Michael Medved Becomes Discovery Fellow
| November 15, 2007 | Posted by William Dembski under Culture |
Discovery Press Release:
Discovery Institute Names National Talk Show Host Michael Medved as Senior Fellow
SEATTLE — Michael Medved, nationally syndicated talk radio host and bestselling author, has joined the Discovery Institute in the role of senior fellow. The position cements a longstanding friendship and recognizes a commonality of values and projects across a spectrum of issues.
“Michael Medved is an intellectual entrepreneur, a political and cultural polymath with great insights, judgment and wit. We are delighted to have this new relationship with him,” said Discovery Institute president Bruce Chapman.
The sixth largest talk radio audience in the country, 3.7 million listeners, hears Medved’s daily three-hour radio program, The Michael Medved Show. Michael’s show is carried on more than 200 stations across America. The author of several books, including Hollywood vs. America and a recent autobiography, Right Turns, the one-time “punk liberal activist” turned “lovable conservative curmudgeon” is currently at work on a book on The Ten Big Lies About America.
Chapman saluted Medved “as the national radio host—make that ‘media host’—who is best able to understand science issues, including the current conflict over Darwinism and intelligent design. He’s very smart, quick and resourceful. Yet he also is respectful of those he disagrees with.”
“Over the years, I’ve greatly appreciated Discovery’s scholarship and advocacy in many areas,” Medved commented. “We may not agree on every issue, but I often have been struck by how much our worldviews overlap. It has been my pleasure to have Discovery fellows on my show as guests, including Stephen Meyer, Jonathan Wells, and David Klinghoffer. Formalizing the relationship will, I’m sure, only deepen the feeling of collegiality I already have with my friends at Discovery. I look forward to working with Discovery on future projects.”
Medved’s first book, What Really Happened to the Class of ’65?, provided one of the first skeptical reconsiderations of the 1960s counterculture. His tenth book, Right Turns, drew national attention in 2005, offering 35 “unconventional lessons” from Michael’s dramatic political and religious evolution. The New York Times called Right Turns “A provocative memoir… Even many of his readers who hold to very different political and social views will concede, grudgingly, the quality of Medved’s intellect.”
Crown Forum will publish The Ten Big Lies About America, certain to be hugely controversial, in June 2008.
Long active in the Jewish community, Medved has served as president of an Orthodox congregation and co-founder of a Jewish Day School. Since 1996, Michael and his wife, Dr. Diane Medved, a psychologist, have lived in the Seattle area with their three children.
###
51 Responses to Michael Medved Becomes Discovery Fellow
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
Bugsy – Not if you’re Larry Craig
I would actually like to see another think tank that supports a rival ID theory. Competition might be good for ID. If the two think tanks keep each other in check, then it steals the darwinists’ thunder when they want to criticize.
I, too, would like to see ID and Darwinistic evolution isolated from other issues, but each side often pursues cultural interests that makes the divide even wider. Darwinists, for example, typically promote a radical separation of church and state, while ID advocates usually advocate a more moderate position. Typically, Darwinists are closer to secular humanism, while ID supporters, with some exceptions, incline more toward a Judeo/Christian world view. Indeed, they even read and argue for decidedly different versions of American history. Ask a Darwinist to characterize Thomas Jefferson, and you will think old TJ was a raging atheist; ask a typical IDer, and you will think the guy was ready for an altar call. How do you extricate the sciences from their cultural and sub-cultural contexts. If you know a way, count me in.
Oh yes, I forgot, Darwinists seem to have jumped on the the global warming bandwagon, while intelligent design advocates typically think it is junk science. By the way, don’t get too excited about my reference to Jefferson, it was only hyperbole.
I look forward to Michael Medved expanding the body of scientific knowledge and research regarding the theory of Intelligent Design.
I’m just not holding my breath.
As a propagandist, no doubt Medved is highly qualified, but I don’t believe that’s what’s required.
Do the research.
“I look forward to Michael Medved expanding the body of scientific knowledge and research regarding the theory of Intelligent Design.”
Michael Medved is not a scientist. He’s yet another sharp point in the wedge strategy, just like Phillip E Johnson explained in the Nova special. I see Medved like Phillip E Johnson described himself – the sharp point of a wedge.
Dr Dembski and Dr Behe are the wide portion (heavier too) of the wedge (as described by Mr Johnson). Guys like Johnson and Medved crack the door(s) open and guys like Dr Dembski and Dr Behe blow the doors wide open with their scientific knowledge.
Ben Stein is the sharp side of the wedge too, he’s no scientist but he plays an important role in overthrowing science soaked in naturalism.
Does that make sense?
Tim
I don’t think this is fair. I don’t buy most of what Al Franken says, but I wouldn’t call him a “propagandist”. They’re both commentators expressing their opinions. Calling either of them “propagandists” does indeed polarize and short-circuit debate.
Tim,
I think tykes point is that the sharp edge seems to be getting bigger than the broad edge. That is the DI is adding more talking heads but they don’t seem to be investing as much in research. but maybe I’m wrong about what tyke is saying.
jdd, pretty much.
Medved is an able communicator, there is no doubt, but he’s squarely in the market of “moral outrage” and will not taken seriously by wonks and scientists outside the ID true believers (if that).
And it’s not as though he had much credibility in the first place when it come to political matters. Sure, conservatives love him, but his arguments are usually thin and unimpressive.
I caught him on the radio just the other day for a few minutes. Just enough time to hear him say that there was no difference between the policies of Ron Paul and John Edwards–and no, it wasn’t in the context of the Iraq War, which is the *only* thing those two have in common.
This is a big mistake by the DI. I guess if they are trying to raise money from right-wing Christian fundamentalists he can probably help, but otherwise his appointment sends all the wrong signals regarding the nature and intent of the DI think tank.
This sends a very clear “if you’re not into wars, we’re not into you” message, which I’m sure all the other Catholics will love as much as I do.
This isn’t just a statement marrying intelligent design to conservatism, but to a very specific strain of conservatism.
In re: (41)
Very likely. And it will also provide further ammunition for people who will say that this marriage between ID and “a very specific strain of conservatism” was the point the whole time — that ID was never about science, but about politics and “culture wars,” etc.
There is a type of conservatism that has nothing to do with the trivial forms seen in modern political discourse—Aristotelian conservatism.
This type of conservatism is rooted in a deep and abiding love of nature. It s based on the premise that nature is good—indeed, “very good”—and that any theory of value must be rooted in the goodness of nature in order to overcome the nothingness and potential for error produced by the love of pure intellect.
From this love of nature comes the notion of natural law. Aristotle’s golden mean may have lost some of its gravity, since nature is no longer seen as a middle term of intellect and matter, but natural law, properly explicated, provides a useful antidote to the various speculative theories of value that characterized the Modern age, including natural selection, the superman, and dialectical materialism.
Now that some of the glow from those theories has worn off, the tide is turning away from pure theory to concepts of value that are reliably grounded in sense. Aristotelian conservatism insists on rooting all theories of value in observation. If Neo-Darwinism cannot be proven by empirical means, then it should be rejected.
Finally, this form of conservatism is rooted in the value of life, which is relevant today because of the growing realization that life is not the simple bauble described by Darwin and Nietzsche. The more closely we examine life, the more we become aware of its astonishing goodness, which far surpasses the thinking of men.
This change does not mean the death of science, as our theorists claim, but the beginning of a new form of science that is not infatuated with men and their ideas and not ashamed to celebrate the handiwork of God.
Sounds like religion to me, and we’ve already got plenty of that.
One way I contrast liberals from conservatives is this: Liberals conform reality to their way of thinking; conservatives conform their way of thinking to reality.
Guess which part of this dichotomy the Darwinists belong to?
As to examples of liberals conforming reality to their way of thinking: (1) men and women are the same [one presumes that those who proclaim this “truth” have never seen naked photos of men and women; (2) infanticide is really a “late-term abortion”; (3) “divorce is better for the children”, etc. etc.
Which means that the present administration, especially in the Departments of State and Defense, is comprised almost exclusively of liberals. And if one thinks about the situation in terms of how much government spending has expanded over the past seven years, it seems even more plausible to think of them as basically liberal.
Just remember: I’ve been urging you to keep the door firmly shut against politicizing the evolution/design debate. If you want to frame it as a scientific debate over competing theories, that’s fine. If you want to frame it as a cultural-political debate over competing world-views, that’s fine too.
But you can’t have it both ways.
As to examples of liberals conforming reality to their way of thinking: (1) men and women are the same [one presumes that those who proclaim this “truth” have never seen naked photos of men and women;
PaV, I don’t think this is a very good argurment, given the liberals fondness for thinking porn is free speech.
—-Carl “Which means that the present administration, especially in the Departments of State and Defense, is comprised almost exclusively of liberals. And if one thinks about the situation in terms of how much government spending has expanded over the past seven years, it seems even more plausible to think of them as basically liberal.”
Yes, they are liberal in many ways—one worldism, open borders, big government, nation building, —absolutely right. No argument here.
—PaV
That is an excellent definition of conservative/ liberal by the way. Conservatives do conform their way of thinking to reality and liberals do try to conform reality to their way of thinking. Marx, Freud, Mead, and Kinsey all tried to remake the world in their own image and likeness. They wanted the world to be just like they were. Its a lot easier to create a phony morality than conform to the real one.
Pav:
To that I would add–Conservatives think that we make the world the way it is, liberals think the way the world is makes us.
After reading most of the comments on this thread, I’m pretty sure that most people who view this as a negative don’t listen to Michael Medved. He is a articulate, considerate thinker. He “gets” ID and understands the nuances of the debate.
He entertains opposing points of view on his show constantly and has very good and meaningful interactions with them. He routinely debunks conspiracy theories, so the Bigfoot thing is no big deal to me. He is not given over to those types of things.
Comments regarding research, etc. Does anyone seriously believe that ID research and thinking will come to a hault because there is a formalized relationship between DI and Medved? What is even the point of the comment?
Exactly, Geoff. I think the addition of a public intellectual, like Medved, to the stable of resources at the Discovery Institute can only serve to kick the scientific program into high gear.
So saying that John Edwards and Ron Paul have essentially the same policies is an example of “considerate thinking”?
I have listened to plenty of Medved over the past few years, and none of it leads me to believe that Medved will add any credibility to the DI’s efforts outside those who are already true believers in ID.
Regarding research. What research?
tyke,
Why don’t you ask Professor Marks at Baylor what type of research is being done and being prevented from being done? Stop speaking out of ignorance.