I just clicked a link in a Google Alert with my father’s named misspelled and it turns out someone has written a book claiming it is a terrible injustice that people who deny evolution are not being admitted to Ph.D. programs in biology because this cheats them of the credential they need to teach the various forms of re-branded religion that deny evolution as factual so they can use science to force people to believe their religion.
It is the mirror image of Climategate, where suddenly Right wingers believe in the science showing that global warming/climate change is a big, fat hoax being perpetrated to destroy capitalism globally and enrich Al Gore, et al., via green enterprises and investments, while it is Left wingers clinging to their religious faith that weather is not supposed to change and is not primarily controlled by sunspots and ocean tides. Even though it is.
Here’s the passage that inspired this post:
“Is this only a “Christian fundamentalist” issue? Hardly! To begin with, the ranks of Darwin doubters include not only non-Christians, but also non-theists such as David Berlinski, Michael Denton, Periannan Senapathy, Chandra Wickramasighe, Murray Eden, Marcel-Paul Schutzenberger, Herbert [sic] Yockey, Stanly Salthe, Christian Schwabe, Gerald Kerkut, Professor Lime-De-Faria, Pierre Grasse, Soren Lovtrop, David Stove, Fred Hoyle, John Davison, and others who are closeted for obvious reasons.”
I have edited my father’s work since the late 1980’s. My father, Hubert P. Yockey, considers Darwin’s theory of evolution to be one of the most well-established in science. The epitome of his life’s work is that he has demonstrated why the origin of life is an axiom of biology, just as the origin of matter is an axiom of physics and chemistry. The belief that scientists will be able to re-create the origin of life is based purely on faith, even if it is a secular one.
Similarly, Intelligent Design is re-branded Creationism and originated in a misunderstanding of my father’s work that has since morphed into a deliberate distortion. Hubert P. Yockey points out in his book Information Theory, Evolution and the Origin of Life why Intelligent Design is wrong: the genome does the job that ID’ers claim require a Designer AND since there are no gaps in the genome from the origin of life to the present day, and we now have the ability to look back at the development of species using the genome, the objection to evolution that there are gaps in the fossil record is obsolete.
Let me know when it becomes Darwin’s Law. Until then, it’s still just a theory. A very nice theory, mind you, and one someone in the biosciences should be well acquainted with.
I R A Darth Aggie,
Actually, it probably should be called Darwin’s laws of evolution by now. There. Fixed.
In science, “theory” does not mean “guess.” In science, “theory” means “this is the explanation for how X happens.” It is more like laying out an algorithm.
Cynthia
That is one of the reasons I wanted the MSM to cover Climategate immediatly and widely. Hiding and dismissing what was found (hacked) would add more confusion and distortion in other areas of debate. But no, the world is not ready to know that Phil Jones and others made of the scientific process a travesty. A great disservice to the truth.
.-= Dr. sipmac´s last blog ..A-Holes of the Year =-.
I don’t exactly know where I’d stand in Academia, probably near the exit, I was never really loved in the big University where I took some of my continuing education courses. Remind me someday to tell the story of how, with a new holster I was trying, my off-duty gun fell out and went bouncing down the aisle in a big lecture hall full of dewy-eyed kids, about two hundred of them. I took all I could in the community college, only half of those faculty wanted of off the pig.
What really got me were those Criminology courses, taught by people who had never held so much as a riot stick, much less a service revolver and a set of Peerless Handcuffs. But, I digress.
I do believe Darwin was on to something, I also believe that evolution is His way of building His world. I sometimes wonder where He came from, then I quit thinking and eat a piece of Linda Lou’s cheesecake and take a nap. Even as poorly as I have done, trying to follow my religion, it’s made me a better man.
While there have been some horrors in the background of Christianity and the mother religion of the Chosen People, those horrors are nothing compared to scientific socials and National socialism.
So, I don’t much care about academia these days, the inmates have taken over too much of the asylum. It’s a damned shame too. So many parents send their bright, well adjusted kids to the universities and then get back hateful and hating kids, unfit to make a living, so many suicidal. I believe our kids are healthy, happy and enjoying productive lives now because we sent them to Church of Christ colleges and universities. They learned Darwin there but not hatred of America.
Something must be done about all those socialists infesting the academy. Tar and feathers might be a start.
I can’t agree with you on this one. Personally, in my view, creation and evolution are not mutually exclusive: creation is the act, and evolution is the means. That’s how I look at it.
As a science major, however, I would not teach that in a class, although I would allow students to discuss it if they wanted to, and I would explain that it is a religious doctrine that many do not believe. Then again, Sir Isaac Newton believed, and no one would call him irrelevant.
And I am surprised that someone who fights so hard for tolerance and acceptance would be so – sorry, -intolerant on this issue. Should an English teacher be run out of academia because he/she believes in creation? What about a science teacher who sticks to the science and doesn’t try to convert his or her students? I don’t believe in religious or philosophical litmus tests for college professors. In fact, I WANT to know where they stand on issues – what I don’t like are hidden agendas and viewpoints.
Stinky,
First, I’m fighting for equality under the law for homosexuals. Tolerance and acceptance are personal matters. They might make people more likely to support legal equality for homosexuals, but my target is equality.
Second, I thought I made it clear teaching Darwin’s laws of evolution has nothing to do with belief. It is science. Regarding the origin of life, coding theory shows why life is an axiom of biology. Creationism and Intelligent Design are religion. Period.
Teachers may believe in anything they want. But they must teach the facts. I only wrote about what must be taught.
Cynthia