I had an interesting conversation today with a tenured scientist who is on faculty at a research university. He was recently invited to defend ID at a public forum at the university. He declined to do it. Here’s why. Although he is a proponent of ID, he has never taught it in his classes. He is afraid that if he defends it on campus, even in a public forum arranged by one of the science departments, he will be branded as “having taught ID on campus.” This, he fears, will be used against him down the line — and he is right. He therefore told the department chair that tried to get him to speak at the forum that he would do so only if it were off-campus. The chair understood and agreed that this was the prudent course to take.
Lesson 1: Our university campuses are now the most dangerous places to discuss ID if you have anything to lose.
Lesson 2: Our best hope for getting ID discussed on college campuses is therefore the undergraduates, who have nothing to lose.*
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*You can always transfer to another institution. And because of your youth, you can always feign immaturity if you need to wheedle your way back into the system: “I was young and impressionable, and those evil ID guys bamboozled me. But now I’ve seen the true light of Darwinism …”