With no science, no data, no experiments, and no anything — except funding from their generous patrons, the Discovery Institute continues to promote their allegedly non-religious “theory” of intelligent design. This is the latest at their creationist blog: Chaffee, Sewell: “Evolution — More Certain Than Gravity?”, written by Klinghoffer. Here are some excerpts, with bold font added by us for emphasis, and occasional Curmudgeonly interjections that look [like this]:
Our contributors Sarah Chaffee and Granville Sewell ask a great question over at The American Specator [sic]. Why is evolution, uniquely in the context public school education, treated as the “holy Kaaba of science”?
Here’s a link to their article at The American Spectator, which is obviously a creationist-friendly publication: Is academic freedom still available to science teachers? Also, the Discoveroids thoughtfully provide a link to the Wikipedia article on Kaaba, which is a holy building in Mecca. It’s a crude attempt to suggest that science is a bunch of Oogity Boogity, while the Discoveroids are advocates of true science.
Then Klinghoffer quotes from the article in The American Spectator. We haven’t verified his quotes, but he’s quoting his fellow Discoveroids so we assume he’s doing it accurately:
Imagine two science teachers. Mr. Smith teaches straight out of the textbook. He expects students simply to memorize and correctly regurgitate. The other, Ms. Jones, supplements her teaching with challenging mainstream material that casts the textbook’s position in a new, more critical light. She asks students to weigh some of the evidence for themselves, like real scientists do. Which sounds like the better teacher?
BWAHAHAHAHAHA! According to the Discoveroids, science is taught as if the kiddies were in bible class, memorizing and repeating the holy words. Klinghoffer asks us:
[I]f you are a parent, would you want Smith or Jones teaching your kid? Which sounds stultifying dull and which sounds like a really memorable class?
He quotes his colleagues again:
This is a question that lawmakers have considered in a series of legislative battles across the country over academic freedom for high school science instructors. The idea that students are well served by creative, challenging instruction would seem uncontroversial. Except, that is, when the subject is evolution. Then all hell breaks loose. And why do you think that is?
Why, why? Klinghoffer continues quoting:
Whether the standard neo-Darwinian mechanism fully explains the origins of biological novelties is a question that scientists themselves increasingly contest. [Huh?] Yet for the media, evolution is the holy Kaaba of science. Resistance verging on hysteria greets attempts to allow teachers to introduce mainstream controversies found in peer-reviewed scientific literature.
BWAHAHAHAHAHA! The Discoveroids’ “peer-reviewed scientific literature,” which appears only at their own websites, is being unfairly excluded from science classes. The quote goes on:
Just look at media coverage about Arizona’s state science standards, currently being revised, where minor changes were decried as a wholesale “attack” on evolution. Louisiana passed its academic freedom law, the Louisiana Science Education Act, in 2008 and critics have been denouncing it ever since, dishonestly [Hee hee!], for sneaking in instruction about “intelligent design” or “creationism.”
It’s so unfair! Here’s the last of his extensive quote:
Then why are efforts to allow teaching the controversy on evolution met with such determined resistance? Is there something special about evolution, setting it apart from other scientific theories?
Actually, there’s nothing “special” about evolution. It’s a solid, well verified theory. Similar objections would be raised if someone tried to pollute a science class with flat Earth “theory,” geocentricism, astrology, or the Time Cube.
At the end of his post, Klinghoffer spares us the agony of reading the stuff he’s quoting from, by giving us his colleagues’ explanation for the resistance to teaching the controversy:
Their answer traces back to the 19th century when evolution was established not as an ordinary scientific idea but an axiom, [Huh?] “more certain than gravity.” Naturally, given that, it cannot be challenged in the classroom.
So there you have it, dear reader. All the progress made by the Discoveroids is being cruelly excluded from the science classroom by the insane prejudice of believers in the false theory of evolution. Aren’t you ashamed?
Copyright © 2018. The Sensuous Curmudgeon. All rights reserved.
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The Sensuous Curmudgeon 
The analogy with the Kaaba is singularly inept. Infidels (non-Muslims) are barred from approaching the Kaaba or looking inside. Creationists are welcome to examine evolution (and learn, e.g. that it is not a matter of pure chance), but they would prefer to find problems with evolution without bothering to understand it.
“… but they would prefer to
find[invent] problems with evolution without bothering to understand it.”Creationists are entirely incapable of “finding” problems in something that they refuse to understand.
“Here’s a link to their article at The American Spectator, which is obviously a creationist-friendly publication”
That is a far right wing publication and their writers include such illuminaries as Pat Buchanan, Ben Stein, and Jeffrey Lord to name a few. They are more than just a “creationist friendly” publication, they are a “rabid right friendly” publication.
She asks students to weigh some of the evidence for themselves, like real scientists do.
They’re talking about public schools. How many public schools are going to spend the funds for labs necessary to reproduce scientific results that can possibly refute the evidence of evolution!? Discoveroids themselves cannot do that, even with their green-screens.
And weigh some evidence? Ah, only that proposed by these creationists of course.
It is interesting that they think the proper place to challenge a scientific theory is in high school, or perhaps grade school, given their intellectual abilities.
Klinghoffer’s oh-if-only-it-were-so, hypothetical comparison between two teaching methods might carry more weight if we could be sure Ms.Jones wasn’t already predisposed towards certain conclusions, based on her personal faith.
From Dylan’s ‘Ballad of a Thin-skinned Sham’:
“…Because something is happening here
And you don’t know what it is
Do you,
Ms.Jones”
On the one hand, the Bible has nothing to say about evolution, positive or negative, micro or macro. It doesn’t have the vocabulary.
On the other hand, one can take one’s choice of cosmology:
Standard Ancient Near Eastern cosmology, derived from Mesopyand Egypt
Standard European Middle Ages cosmology, derived from Hellenistic culture
Standard Modern Cosmopolitan Science
@Zetopan: “[The American Spectator] is a far right wing publication and their writers include such illuminaries as Pat Buchanan, Ben Stein, and Jeffrey Lord to name a few. They are more than just a ‘creationist friendly’ publication, they are a ‘rabid right friendly’ publication.”
Are you suggesting that Our Conservative Curmudgeon might want to bookmark the site?
Where did that come from?
Evolution has always been subject to challenge; it’s just that all challenges to date have failed.
Creationists are demanding that their beliefs be taught in public schools as though they were not religious ideas, though it’s been demonstrated time and again that they are. But then, what they really want is for creationism to be taught as science because it is a religious doctrine and, in their view, “true science” must always agree with the Bible; for obvious reasons, though, they can’t say that publicly.
Klinkleclapper is right: “it cannot be challenged in the classroom”.
And apparently not on creatinionist blogs like the Discotute one either, given all the attempts that totally failed.
However even when a not too smart guy like me gives it a try challenging IDiocy has a chance to succed that’s bigger than 90% (and that other 10% is explained by me being not too smart ….).
@TomS: “Standard Modern Cosmopolitan Science”
Science as found in Cosmopolitan? Doesn’t sound attractive to me either. Though it shan’t be worse than creacrap.
@Random: I just can’t deny our dear SC the pleasure of being defended by a radical leftist (in whose eyes Hillary Clinton is just somewhat less conservative than Donald the Clown, voted into the White House by our dear SC) like me:
“Our Conservative Curmudgeon might want to bookmark the site?”
Nope. No chance. Pat Buchanan is a fanatical christian, while it’s pretty clear that our dear SC, despite his laudable attempts to appear neutral, is an unbeliever. David Hume also was a conservative and highly likely an unbeliever as well. Conservatism does have a respectable tradition. If more people had practised the motto “don’t change something unless you’re sure it’s an improvement” our world would have been a better place. Whatever his flaws (and I have criticized him heavily for it), this is not one of them.
Ben Stein, from Expelled Fame, has been mocked so many times on this nice blog that rather the Pope will become an animist than this site linking to him.
For me it’s one of the best tests whether a blog is good or not: criticizing and mocking those who are in your own political/religious/ideological camp. Our dear SC passes this test with flying colours.
By cosmopolitan I meant that it is shared among cultures all over the world today, as distinguished from earlier cosmologies which were restricted to a local culture. This is not a value judgement, just a description of modern science.
“Whether the standard neo-Darwinian mechanism fully explains the origins of biological novelties is a question that scientists themselves increasingly contest.”
If this means anything, it means that scientists themselves increasingly hold views different from those they held in 1940.
This is true
The article is, however, a detailed polemic against Le Conte and his axiom, as he stated it in 1888. And yes, the position he took 130 years ago does need updating. Let us be grateful to the American Spectator for pointing this out
In an earlier article, he tells us something “interesting” about Joseph Le Conte and “irreducible complexity”
“…he acknowledge the problem of “novelties” (now called the problem of “irreducible complexity”):
”
(In the blockquote of Le Conte, the beginning ellipsis and the bracketed text appears as in this article. They are not mine. The quote seems to be from Le Conte’s 1888 book “Evolution”, section “Evidences of the Truth of Evolution”, page number not specified.)
All that stuff about several parts working together or whatever, the “mousetrap” example … we are being told that that is just pointless verbiage? If this were advertised widely, it would simplify the Wikipedia article.
Corrected link: My Book In the Beginning and Other Essays on Intelligent Design Is Now Out in an Expanded Edition
Sorry for the typo in the link > and ” should be reversed.
[*Voice from above*] Worst link ever! It’s been corrected.
Paul, yes.
That statement by Sarah and Granville is like asking if one has stopped beating their spouse. It can’t be answered yes or no without tons of additional explanation. Evolutionary biology as a science has changed dramatically and continues to do so today, intelligent design is the same it was when 18th c. philosophers showed it was without basis.
Authoritarians want to use the authority of science if it can be thought to back their beliefs, but not science itself; they can’t control science.
“science is a bunch of Oogity Boogity, while the Discoveroids are advocates of true science.” It’s like I have said of Ken Ham, reality becomes fiction while their fiction become the reality.
@FrankB —
So it IS true that you have no sense of humor.
(Except, perhaps, for a full, deep-throated appreciation of your own.)