Medved is no scientist, just a dedicated culture war soldier. Which of course means that the Discovery Institute is less interested in discovery than in squelching any perceived threat to the cultural dominance of white Christians of a fundamentalist stripe. Medved no doubt was hired because of his willingness to lie, deceive, conceal, and distract from any realities that clash with his and the Discovery Institute’s culture war goals.
For instance, Medved is a slavery denialist, a practice that’s going the way of calling the Civil War the War of Northern Aggression. As usual with denialism, it’s not so much about denying that the event ever happened—they usually realize they can’t even get their foot in the door with that—but raising a bunch of objections that imply that it wasn’t as widespread or as violent or as horrible as people make it out to be.
Medved’s slavery denialism is a rundown of the standard objections to treating slavery like it was a bad thing—black people should be grateful, slavery is nothing new and therefore whining is inappropriate, there was barely any slavery at all,* slave owners were nice to slaves, everything but arguing that slaves made a game out of rattling their chains. To sane, normal people, the willingness to engage in slavery denialism is a sign that someone is both delusional and a rabid racist, but to the Discovery Institute, it no doubt showed a stellar willingness to stand up to the tyranny of reality.
Source: Pandagon
The Discovery Institute has never expressed any support for Slavery Denial, but their own Evolution Denial proceeds in much the same manner as the description offered above for the former. It's not that they deny evolution ever happened — a few go so far as to do that, but sensible people realize the futility of it — and instead they raise a bunch of objections that imply that it wasn't as widespread, important, or fundamental as scientists make it out to be.
Evolution Denial is every bit as delusional as Slavery Denial, whether it involves outright denial of the phenomenon in its entirety or merely an attempt to cast doubts on whether it was as serious as informed people explain, so it's hardly surprising if a Denier of one ends up with Deniers of the other. Medved's role as senior fellow makes it clear that the Discovery Institute isn't really doing much in the way of science; instead, it's engaged in propaganda and indoctrination — functions a person like Medved should prove quite adept at.
I wouldn’t be all that surprised if there were Holocaust Deniers already in middle management.
Wow–slavery sounds great. Where can I sign up?!
That’s nuts.
Tracie, if an alien species ever conquers Earth with the intention of taking humans as slaves then you can sign up.
Seriously, isn’t this a bit odd? I thought Medved was Jewish and he is part of an organization that is obviously conservative Christian. Historically, Christians tended to treat Jews as second-class citizens such as Medieval Europe where Jews were either told to leave or convert to Catholicism.
The Discovery Institute’s approach is that some biological systems look as though they are designed. In other words, they are too complex to have formed step-by-step in a Darwinian way. In Darwin’s Black Box Michael Behe gives several examples of these irreducible complex systems, such as the blood clotting system. Mutations, which basically are copying mistakes, are not a good way of producing new body parts, for instance, and natural selection can only use parts that already exist.
Evolution only accepts a purely naturalistic way of forming biological systems. The confessions of some more honest evolutionists such as Richard Lewontin about not allowing a Divine Foot into the origins discussion speak volumes about the restricted scope of the evolutionist worldview. In other words, design is ruled out a priori before even studying the evidence.
DI is unable to provide any actual evidence that would point towards the existence of design; hardly surprising for an unscientific ideology but that’s why it isn’t taken seriously by scientists.
You’re behind the times; those “irreducibly complex systems” have been shown to be able to develop via step-by-step mutation. Again, this is unsurprising as Behe demonstrated gross ignorance of the subject — especially, for example, the blood clotting system.
The same is true of every other part of science. If you can offer good reasons to introduce supernatural elements into science in a manner that would ensure that it remains scientific and successful, then please do so. If you can’t, then any complaints about the absence of the supernatural in science must be treated as meaningless. If the supernatural is so important to you, then turn your back on science in favor of religion.
DI pretends that when they talk about “design,” they don’t necessarily mean “designed by God.” Here, though, you draw an equivalency between the two which helps reveal that DI protests are dishonest. We really shouldn’t expect anything else from an organization that pretends to be all about science but then names Medved as a “fellow.” Thank you.
OK, so your thesis is that if someone rejects evolution he or she is no longer a scientist. How would you support this claim, apart from relying on Darwinist propaganda? I would not call Behe ignorant of what he writes about. BTW, he has a new book that shows the limits of Darwinism. The feasibility of step-by-step mutations to produce new body parts is pure story telling; it has nothing whatsoever to do with science.
Would it surprise you to know that some evolutionists, e.g. Michael Ruse, have conceded that evolution is a religion. This should be no surprise, given the zealous approach of many evolution “evangelists” like Richard Dawkins.
They are as much of a scientists as someone who rejects Plate Tectonics, the Theory of Relativity, or the Germ Theory of Disease.
Same way I would support the above.
Then you, too, are ignorant of the important issues.
His more recent book is even worse than his earlier work.
Ruse isn’t a scientist and his opinion on the matter is little more than that — an opinion, and a poorly supported one as well. Evolution is no more a “religion” than Plate Tectonics.
In that case, Intelligent Design and creationism are themselves religion, given the zealous approach of their “evangelists” like Michael Behe.
Very good, Mr. Cline: all three examples that you mentioned above were discovered by creationists. Do you meant to say that you can’t believe these well-known scientists are not scientists?
Dr. Behe is no evangelist. He is a Christian, thought, but that does not automatically make him an evangelist. Compared to Richard DAwkins & co. he is much more objective.
Once again, sorry for the typo above. I meant to say, did you mean to say. Errare humanum est.
Not if they were alive today, or don’t you accept that science moves forward?
Then neither is Dawkins.
Prove it.
Not if they were alive today, or don’t you accept that science moves forward?
Then neither is Dawkins.
Prove it.
You ought to know that we don’t “prove” things in science. Having said that Dawkins would not change his mind even if presented with evidence that counters his view (he has been, e.g. the structure of the human eye), but Behe is more willing to go where the evidence leads him. I’m sure you’re not happy with this answer, but its true nevertheless.
This isn’t a scientific journal, so this is just a non sequitur offered as a weak excuse for refusing to back up your claims.
Prove it.
If it’s true, you can prove it.
“Very good, Mr. Cline: all three examples that you mentioned above were discovered by creationists. Do you meant to say that you can’t believe these well-known scientists are not scientists?”
Putting aside your condescension, these scientists were limited by what they knew at the time. Go far enough back and you could find “scientists” * who believed in spontaneous generation. Once that was disproved, real scientists accepted the reality and moved on from there. That’s the difference between religion and science.
Creationism and Evolution have one thing in common – a big stack of paper that tells what each is. But that’s where it ends.
Creationism says “This stack of papers states the absolute proof and if you challenge it you are a heretic who will burn in hell.”
Evolution(ism) says “These papers say the way we think things are based on the information we’ve found so far. If you can refute the evidence and findings in them, please do so, and add your evidence and findings to the stack of papers.”
One requires blind belief in “information” that cannot be examined or refuted. The other requires no belief and encourages examination and refutation.
That which does not go away when you stop believing in it is real. If you don’t believe that the Earth is spherical, satellites in orbit don’t care. They go on orbiting in an elliptical path around a roundish planet. Evolution is happening around you whether you believe in it or not.
* Religion was the original attempt at science… an attempt to explain the world. They didn’t know about stars, but they did not about chariots. So the sun was a god riding a chariot across the sky. When we learned about stars, anyone who held on to the idea that the sun is anything but a mass of incandescent gas was not a scientist anymore.
#6: You are arguing from authority, and not very well.
A book is not scientifically-valid simply because a scientist wrote it. If that were true, Carl Sagan’s novel “Contact” could be taught in astronomy classes. A book is scientifically valid when other scientists verify the evidence and reasonableness of the claims made in the book. In Behe’s case, his arguments for “The Edge of Evolution” have been reviewed (and not favorably) by scientists who point out the flawed assumptions, faulty math, and contradicting evidence. A simple search on the Panda’s Thumb website will show you as much.
Furthermore, the fact of evolution is not disproven simply because a scientist or two reject it out of hand or call it a “religion.” The vast majority of scientists, and virtually all biologists, agree that evolution is a fact, and they do so because they can provide verifiable evidence supporting their claims.
Creationists and Intelligent Design advocates have yet to produce a single experiment with verifiable data that supports their case for a supernatural being.