Category: academic freedom

Top Johns Hopkins Surgeon Persecuted for being a Creationist

World-renowned Johns Hopkins neurosurgeon Dr. Ben Carson is under fire from several biology professors at Emory University, where he’s scheduled to give the commencement address. They wrote a letter to the school newspaper after learning Carson does not believe in evolution,….. Dr. Ben Carson’s Beliefs On Evolution Stir Controversy At Emory University About 500 Darwinist… more

On Tennessee’s Academic Freedom Bill – The Endgame, Part 2

Time to give the answer to my previous post, where I asked UD readers if they could figure out why Tennessee’s academic freedom bill was a brilliant move. To my surprise (I underestimated people!) most commenters were within the ballpark right away, and Barry pretty much nailed it. Let’s take a look at Barry’s response. more

On Tennessee’s Academic Freedom Bill – The Endgame, Part 1

By now, news of Tennessee’s Academic Freedom Bill has made the rounds. There’s been all kinds of analysis about it, harsh criticisms as well as defense. But as near as I can tell, just about everyone has missed what this bill has truly accomplished. Call it a cheap tactic, call it a trojan horse. Me?… more

Welcome to academic freedom at Chicago State: Only if you clear it with PR first?

Note: Chicago State University is not to be confused with the University of Chicago, which is still governed by normal persons. more

Gil on what’s at stake in the end — the credibility of science

I passed by and noticed Gil’s go-to-the heart-of-the-matter comment on the “a picture is worth . . . “ thread: The worst part is that these clowns are destroying public trust in legitimate science. As usual, Gil has gone straight to the key point. When science and science education as well as popular science and… more

Must-see Vid: Darwin’s heretic — Alfred Russel Wallace

A few months back, we looked at the story of Wallace’s views here and again here. Now, thanks to an online premiere, here’s the movie (HT: ENV): embedded by Embedded VideoYouTube Direkt Relax, enjoy, and discuss. END _____________ F/N: to understand Wallace, have a read of his major book published in 1910 ff, The World… more

ID Foundations, 10: Alfred Russel Wallace takes on the attitude and assumptions behind methodolical naturalism

(Series) Alfred Russel Wallace is the all but forgotten co-founder of modern evolutionary thought. His major book reveals a bit of why, right from the title and sub-title: The World of Life: a manifestation of Creative Power, Directive Mind and Ultimate Purpose. In short, Wallace was a design thinker, and in fact he was also… more

Remember the criminal hyperlink? Released from detention for now …

So this is best seen as a temporary setback for the social engineers who could never build an Internet and can’t give up on the dream of controlling one. more

Culture: Martin Luther King’s student followers would not be accepted on today’s campus

The ID controversy is a small but crucial part of a much larger battle for intellectual freedom and for truth that matters. more

Toldjah: Don’t tell us “Oh, but that’s just China …” Listen.

All that needs to happen anywhere is that a bunch of opinion leaders, angered by the effective competition from the “nobodies” who blog, bend the ear of government about the dangers of unregulated opinion. more

Someone noticed: Lawyers starting to weigh in on campus thought police

They might want to check into what’s happening to students too. They should see Expelled as well. more

Profs start to worry about illiberal campuses – when it hits them

And now, when it comes to free speech, the profs will have to either put up or shut up – for their entire careers. more

CONTEST! Best Response to Professor Pompous Gets Free Copy of “The Nature of Nature”

UPDATE:  WE HAVE HAD SEVERAL FANTASTIC ENTRIES ALREADY.  BUT THERE IS STILL TIME TO POST AN ENTRY.  I WILL JUDGE THE CONTEST ON 7-26-11 A couple of  months ago a young university student contacted my law office seeking help in a dispute she was having with a university here in Colorado. [To protect my client’s… more

Expell-ees you might not have heard about

They didn’t make it into the film. Caroline Crocker, author of Free to Think and currently executive director of AITSE (dedicated to rescuing science from the mudslide of “science”), reflected in her book on discovering that she was not alone, that the Expelled were quite numerous: There is companionship in troubles, and the more public… more

Paul Nelson asks: Why are young American scientists too afraid to appear in this video?

Claire Berlinski comments at Ricochet: “Seriously, if you could have seen how everyone scrambled to get out of the camera when I said we just want to talk about the interesting things we were talking about yesterday. And people are afraid. It would be the end of their careers.” Caption quote: “People who want to… more

Ivory tower economics explains part of why evidence is irrelevant to Darwinism

In “Climate of Fear: Big Science, Big Government” (Forbes, July 8, 2011), Patrick Michaels, lobbyist for the American Association for the Advancement of Science, admits, In his 1961 Farewell Address, Dwight Eisenhower famously predicted the rise of a “military-industrial complex,” in which he said, “The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and… more

We can still legally refuse to drink the Kool-Aid

In “Making Stories Visible The Task for Bioethics Commissions” (Issues in Science and Technology 27/2), Meera Lee Sethi and Adam Briggle explore claims made for science finds – under the banner, “Critical skepticism is always appropriate”: blockquote> Narrative explanations can help us understand difficult scientific issues, but they can also mislead us. Critical skepticism is… more

Stomping out independent thought, Campus USA

Caroline Crocker, author of Free to Think, on Darwin trolls harassing students on campus: At a recent conference in Hawaii I was approached by a group of about eight students lamenting about how only one side of the evolution issue is taught in their classrooms and that anyone who suggests that there may be scientific… more

She said it: Nancy Pearcey’s thoughtful article on how “Christianity is a Science-starter, not a Science-stopper”

One of the most common objections to design thought is the idea that it is about the improper injection of the alien  supernatural into the world of science. (That is itself based on a strawman misrepresentation of design thought, as was addressed here a few days ago.) However, there is an underlying root, a common… more

He said it: Prof Lewontin’s strawman “justification” for imposing a priori materialist censorship on origins science

Yesterday, in the P Z Myers quote-mining and distortion thread, I happened to cite Lewontin’s infamous 1997 remark in his NYRB article, “Billions and Billions of Demons,” on a priori imposition of materialist censorship on origins science, which reads in the crucial part: It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel… more

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