Free Speech?  Not When Darwin Is at Stake

Radicals get away with saying or doing almost anything on campuses these days.  There’s one “radical” view, however, that even though believed by a majority of Americans, is sure to be met with outrage: creationism.  It doesn’t even have to be creationism.  Just to suggest that Darwin and his views might not be infallible is enough in some quarters to provoke outrage and censorship.

• Oregon Trial:  A rapid ouster from the classroom was what biology teacher Kris Helphinstine faced when he dared question Darwinism before students in an Oregon high school.  According to Fox News, Helphinstine went out of his way to not to teach creationism.  His unforgivable sin, though, was to link Darwinism to Planned Parenthood and Nazi Germany in a Powerpoint presentation.  He explained, “Critical thinking is vital to scientific inquiry.  My whole purpose was to give accurate information and to get them thinking.”  Comparing President Bush to Nazis would probably not have gotten him in so much trouble.
      Helphinstine said he was trying to teach a point about bias in sources, but apparently he pushed his point too far.  When his optional supplemental material included some Biblical references, that was “not just a little bit over the line,” a school board member in the Bend, Oregon town said.  One parent complained that his presentation prevented his daughter from learning what she needed to learn.  Another asked, “How many minds did he pollute?”  It didn’t matter that Helphinstine has a master’s in science from Oregon State.  He was summarily fired after only 8 days on the job.
• Don’t Bring that Stuff Here:  One would think an ostensibly Christian university would like to hear a good discussion about intelligent design (ID) vs evolution.  A “Darwin vs. Design” event is scheduled for next month (April 13-14) at Southern Methodist University (see DarwinVsDesign.com).  These are simple lecture events where PhD scientists share scientific evidence for design in nature.
      In a pre-emptive strike, though, “angry” professors “fired blistering letters to the administration, asking that the event be shut down,” reported Jeffrey Weiss for the Dallas News.  A taste of the anger from the Anthropology Dept.: “They have no place on an academic campus with their polemics hidden behind a deceptive mask,” begging the question of who is engaging in polemics.  “Similar letters were sent by the biology and geology departments,” Weiss said.
      What about free speech?  A college campus has its limits, apparently.  The scientists are calling for prior restraint, complaining that the event will give the “impression that Intelligent Design has support from scientists at the school.”  This “propaganda” event is causing “enormous discomfort” to the science professors, who feel that hosting ID proponents on campus is tantamount to “giving them legitimacy.”
      The administration defended the event on free speech grounds while holding ID at arm’s length: “Although SMU makes its facilities available as a community service, and in support of the free marketplace of ideas, providing facilities for those programs does not imply SMU’s endorsement of the presenters’ views.”

The Discovery Institute responded with a press release stating that the censorship attempts by the faculty exemplifies why such a conference is needed.  Bruce Chapman, President, reminded the critics that “Darwin himself wrote that ‘a fair result can be obtained only by fully stating and balancing the facts and arguments on both sides of each question.”  Evolution News, a blog of the Discovery Institute, keeps a running commentary on critics of intelligent design and their tactics.  Robert Crowther posted a response to the SMU protest for Evolution News.  For an idea of what’s coming to SMU, see the report on Knox News about the Darwin vs. Design conference that was just held Sat. March 24 at the Knoxville Convention Center in Tennessee.

If you are wagging your head right now at the intolerance of the Darwinists to debate the scientific evidence, and the degree of hostility to the idea of critical thinking about Darwin’s views, thank God.  You’re normal.  Not even Darwin would condone this irrational behavior.  Campuses routinely host the most outrageous, radical views in public, sponsored by the campus: lectures by homosexual activists or radical Islamists, without a peep.  You can denounce Bush as Hitler, spit on the Bible, make students act out Ramadan, wear cross-dressing clothes and use the other sex’s bathroom, and advocate euthanasia or bestiality, and reporters will yawn.  But mention the letters “ID” and you will not believe the hostility.  How can the open marketplace of ideas, especially at a nominally “Christian” university, condone prior restraint of the very core concepts (design in nature) that you would think Christians believe?  How can a public school, where kids’ lunch money still says “In God We Trust,” fire a teacher with a master’s degree in science for telling the truth that Darwinian evolution has clear historical linkages with Planned Parenthood and Nazi Germany? 
    These two stories show why the majority of people in this country, who still deny that life is the product of blind natural processes, had better wake up and get involved.  Has America gone down the tubes this far, that Biblical references in supplemental material from a teacher daring to question Darwin’s Supreme Authority is fired on the spot?  A century ago the McGuffey Readers in public schools openly included Bible references, Bible stories, and Biblical morals.  Now, this is called “polluting” the minds of students, while abortion, homosexuality, and radical Islam and communism are openly praised.  How did it come to this?  What were you doing to let this happen?  Not even Darwin or Voltaire or Hume would consider this a healthy situation.  Calm down, Darwinistas!  Get a life.  Cool your jets.  Take a breath.  Chill out.  Get a reality check.  Let’s put the best scientific evidence on the table and talk about it, OK?  You’ve had your turn at the rostrum for 148 years.  Let’s be nice, now, and take turns.