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Expelled at Baylor: Local reaction to film varies

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Hre’s a thoughtful look by Tim Woods of the Waco Herald-Tribune at the response in and around Baylor University to Expelled – given that Baylor itself was one of the subjects. On the situation of Prof. Robert Marks, Woods records,

Marks’ involvement in Expelled centers on a Web site about his evolutionary informatics research lab.
The research is friendly to the philosophy of intelligent design, Marks says, but is not direct intelligent design research.
The site, formerly on Baylor’s server, was shut down last year by school officials who claimed it lacked sufficient disclaimers that the work was in no way that of Baylor University.

I admire the way reporter Woods relays – with no comment – a rationale so paper-thin as to display the institution’s contempt for the reader/hearer. So many journalists today, wedded to materialism, would choose to implicitly make excuses for the institution. One such might have written, “because, they explained, Marks had never made clear that the university did not support his research.”

Then Woods quotes a functionary:

“What we say is you have the freedom to formulate your own views and so forth, just make sure that you issue a disclaimer that your particular view does not necessarily express the view of Baylor University,” Baylor Provost Randall O’Brien explained in September, when an Expelled film crew was in Waco trying to talk with President John Lilley. “We fully endorse the right and responsibilities of academic freedom.”

That sort of claim is just what Expelled rips to pieces. If that is true, why is Marks’s work on a remote server?

The  part that puzzles me is this: Why don’t secular universities and their religious fellow travellers just admit that they don’t really believe in intellectual freedom? The intelligent design controversy is a pretty striking example of their disbelief, but a film could also be made about idiotic campus speech codes enforced across North America.

Actually, there is no reason why a materialist, Christian or otherwise, should think intellectual or academic freedom is important. To the extent that the materialist believes that our minds just happened to evolve for fitness, not for discovering truth, intellectual freedom is an illusion. Perhaps too costly an illusion if it leads people to doubt materialism.

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Comments
We need pastors and priests to take responsible leadership when advising students and parents about colleges. E.g. if a "Catholic" university has hosted a pro-abort speaker (especially if they have also banned pro-lifers), then a priest should advise parents not to pay for their kids' education there. Instead, he should advise them to go to a secular college, which is cheaper, and the kids know to expect anti-Catholic teachings there, so are on their guard. Older parishioners thinking of leaving bequests should be advised to leave them to organizations that still adhere to Catholic principles, not those which were Catholic when they attended 40 years previously. Of course, this would require the priests to be faithful to Catholic teaching, as opposed to giving communion to pro-abort politicians like Pelosi, Cuomo, Giuliani and Sebelius. The same goes for Baptist pastors. Since Baylor is so concerned about sucking up to materialism, students should be advised to go to the real thing, and save lots of money. Also, any uni that has a "diversity office" or "campus speech codes" should likewise be avoided. It would be worth consulting Choosing the Right College.Jonathan Sarfati
May 1, 2008
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The part that puzzles me is this: Why don’t secular universities and their religious fellow travellers just admit that they don’t really believe in intellectual freedom? The intelligent design controversy is a pretty striking example of their disbelief, but a film could also be made about idiotic campus speech codes enforced across North America. Actually a film has been made along these lines: Indoctrinate U. I have not had the opportunity to view it yet.bevets
May 1, 2008
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Dear Ms O'Leary, and Mr. Sarfati, I have books from you guys and I enjoyed them a lot. (Wonder when a French translation will be available of the Spiritual Brain, but it's much wanted!) Anyway, -"There might indeed be a big scandal with these “evolution simulators" This intrigues me. Do you know what might "threatens" the dogma? I remember on the EvC forum a forumer pointed me out to this evo simulator: http://devolab.cse.msu.edu/discovermag.pdf It was after I presented myself as a computer programmer. And I had said that as a programmer I can't conceive any program to be developped at random. This forumer said that this simulator showed that a program could be evolved randomly. But after reading the article it seems like it's contrived towards a specific goal or something.Pazu1982
May 1, 2008
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You raise an interesting point, Jonathan. Baylor is following in the footsteps of many originally Catholic universities. The problem is that the faithful want to support a university that makes their culture look good. But in a society controlled by materialists whose flaks are the legacy media, only a sellout looks good. As a result, the U cannot attract ambitious profs who know when to cut a deal for the sake of advancement. The key point to keep in mind is that such a university's culture is endangered by contrary ideas that actually work. If Robert Marks had just been an eccentric prof dabbling in numbers, the adminbots would not need to shut down his site (without telling him). They needed to do that because - the U admin knows as well as anyone else - he might actually be right. There might indeed be a big scandal with these "evolution simulators." Why not? Darwinists have been claiming they had evidence for macroevoution for many decades, and they haven't. And Baylor admin woudn't want anyone from Baylor breaking the scandal - especially someone they can't then easily get rid of. Of course, Marks might also be wrong - the point is that Baylor can't risk it. Let enough guys like him survive in the system, and one of them will be right. And then Baylor's credibility among the people who really matter is blown to blazes. Meanwhile, the admin can always play on the loyalty of soft-hearted old Baptists to keep the cheques coming in. I can hear the sobbing even now, as the wind is from the south. Re Frank Beckwith's tenure: The reason it was even controversial is most likely that he not only had traditional Christian views on a controversial subject, but he advanced them in an intellectually powerful manner. See, it's okay to believe all that rot, as long as you confine it to "church" or "religion" and are not actually advancing the belief in the real world, where materialists rule.O'Leary
May 1, 2008
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Baylor has long been a BINO (Baptist In Name Only) university. It's high time that Baptist leaders woke up to this. Baylor also found Francis Beckwith too pro-life, as Mrs O'Leary has pointed out before.Jonathan Sarfati
April 30, 2008
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O'Leary wrote,
The intelligent design controversy is a pretty striking example of their disbelief, but a film could also be made about idiotic campus speech codes enforced across North America.
Such a film was recently made and released virally: Indoctrinate U. FIRE is featured prominently.todd
April 30, 2008
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