Updates on the Fight for Academic Freedom

This is an excerpt from  the Discovery Institute, which I receive via email periodically. My desire is to keep people apprised and aware of what is going on, and hopefully stimulate a little effort on the part of academic freedom to speak about the issues here involved without fear. It seems Darwinism does not like being challenged; but that only begs the question, why? Are the advocates of Darwinism unwilling to consider plausible alternatives, or is there something else at work here? A fair count of evolutionary scientists are beginning to come forward and admit that their theory (Darwinian Evolution) is filled with holes. I know that it's difficult to change one's mind, especially when it is something  that boasts such amazing implications, but isn't the alternative intellectual suicide? I leave the reader to decide.

This year the intelligent design (ID) movement achieved a historic milestone when Stephen Meyer's Darwin's Doubt became the first science book arguing for intelligent design in biology to debut on the New York Times best seller list. At the same time, the book received endorsements from world-class scientists at Harvard, the Max Planck Institute, the University of Georgia, and elsewhere.

Unfortunately, when you make significant progress, you also often provoke significant opposition. And that's what we have been seeing over the past several weeks. In my nearly two decades of being involved with this issue, I can't remember such a time of sustained intolerance and attacks on free speech relating to intelligent design. Around the country, militant activists are increasingly turning to intimidation in order to silence scientists who see evidence of intelligent design in nature.

This past summer the President of Ball State University in Indiana prohibited faculty from expressing support for intelligent design in the classroom. She further banned science faculty from even discussing intelligent design in their classes. Ironically, although Ball State finds it intolerable to permit professors to express their support for intelligent design, it sponsors an honors seminar on "Dangerous Ideas" in which the sole textbook declares "Science Must Destroy Religion" and "There is no God; no Intelligent Designer; no higher purpose to our lives"!

Ball State is not the only place where freedom of expression is under attack.

A few weeks ago, a community college in Texas cancelled a philosophy course on the debate over Darwinism and intelligent design because college officials said they were intimidated by angry messages from a local "freethinkers" group that promised to disrupt the course if it was offered. In other words, these college administrators essentially allowed atheist censors to shut down free speech and intellectual inquiry on their college campus.