Mensch tracht, un Gott lacht

Friday, November 26, 2004

An Unscientific Observation . . .

One gets the sense there is blood in the water with regard to the debate over evolution as the be-all, end-all explanatory theory of origins. As many of you know, I wrote a favorable review of Uncommon Dissent, a new ISI book featuring essays by intellectuals who doubt Darwin. One of the critical emails I received came from an MIT-affiliated gent who is part of Project Steve. The purpose of Project Steve is to show that a large number of scientists named Steve support the dominant theory of origins. This is what passes for a response to an invitation to debate for the evolutionary biology community. Instead of facing down guys like Michael Behe, Bill Dembski, David Berlinski, and many others who poke provocative holes in the neo-Darwinian synthesis, we see the evolutionary biologists turn into rhetoricians giving answers like:

1. These guys are fundamentalists!
2. They're sneaking God inside a Trojan Horse!
3. We're right because we have to be right!

I'm just an observer in all of this. Would I be pleased to see a materialist shibboleth like hard-core evolutionary theory cut down a peg? Sure. Is it that big of a deal to me? No. What really interests me is the degree of repression and intimidation that is directed against anyone who disputes the party line. Like I say, I think there's blood in the water.

1 comment:

Evanston2 said...

After reading 3 books on ID and searching the web for counter-arguments, I came to the same conclusion: there is blood in the water. The establishment scientists only use hyperbole and have consistently avoided factual debate. ID proponents have accurately described macro-evolution and other scientific subjects (matching what I was taught) and then shot big fat holes in them. Scientific advances continue to reveal more problems with Darwinism, not less. ID will have political setbacks but will not go away.