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Blast from the past: Christian biology profs tell Congress:”materialistic science has greatly increased the American people’s quality of life”

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That’s just part of a letter written to US Congressman Mark Souder by seven biology profs at Baylor University, a letter he denounced to the House:

I am appalled that any university seeking to discover truth, yet alone a university that is a Baptist Christian school, could make the kinds of statements that are contained in this letter. Is there position on teaching about materialistic science so weak that it cannot withstand scrutiny and debate?

For stuff like

Considering that materialistic science has been the predominant paradigm of science for about 150 years, let us look at life in America before and after the 1850’s. First, all races were certainly not considered as equals. Women were considered inferior to men in every way. Also, the number of cause of death in women was giving birth. The infant mortality rate was equal to any Third World nation today. People died of diseases such as polio, small pox, and influenza. Mentally ill people wee locked up in institutions that resembled the horrors of the Inquisitions. The average life expectancy for people born in the 1850’s was in the early sixties. Since the advent of materialistic science we have shown that all the races are much more alike than they are different. Medical health for women has improved to the point that couples rarely worry if the woman and/or child will die during birth. Also, women have become more empowered than any other time in human history. Diseases such as polio and small pox have essentially been wiped out in America. Also, due to improved sanitation and health regulations, typhoid, cholera, and malaria, are unheard of in America today. Mental illness is seen as a treatable, if not curable, disease. Children born in the 1990’s could expect to live to be ninety years old.

Indeed, their letter was a hymn to “materialistic science” as a fount of all good, making the workld a better place – as if the same science that produced penicillin could not also be responsible for Cyklon-B, used for gas chambers. Anyway, what contribution did their beloved Darwinism make to any aspect of modern science that did improve our lives?

And get this:

Much of the proposed research from intelligent design deals mainly with understanding the personality and limits of the designer. Within the intelligent design paradigm, a possible answer to any scientific question is `That’s how the designer wanted it’. This does not answer anything at all. How are science teachers to inspire curiosity into the natural world when the answer to every question is `That’s just how it is’, Also, we fear that future school board administrators would cut funds for science education because the role of science will have shifted from an exploration of the natural world to an exploration into the mind of a supposed designer. This could also have a negative impact on scientific research. Future Congresses with the need to balance budgets may cut funding to the National Science Foundation, Center for Disease Control, or National Institute for Health for the same reason as the school board administrator.

Even back then, everyone knew that was a gross libel on the design guys.

Most of the letter is just a hymn to The Way Things Are, and in retrospect, given the impasse today in so many areas that depend on Darwinism, maybe that should read: The Way Things Was. Safe for fellow travellers and incurious folk like themselves.

Here they are, in all their – uh – glory:

Cliff Hamrick, Biology Department, Baylor University.

Robert Baldridge, Professor of Biology, Baylor University.

Richard Duhrkopf, Associate Professor of Biology, Baylor University.

Lewis Barker, Professor of Psychology & Neuroscience, Baylor University.

Wendy Sera, Assistant Professor of Biology, Baylor University.

Darrell Vodopich, Associate Professor of Biology, Baylor University.

Sharon Conry, Biology Department, Baylor University.

Cathleen Early, Biology Department, Baylor University.

By the way, we know about the Souder resignation scandal. No need to write to explain it.

Comments
I cannot believe what I just read. I thought that type of ill-informed rhetoric was limted to online forums and a couple fundamentals like Dawkins and Myers. Signed by seven professors no less; I can honestly say I'm shocked. Truly, is this the behaviour Darwinian defenders feel is appropriate of those who would consider themselves educators.. where to from here; a gathering at the campus sports field for a celebratory book-bonfire of Darwin's Black Box and Signature in the Cell?Stu7
September 19, 2011
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