Uncommon Descent Serving The Intelligent Design Community

Evolutionary Blackballing No Longer in the Closet

Share
Facebook
Twitter
LinkedIn
Flipboard
Print
Email

Evolutionists don’t usually advertise their McCarthyist blackballing, for even they realize that manipulating the message, controlling information, ruining careers and the like doesn’t look good. But in the wake of the uproar over this year’s commencement speaker—neurosurgeon Ben Carson who doubts all of biology arose spontaneously as evolutionists insist—Emory University President Jim Wagner had no choice not only to implement an evolutionary “background checking step” to filter out all future commencement speakers who might say something interesting, but to make it clear to all that such a blackballing procedure would be formally implemented.  Read more

Comments
Since there's no valid evolutionary theory - the Modern Evolutionary Synthesis has been already declared heuristically dead (from inception) under what theoretical framework are scientists doing evolutionary biology???Enezio E. De Almeida Filho
May 13, 2012
May
05
May
13
13
2012
12:52 PM
12
12
52
PM
PST
Mr. Rickert writes, "You could ask the same question about every letter to the editor that has ever been written. You could ask that question about every blog post that has ever been made. You could ask that question about every blog comment that has ever been made." No, not really. We're not discussing the blogosphere. We're not discussing the op-ed page. We're discussing a petition demanding that the invitation to speak at commencement be rescinded simply because a respected neurosurgeon does not toe the Darwinian line. "If we appreciate freedom of speech, then we don’t waste our time with such questions. If we disagree with what was said, then we exercise our own freedom of speech to express that disagreement." Freedom of speech means making time to hear others' opinions, even if we disagree with them. You're complaining about ID, when the real complaint should be directed against the petitioners who started this to begin with. The real complaint should be with Emory University, which now apparently will be doing 'background checks' to make sure that no dissent from Darwinism is allowed to creep in. That's not freedom of speech. That's fascism.Barb
May 13, 2012
May
05
May
13
13
2012
11:09 AM
11
11
09
AM
PST
What do I have against Nazis? Everything.Joe
May 13, 2012
May
05
May
13
13
2012
05:50 AM
5
05
50
AM
PST
Just what do you have against Nazis Joe? We have a national socialists party right here in the good ol' USA.Mung
May 12, 2012
May
05
May
12
12
2012
08:55 PM
8
08
55
PM
PST
Yes Neil- when the nazi thought-police rear their ugly heads it sends us into a tizzy.....Joe
May 12, 2012
May
05
May
12
12
2012
03:50 PM
3
03
50
PM
PST
Neil Rickert:
500 faculty write a letter to the editor, and the ID proponents get into a tizzy fit. Apparently have signed a partition supporting Carson, but apparently, that’s okay.
Let's see . . . Faculty (including a bunch of folks who don't know much about biology, but just signed on to "support" their colleagues) come together en masse to publicly denounce someone who doesn't hold their views, get some of the facts wrong, and pull out the usual blackballing techniques, all in order to try to prevent him from speaking. A group of people, seeing this behavior, petition to recommend that the university not cave to this pressure but instead let Dr. Carson speak as originally planned. Hmmmm . . . Not too tough to see the difference here. Maybe try putting off your blinders next time before making ridiculous comparisons.Eric Anderson
May 12, 2012
May
05
May
12
12
2012
03:46 PM
3
03
46
PM
PST
F/R: Over at CH's blog:
RC: Is is right for a commencement speaker for a large, diverse audience portray a good portion of that audience as "dismissing ethics?" Hunter thinks it is CRAZY to pick a commencement speaker that wouldn't alienate and insult the audience. Do you think you have the right to tell a PRIVATE university how to select a commencement speaker?
KF: Let's try an exercise in evaluation of messages and response. Please observe this, from prof Provine's keynote address at the Darwin Day event in U Tenn in 1998, a well-known statement that is conspicuously not denounced by the elites:
>> Naturalistic evolution has clear consequences that Charles Darwin understood perfectly. 1) No gods worth having exist; 2) no life after death exists; 3) no ultimate foundation for ethics exists; 4) no ultimate meaning in life exists; and 5) human free will is nonexistent . . . >>
I have never ever heard of Darwinists being offended, signing petitions and complaining about this, or similar things from the likes of Crick, or Dawkins, or any number of others. Now, explain to me how this differs substantially in underlying meaning -- evolutionary materialism leads to subjectivism and/or relativism on morals -- from what Dr Carson said. Or for that matter, from what Plato said in The laws, Bk X, 2350 years ago. This is sounding uncommonly like it is not what is being said but who says it that is the problem. Absent a convincing explanation, I think I have a right on fair comment to hold that what is really going on is anti-Christian bigotry, disguised as huffing and puffing and finding offence over that which is routinely implied or outright said by leading Darwinists, once it comes form the mouth of someone who is taking exception to it. (Of course, I didn't bother to discus the strawman caricature of Carson that was set up and knock over, or the silliness of equating the degree of warrant for an origins theory on a past we did not and cannot observe, with gravity which we do observe in the here and now. And of course in so observing, we have had to see Newton's theory of gravitation as a limiting case once the support for relativity rolled in.) KFkairosfocus
May 12, 2012
May
05
May
12
12
2012
12:55 PM
12
12
55
PM
PST
Mr. Rickert, a better question would be, “Why did the petition against Dr. Carson even have to be written up?”
You could ask the same question about every letter to the editor that has ever been written. You could ask that question about every blog post that has ever been made. You could ask that question about every blog comment that has ever been made. If we appreciate freedom of speech, then we don't waste our time with such questions. If we disagree with what was said, then we exercise our own freedom of speech to express that disagreement.Neil Rickert
May 12, 2012
May
05
May
12
12
2012
12:27 PM
12
12
27
PM
PST
Mr. Rickert, a better question would be, "Why did the petition against Dr. Carson even have to be written up?" Why is there an evolutionary background check for prospective commencement speakers at this college? What are the Darwinists so afraid of? That someone might actually disagree with them?Barb
May 12, 2012
May
05
May
12
12
2012
12:18 PM
12
12
18
PM
PST
500 faculty write a letter to the editor, and the ID proponents get into a tizzy fit. Apparently have signed a partition supporting Carson, but apparently, that's okay. As far as I know, Carson is still scheduled to give the commencement address. Personally, I think freedom of speech is great. What is it that Dr. Hunter and some other ID proponents find so threatening about it?Neil Rickert
May 12, 2012
May
05
May
12
12
2012
12:00 PM
12
12
00
PM
PST

Leave a Reply