In the last week, a long overdue critical examination of the intelligent design agenda has been triggered by comments from President Bush that he wants intelligent design ideas taught to kids in public school science classes. Intelligent design is an agenda that seeks to replace the scientific model of biological evolution with a religious model of a mysterious supernatural creator of life “embedded” in the Cosmos – God.
Intelligent design proponents claim that their ideas are purely scientific – just as Creationists try to promote their religious viewpoint by claiming to be Creation Scientists. Of course, intelligent design is not at all scientific in its structure. It depends upon a huge leap of religious faith: The pure belief that when there are mysteries in the universe, they must the be work of God.
The problem is that many Americans have been taught by their churches to eschew science, and so they don’t really know the difference between science and religion. So, when people from the intelligent design religious movement go around saying that they’re doing science, many Americans don’t know any better than to take them at their word. That’s why it’s important for those of us who do value science to point out the very suspicious links between intelligent design proponents and anti-science religious organizations.
One of those suspicious links exists between the major intelligent design organization, the Discovery Institute, and the administration of the new Pope – yes, that’s right, the Pope in Rome, the one who heads the Catholic Church.
You see, supporters of the new Pope, Pope Benedict XVI – also known as Ratzinger, have been attacking Pope John Paul II’s acceptance of biological evolution as a scientific fact. It turns out that even before he became Pope, Ratzinger was maneuvering to overturn the Catholic Church’s acceptance of evolution, working with Cardinal Christoph Schönborn, who sits on the Vatican’s Congregation for Catholic Education, to do so. Now that Ratzinger is Pope, he has declared through Schönborn that if biological evolution exists, it is only because God has personally directed the construction and reconstruction of life throughout history.
Does that idea sound familiar? It ought to – it’s the theology intelligent design. It’s no coincidence either that the Roman Catholic Church is using intelligent design language at the very same time that intelligent design theology is gaining prominence in the United States.
A Vice President of the Discovery Institute, Mark Ryland, met with Cardinal Schönborn to discuss the possibility of the Catholic Church throwing its weight behind intelligent design in the United States. Ryland is on the board of the International Theological Institute in Austria, and Cardinal Schönborn is chancellor of the same religious organization. Indeed, Ryland has admitted that he urged Cardinal Schönborn to write the essay attacking Pope John Paul II’s embrace of the science of biological evolution.
The cooperation gets even thicker when we discover that the intelligent design Discovery Institute has been using the same public relations firm to attack evolution that the Catholic Church has used to promote its new anti-evolution stance. It looks as if the Discover Institute is working hand in hand with religious organizations in coordinated attacks on evolution.
That’s not the way that science works. If the people at the Discovery Institute were really interested in doing science, they’d work with other scientists, not with Popes and Cardinals. When scientists want to advocate for their theories, they don’t meet with priests at theological institutes to devise public relations schemes. Real scientists promote their theories by publishing the results of their experiments in respected, peer-reviewed scientific journals, and inviting other scientists to replicate their experiments.
Intelligent design proponents have not bothered to get a single scientific article promoting their ideas published in a peer-reviewed journal. What’s more, intelligent design claims have actually been solidly refuted by real, published scientists. There has been no experiment to even attempt to verify intelligent design ideas – and there can’t be, because intelligent design relies on the religious faith that there is an invisible, all-powerful God pulling the strings of life in secret. How could anyone test such a faith-riddled idea in a real scientific experiment?
Intelligent design has been exposed as a sham, but the church groups keep on promoting it, pushing it into high school science classes although it is an obviously religious belief. These church groups are working to obscure the truth about intelligent design, and so it’s up to the rest of us, who believe that scientific freedom from theocratic supervision is a valuable thing, to keep on talking about the intelligent design movement, where it really comes from and what it’s really up to.
if we were in fact ‘intelligently’ designed by a supernatural godlike creature, then i have to severely doubt its intelligence. the human body is so full of impracticalities, such as the appendix, which most physiologists believe to have no function anymore. It is, however, prone to infections and diseases.
Not to mention nipples!
See, this all comes about because we’ve dumbed down education (trying to make everyone a college graduate), replaced discourse and debate with “because i said so” and leaps of baseless “faith”, and prove by hand waving and p/r campaigns what the “truth” is. The media now tell kids what’s cool, sells it to them in fact, and captures the public with the “repeat it until they believe it” technique now used by Mr. Anti-intellectual himself, the head waffler, Mr. Deceitful: Dubya. Wag the dog was supposed to be a joke! These guys are using it as policy! The war in Iraq is only what W says it is now – there’s no room for dissent in Congress, there’s no debate in the public arena (only SIDES in the play, and our side ain’t winnin’ yet – hey, you’re either with us . . .), and the government won’t listen to other views (won’t respond to criticism – like nonexistent planning and exit strategies).
Meanwhile the environment is degrading on all levels, pandemics are very close to becoming reality (because we aren’t prepared), and the oceans are dying and being overfished. We’re so out of balance as a species that those who think we are somehow godlike better take another look. We’re about to go through some very bad times. People like Rachel Carson and Ehlich started talking about it years ago, but nobody wanted to change. It took years to ban DDT and it STILL has effects on animal and bird species. Nobody wants to listen to overpopulation. “No, technology will save us!” Think again. Technology has its own accumulating effects (that won’t be felt for years to come, but then it’ll be too late to do anything about it – like the hole in the ozone).
The Catholic church with Ratzinger at the helm marks the beginning of an Inquisition of the intellect.
Hey, man, nice umlauts.
Where can I get a nice pair of umlauts like that?
You liberals are such elitists!
Who are we to say one person’s opinion is more valid than anyone else’s? Everyone has a right to their opinions, and they are all equally valid. Who are we to value one belief over another?
So see, if I feel as though 3+2=6, my belief is just as valid as someone who feels that 3+3=6. Don’t agree? You must be an elitist!
Confused yet? Of course you are. Us neo-cons have picked up the old leftist anti-elitist rhetoric and used it to serve the party of big tax cuts for the rich. Because, you see, the ends justify the means (that’s another one). Get it?
Yeah, it’s a little confusing. But don’t worry. There’s a plan. See, us neocons are going to have to destroy public education, in order to tap the voting power of the under-educated faithful, who honestly don’t know the difference between religion and science.
But don’t worry. Since we make over $200,000.00 a year, we’ll save more than enough money from our big juicy tax cuts to send our kids to private schools where they won’t get junk science rammed down their throats.
As an added bonus, junk-science public education will keep churning out naive morons that we, the neocon elite, can manipulate all the more easily.
Confused yet? Sure you are. It’s the damn liberal press that just distorts everything. We’ve got to keep fighting those elitist bastards!
CynicalSickness,
Don’t forget the spine.
Humans are the ONLY species that naturally gets back problems, because it seems our spines aren’t properly “made” for standing up.
We also naturally push and lift things the wrong way (i.e. in a way that’s bad for our back).
Oh, and that’s linked in as an explanation for the pain and death-rate associated with giving birth, though fundies will often tell you that’s probably because Eve (6000+ yrs ago) gave Adam a forbidden fruit, thus justifying a curse upon just under half of the population.
[NOTE: Zygotes are more likely to turn out male; it's the 20 yrs life expectancy gap that keeps the majority of the living population female.]
Enjoyed your posting, Mr. Neocon! One can only hope that we can remove our tongues from our cheeks by the next mealtime. In my formative years, as I may have mentioned before, I was told about opinions and something with which they shared certain charactoristics.
Yes, Sarge, I seem to recall that rather pungent comparison, and the conclusions made regarding the two…seems to fit Mr.Neocon to a “T”…Back to the topic at hand, the Fundies have been at this nonsense ever since the Scopes Monkey Trials…the difference now is that we have a large percentage of the population whose lives are “just too busy” to actually engage in thought, and they would rather turn that task (along with voting, child-rearing, and all those other mundane tasks) over to someone who can think for them…somebody who has the ear of GAWD…And who actually hears the WURD of GAWD…oh, yeah, and his kid, JEE-zuz-uh (three syllables)…cuz we’re all livin’ in SEE-in (two syllables)… I think it’s caused by something Dow Chemicals polluted the water supply with back in the 70′s…
Honestly Gentlemen,
The rabble wish nothing more than to indulge their Rousseauian noble-savage selves in the delights of primitive superstition.
We neo-cons wish nothing more than to exploit the power vacuum left by their innocence and get fat off their labor.
Everyone gets what they want, and we are all happy.
Then here come the liberals, trying to stir up class warfare, trying to make everyone an intellectual! Why do you want to force the commonfolk to learn science against their will?
Time to face the truth: These are not thinking people, and they never will be. They are told to do something and they do it. They are told to believe something and they believe it. Faith and simple credulity is the only mode of thought these innocent folk engage in.
Why not indulge them with beliefs that give them comfort and happiness?
Oh, yes, of course. All that post-enlightenment revolutionary claptrap about reason and liberation. Seems you’ll have to peddle that back in Old Europe where it belongs, because nobody’s buying it any more in America.
Sadly, that would explain a lot…
How did Americans forget the rights that America supposedly stands for?
Some of us remember – never forget that. Many Americans are actively resisting the attacks on liberty, but I’m very grateful that people in other places around the world are offering their support.
Slarty, I’m with you. Hare, Love, many of us haven’t. We cherish it, and we do what we can do to restore it. Maybe the time will come where we have to do a lot more, and do it quite vigorously, but there’s a few of us who might just be willing.
Mr. Neo Con brings up some very uncomfortable, unpleasant, but unfortunatly valid points. I disagree with Mr. Neo Con in his assesment that reason and liberation are claptrap. When I was a much younger man I lived a very restricted life-style. My father was an army officer and back in those times we were afraid of “going communist” As I stated before, as a child I didn’t see much difference between the life I was living and the horrors of the “godless commie” system. Actually, the commies had one thing in their favor: they wouldn’t make me go to Sunday school or church, so they actually had a point to the good. Then I went in, and back in those days, if you had any mind at all, looked at such a life and society and hoped that it was worth it to maintain the freedom of others. It wasn’t, of course. But one valued the things that were (allegedly) stood for all the more.
People have had their competence taken away. Now, one must be credentialed to build a doghouse. I wonder if it was done on purpose or just a happy accident which could be exploited by the more canny.
Mr. Neo Con, I am old and pretty used up. But although I was wrong in my assessments, I was willing to, and did in fact sacrifice my time and health, and put up with a considerable ammount of fear, pain, and mental stress. I did this for an ideal which I was told was reality. Day may come when I have to do it again for the sake of my grandchildren. I’ve thought about it lately, and I’ll be more careful about a lot of things this time, but I could, and I would.
Oh yes! I was travalling yesterday, and saw a church with a marquis that said, “The Big Bang Theory: What A Laugh! signed, GOD”
Sarge, I sincerely respect your sincerity, and honor the sacrifices you have made.
But I simply must disagree with you on a point of fact. The quaint 18th century notion of reason and liberation is, for all intents and purposes, dead in America.
Who do you hear articulating the linkage between reason and liberation? The politicians? Noses in the polls, constantly telling the public what it wants to hear. The press? Slave to ratings just as politicians are slaves to the polls. The tenured radicals of academe? Their incomprehensible “post-modern theory” disdains rationality. The old hippies? Destroyed their own rational faculties with hallucinogenic drugs long ago. Teen anarchists? It’s all about “rage,” not reason. Americans laugh out loud at philosophy, and treat the rational process as a harmless pastime at best–or a parasitic drain on society at worst.
I’m sorry Sarge, and I honestly wish it weren’t so. But we are a nation of fashion. And the fad of a reasoned path to genuine liberation is deader than disco. It’s sooooo 18th century. But, in the language of the tabloids these delightful primitives so adore, uncritical faith is hot, hot, hot!
Then along come the liberals, demanding the keys to power for the angry adolescents, tweedy babblers, and drugged-out hippies.
I might agree with you that, in an ideal world, the keys to power would not be held by us canny Neo-con deceivers and manipulators. But given the above alternatives, the present state of things doesn’t look so bad, does it? We don’t live in the best of all possible worlds now, do we?
Ah yes, of course. Many Americans DO live in the best of all possible worlds–where their leaders, from the President right down to the local preacher, are always right and good, 100%. American civilization is the ideal culmination of human history, and everything they touch abroad turns to gold. Civic duty doesn’t require the rigors of reason, but the comforts of absolute belief. They live in a world of absolutes, and inasmuch as they can do so, they are absolutely happy.
You recall the pain of losing an ideal you thought was reality. Why do you wish that pain on others?
People haven’t had their competence taken away, any more than they have been robbed of their native faculties of reason. They have given them up by choice. They want to believe the lies. They are not stupid, not by any means. But they are profoundly and willfully ignorant and naive, because they see this as their best chance for happiness.
We Neo Cons are serving the people in the truest sense of the word, by giving them what they want.
Mr. Neo Con, I will concede some of your point about the competence, however, I will say that it has been euchred, cozened from them. I am a member of civil air patrol, I deal with many young people. The ones I deal with find something out very quickly as they rise in rank in the organisation, the obligations and duties of leadership, real leadership outweigh by a large margin the benefits and perks of same. (That’s something the neocons never figured out. The Straussians and communitarians always miss the boat on that) But as I go into schools I see that people are continually told that authority has rights, the rank and file may have privileges. And I suppose some are happy with the status quo. I think Hoosier is such a one, and I know many who feel that if they can have the shiny wrapper of what the gift is, they’ll tell themselves that the big kids with the actual gift aren’t having nearly as much fun.
But these ideas being dead in America? Well, I am in America, and contrary to what many think I am an American, and I do, indeed, hold these things dear. And I’m not alone. I think these things are worth fighting for, and the Neocon/theocratic agenda is worth fighting against. With the ballott and speech if it is effective, but if we find a Gitmo or Abu Ghraib here (and there are indications it’s about ready to open) then maybe the ante will be upped on the side of liberty as well.
As I said, I’m not alone. Just think about it, a bunch of old geezers who are just a tad angry and bitter, have training, skills, and experiences which while rusty can be shined and honed again, and transmitted. Past the sell-by date, but still viable. And a lot of us know we don’t have a lot to lose or gain for ourselves no matter what, but we have grandchildren. We love our grandchildren, Mr. Neo Con. We want better for them than what the present system offers, or what the Jesus Christers tell them is what to hope for.
I’ll admit it, the “Sirs” caught me napping a time or two, just too bad they didn’t really it or know it’s value themselves.
Your last point? Well, I’d be careful if I were you. A s,arter guy than me once said, “Success is getting what you want. Happiness is wanting what you get.” Big gulf between the two.
Nice quote in the last paragraph…
But Mr.Neo Con; bullying other countries with political power went out of fashion around WW2 I’m sure.
I still stick with the theory that this is just a stage. The first of the big empires was from Italy, and some few hundred years later it was Britain and Spain in charge. France and Germany have played big parts in the world’s history, too.
These days all five along with others are in the EU and trying to work together to help the people of the countries and the countries as a whole. I don’t know anyone who misses the old empires (I’m certain the people are out there, but upperclass and no one I know); we’ve moved on. America will do the same.
Same with this odd want for autocratic rule. America’s one of the few countries that never had a local royal family of any kind; it started with democracy, which should have made things easier but possibly damaged the forming of its national identity.
The only major difference I see with what America’s doing at the moment is that it’s doing it in 2005, and the major problem associated with this being that the scale of things is huge. Hopefully, though, the world will last through it and then America can join the EU’s good-natured, albeit largely weak, attempts to make things better for people.