Darwinist Anti-Creation Tactics Increase in Fervor

The consistent popular support for intelligent design and old-fashioned Biblical creationism is not making hard-core Darwinists any more interested in negotiating or debating.  Quite the contrary; as the following stories show, their opposition borders on mania and tyranny.

• Toad in the hole:  A blog named Toad in the Hole expresses some of the fervor of certain Darwinists who cannot tolerate the thought of intelligent design in a scientific context.  They are on a campaign to pressure libraries to move copies of Darwin’s Nemesis (an anthology by ID leaders about Phillip Johnson) from the life science section to the religion section. 
• Canadian intolerance:  For some Darwinists, it’s not enough to force creation and ID out of the public school science classrooms.  The Quebec National Post reported, “The Quebec Ministry of Education has told unlicensed Christian evangelical schools that they must teach Darwin’s theory of evolution and sex education or close their doors….”  Read what Evolution News said about this “winter chill” in Quebec.
• Dawkins Talkin’:  Richard Dawkins, on a book tour with The God Delusion, is making the rounds to combat religion.  The science journals are mostly praising the book, if not the intensity of his rhetoric.  The famous atheist and scientific rationalist has been also facing some stiff opposition, however; see Resurgence link to a YouTube clip (funny), and listen to this MP3 excerpt of debater David Quinn giving him a run for his money.  Terry Eagleton, English professor at U of Manchester (and no fundamentalist) was quite incensed at Dawkins and said so on the London Review of Books.  In addition, eminent philosopher Thomas Nagel (NYU School of Law) gave him bad press on National Review recently (see ID the Future).
      At an appearance at a local bookstore in Washington D.C., a visitor asked Dawkins whether it was consistent for him to believe in determinism and then take credit for writing his book.  Access Research Network tells how Dawkins hemmed and hawed, and then conceded he had to live as if determinism is false, and society must treat people as if they are responsible for their actions.  He admitted “it is an inconsistency that we sort of have to live with otherwise life would be intolerable.”  Evolution News has links to more stories about how “everyone’s talkin’ about Dawkins’ crusade against religion.”  There’s more Dawkins Talk on William Dembski’s blog Uncommon Descent (Oct 25-26) and on Post-Darwinist.
• This means war:  When a British ID-friendly group named Truth in Science decided to give out free copies of the film Unlocking the Mystery of Life to secondary schools throughout the UK, some in the media went ballistic.  Evolution News described the “unsupported assertions, editorializing in a manner that even some of the most agenda-driven reporting in the US has yet to do.”
• Detective mystery:  Who is the “British Centre for Science Education”?  David Anderson of Derbyshire decided to investigate.  He found some surprising clues about this organization which emerged to condemn the Truth in Science campaign, and reported his findings on his blog BCSE Revealed; it reads like a detective mystery.
• The Polish front:  The deputy education minister of Poland, a member of the conservative League of Polish Families (LPR) that entered the ruling coalition in May, got vocal with anti-Darwin statements recently: “The theory of evolution is a lie” and “It is an error we have legalized as a common truth.”  Immediately, the scientific establishment mobilized to fight this “catastrophe.”  Nature 10/26 reported that “Members of the Polish Academy of Sciences protested against the LPR campaign in an open letter that was published in several Polish newspapers,” hoping that “the quick response will avert damage to Polish science and education.”  Some were worried that “People could easily get the impression that there is a controversy about evolution among scientists.”
      Included in the report are charges that the LPR is “ultra-right-wing” (see loaded words) and that the deputy education minister has “openly homophobic, anti-Semitic and nationalistic opinions” and “is also known to favour creationist views” (see association).  It quoted one signer of the letter that said, “However, the point that really requires further discussion is not evolution, but how a minister can say such stupid things” (see ridicule).  Another researcher was “shocked” by the anti-Darwinist statements, saying, “We really did not expect a creationist movement to emerge in Poland.”  (Nature 443, 890-891(26 October 2006) | doi:10.1038/443890c).
• Keep on schmucking:  The same issue of Nature contains three favorable book reviews of anti-creationist books: (1) a mostly-favorable review by Lawrence M. Krauss of Dawkins” book The God Delusion, (2) a friendly review by Brian Charlesworth of Sean B. Carroll’s new book The Making of the Fittest: DNA and the Ultimate Forensic Record of Evolution, and (3) a positive review by Paul Bloom and Izzat Jarudi of Marc D. Hauser’s book Moral Minds: How Nature Designed Our Universal Sense of Right and Wrong which presents “A view of morality as the product of an innate mental faculty – rather like language.”
      When creationism or intelligent design is mentioned at all in these reviews, it is only to dismiss it briefly; Charlesworth, for instance, says “A favourite ploy of creationists is to accept the possibility of small-scale evolutionary change by darwinian means, but to deny that this has any relevance to the evolution of complex structures or new species.”  A large cartoon in Krauss’s review shows a man with a sandwich board proclaiming, “Renounce God and be saved.”
• Remote slander takes no guts:  Columnist Mike Adams in his Oct 30 entry on TownHall.com describes how he had to give a speech to a hostile audience at the University of Minnesota.  Before he even arrived, he had been lambasted by P.Z. Myers, associate professor of biology at UMM and author of the anti-creationist blog Pharyngula (07/06/2006, 11/21/2005).  How had Myers described Adams?  For starters, “Horowitzian shill, anti-feminist, creationist clown, homophobic bigot, warrior for free speech, professional racist, gun kook, academic-by-accident, beauty contest judge, and just generally contemptible far, far right-wing nutcase.”¹  Adams told how Myers, though vicious in his attacks online, did not have the courage to ask any questions in person.  After the talk, which went smoothly without incident, Myers continued his web attacks afterwards, including telling lies that were refuted by the videotape.

Journalist Denyse O’Leary takes all this in stride on her blog Post-Darwinist.  She says this proves that the media and the Darwinists themselves are ID’s best friends.  Such outbursts only makes her job as a reporter on ID issues easier.
    A much calmer analysis was given by philosophy professor Douglas Groothuis [Denver Seminary] in The Denver Post 10/29.  Groothuis compared the arguments given by opposite sides in two recent books by ID advocate Jonathan Wells and skeptic Michael Shermer; “Wells’ case is arguably the more thorough, respectful and thought-provoking of the two,” he said, claiming that Shermer’s case depended less on scientific evidence than psychological and theological claims and excluding design by definition.  “In informal logic, this is known as the fallacy of begging the question,” Groothuis explained: “What should be proved is instead presumed.”  Shermer also resorted to emotional attacks, such as making an abrupt assertion, “Creation by intelligent design is absurd.”  To Groothuis, “This premature editorializing sets a sharp tone for the rest of the book.”

¹Mike Adams’ actual views on such things are freely available on TownHall.com; Adams, PhD in sociology, was formerly an atheist, but is now a well-known Christian conservative and critic of left-wing academic politics; he is on the faculty of U of North Carolina at Wilmington.  It should be noted that Adams is a master of sarcasm and satire, so quotes on issues must not be taken out of context.

The intensity of anti-creationist rhetoric exceeds all bounds of reason.  One cannot imagine these same people being as angry at the Taliban or child molesters as they are against a lot of innocent people who simply feel that whenever Darwinism is taught, students should have the right to know the problems also, and that evidence for design deserves to be discussed.  Remember: first they ignore you, then they fight you, then they become hysterical, then they collapse from brain short-circuits, then you win.  With reaction #3 right on cue, the ID Movement has a bright future.