidence that tends to contradict or undermine the evolution theory – that are today's "John Scopes."

<It is probably one of the strangest myths believed by creationists that the scientific establishment is is some way hostile to new ideas. What possible motivation would scientists have for suppressing evidence against evolution? There is no religious stake in it for them, since many biologists are in fact (shock horror) Christians or in some way religious.>

For years, it seems, the press has had a hard time reporting accurately on the evolution debate. WorldNetDaily is breaking the mold with this issue of Whistleblower, which reveals, perhaps for the first time in a journalistic publication, what the controversy is really all about. This issue is guaranteed to provide some surprises and powerful new insights, even to those who are already familiar with the subject.

<In what way has the press "had a hard time reporting accurately on the evolution debate"? Last time I checked, people were free to publish pretty much whatever they liked. This sort of nasty, implied accusation of censorship is typical of the right wing press.>

WorldNetDaily are morons