So what happened when that kiddie surgeon Ben Carson gave the speech at Emory graduation?
| May 16, 2012 | Posted by News under Darwinism, Intelligent Design, News, Popular culture |
Here (Evolution News & Views, May 16, 2012 )
In the end, President Wagner introduced Dr. Carson gracefully. Carson gave a beautiful speech (no notes or text either), funny and inspiring and eloquent. I got choked up when he talked about Francis Scott Key composing the words that became the lyrics of the “Star Spangled Banner” as he observed the British bombardment of Fort McHenry in 1814. Key saw how the American troops, defending Baltimore Harbor, would not let the flag fall despite being showered by upwards of 1500 cannonballs along with rockets and mortar shells, a lesson in persistence. But I’m not doing justice to the way he tells it. Watch for yourself.
Yes, he addressed the evolution flap and gently but firmly put his critics in their place:
I know there was some controversy about my views on creation and somebody thought that I said that evolutionists are not ethical people. Of course I would never say such a thing and would never believe such a thing nor would anybody with any common sense. So that’s pretty ridiculous.
How could the four professors who drew up the petition of complaint seriously think he meant to say Darwin believers are morally defective, as opposed to acknowledging what’s obviously true — that Darwinian evolution undercuts any coherent defense of moral principles?
Better still, later in the speech and without referencing the Emory dustup, he made an unapologetic pitch for reasoned debate over enforced dogma. “Political correctness,” he said, “threatens the prosperity and the vitality of our nation.”
But the critical thing to see is that it does NOT threaten the Darwinbots who batten off US taxpayers, claiming to know the history of life when they don’t.
Realize: Kid surgeon Ben Carson may be the last guy to ever give a speech at that U who doesn’t conform to their stupid political correctness. No matter how useful he might be to you and yours.
While we are here: UD News, whatever you may imagine it is worth (or isn’t) to you, is written by someone who survived a kiddie op in a frontier outpost in Canada in 1958. Seeing the doctor’s terrified face, while going under, … that doc hadn’t done any operations before and, well, he wasn’t Ben Carson, but … hey, Ben would have cheered him on.
The alternative was, kid dies tonight. So the kid’s parents were told. And would never have signed for it otherwise
The kid was unsteady for some weeks, but discovered that feet still exist.
Look, finally, reality must triumph over useless Darwinism, coddling faculty tea parties.
Here’s him:
6 Responses to So what happened when that kiddie surgeon Ben Carson gave the speech at Emory graduation?
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Inspirational!
We desperately need people like Ben Carson in public life. Too many people affirm diversity in one breath, then deny it in the next. Carson’s advice is sound: “Political correctness threatens the prosperity and the vitality of our nation.” Policy makers need to take this on board, as well as leaders in academia.
Ouch, sounds scary! What was this, appendicitis?
I know it’s irrelevant but I think I was as scared as that outpost doctor when I was the only surgeon on call and I got bowel colic and thought it was appendicitis.
Operating on a kid – scary. Operating on yourself…
News:
Thanks for tracking this important story.
It is indeed saddening that the Darwin censors, by throwing rhetorical stink-bombs, have forced the president of this university to set a policy that no-one who does not pass the Darwinist gauntlet will ever be allowed to speak like this again, ever. Political correctness may have got a well-deserved bloody nose from Dr Carson, but — through this sad precedent — it has won the battle to censor what is said in public from the platform of major universities.
Let us note Dr Carson’s short and gentle rebuttal to the vicious ad hominem:
Next, let us observe ENV’s apt comment on its significance:
After that, let us listen again to Dr Carson’s warning on the tactics of the ruthless Darwinist factions:
Let us then think about what this incident also implies for less eminent people, perhaps a bright grad student, or a young professor who begins to see the holes in the evolutionary materialist picture and knows what nearly happened to Ben Carson at Emory. The bullies got a well-deserved bloody nose because enough people stood up for such a case, but a less eminent person will not have that kind of protection.
Sadly, while the bullies had a bloody nose, they actually won the wider fight to impose politically correct evolutionary materialist censorship on public speech events in the academy. For, no university administrator in future is going to expose himself to this sort of attack. Censorship — in the short run — will be the personally safer path. But in the longer run, the whole civilisation suffers from that imposed censorship and triumph of incivility.
(BTW, see why I am saying that we need to build an alternative independent education system?)
Let us therefore note this underlying trend with shame and alarm for what it means for where the life of the mind is headed in our civilisation.
In addition, let us observe a careful distinction: what Dr Carson here outlined is how an artful strawman distractor can be used to pull attention away from the real issue; the utter want of a worldview foundational IS that can objectively ground OUGHT on evolutionary materialist premises.
What is happening is that this is being willfully twisted into a “how dare you” false accusation that one who raises the worldview foundation issue is implying or saying that all or even most who adhere to the Darwinist origins story are habitually and generally amoral or immoral in their behaviour. Then, with that twist-about rhetorical talking point on the table, there is a convenient excuse to attack the man instead of deal with the rather inconvenient issue.
Those who played this tactic did not hesitate to use it against so eminent a humanitarian as Dr Carson, seeking to besmirch his reputation.
And, nowhere, do we see the faintest sign of the appropriate public apology for this smear.
Ironically, by playing this red herring –> strawman –> ad hominem card, the bullies and censors in fact demonstrate the force of Dr Carson’s actual underlying point: evolutionary materialism tends to undermine the support for that which is moral in our civilisation, because [improperly: we are here looking at a worldview not a scientific theory warranted by actual observations] through dressing itself in the holy lab coat, it holds the prestige of science and in the name of science proclaims, implies or simply assumes — every INTELLIGENT and INFORMED person “knows” — that all that is, is material. But, since on such a premise, one cannot ever objectively ground ought, this destabilises ethics in our civilisation, opening the door to the terrible premise that might and manipulation make ‘right.’
As Plato warned us on what had been happening in Athens c 400 BC, in his 360 BC The Laws, Bk X, such opens the door to ruthless manipulative and intimidatory factions who wish to push agendas on us that if the society had a sounder basis for addressing morality, would never pass the smell test (or even in some cases the giggle test):
Of course, many are tempted to try to tell the truth by the clock — clocks tell time, not the truth — and dismiss such a classical era warning as “pre-enlightenment.”
To such, I solemnly warn, in the voice of Sanatayana and many other historians: those who refuse to learn the lessons of history are doomed to relive its worst chapters. As the ghosts of well over 100 millions moan out, reminding us of the history of how the past century plainly played out with the sad story of both the fascist and the communist ideologues once they seized power. And that leaves off the bloody foreshadowing of what radical revolutions animated by the rationalist, empiricist, deist then positivist- materialist spirit would do, that was set by the horrors of the French Revolution and its aftermath.
Nor is this a mere reading back into history of what we now know. For Heine warned in the early 1830′s as follows, for Germany:
That was 100 years ahead of what happened in Germany.
We have been warned and the canaries in the mines are gagging and keeling over, but are we listening?
GEM of TKI
PS: let us not forget too, Marxism was rooted in the same framework of German thought.
Since this has dropped below the fold and did not receive the sort of attention it should have, let me note my follow up post here.