“As an evolutionary biologist, I am quite used to attempts to censor research and suppress knowledge. But for most of my career, that kind of behavior came from the right. In the old days, most students and administrators were actually on our side; we were aligned against creationists.”
—————————————————
I am highly skeptical that anyone…
“As an evolutionary biologist, I am quite used to attempts to censor research and suppress knowledge. But for most of my career, that kind of behavior came from the right. In the old days, most students and administrators were actually on our side; we were aligned against creationists.”
—————————————————
I am highly skeptical that anyone alive has actually experienced suppression in the university or corporate context at the hands of creationists.
From my background in life sciences textbook publishing, I can testify that there have been some epic battles on the local school board level regarding the teaching of creationism as a fact.
But creationists never threatened to shut down research, which is the issue in this article. Creationists never even threatened to interfere with teaching evolution. They mostly just wanted their story to be heard alongside evolution.
We published the leading introductory biology text by the late Neil Campbell. Demanding that the company place a sticker on the book regarding creationism as a viable theory may not have directly affected research in the moment but could have downstream.
“… regarding the teaching of creationism as a fact.”
Of course, if one’s world view is aligned with theism, and a Creator God is seen as reality, then creation - described in some way consistent with what is seen and believed - is a fact worthy of being taught. And if one’s world view is aligned with atheistic materialism, then gods are irrelevant and and creation is oxymoronic. Thus nature - seen and believed in this way - is unexplainable, and this is then taught as a fact. So which ‘fact’ is taught in schools? Perhaps one teaches students to appreciate these two world views and then let them consider the questions as they might…?
I deplore ‘pseudoscience’! But then there is an enormous amount of this floating around (e.g. so called nutrition science), so how does one choose? Creationism is not necessarily pseudoscience if there is in fact a Creator.
There cannot "in fact" be a Creator. Once there is factual proof, there is no need for faith, and without faith, there is no religion. That's why religion is comforting, but illogical.
You misunderstand the meaning of ‘proof’, and absent a strong positivistic philosophy, one might consider that ‘proof’ as you use the word does not exist. Considering proof on your terms there is no proof that a Creator does not exist.
The imminent pagan religious views of scientific materialism have nothing to say on the matter of creation or creationism as such a thing is presuppositionally excluded from consideration. The transcendent Abrahamic religious views presuppose a Creator - this as you call it ‘faith’ is as valid as the atheistic faith you seem to embrace - and this presumption attains as fact just as do the presumptions of the opposite world view.
This is a very interesting comment. I've heard it voiced by a number of people who say that they have experienced much more tolerance and acceptance among conservative Christians than among (usually atheistic), secular academics. Interesting, isn't it?
Two friends who are both trans women as well as being leaders in the gun rights movement have both independently told me that they get greater and easier cceptance from the NRA and local rednecks at the shooting range than from LGBQT organizations and most LGBQT individuals they meet.
The woke crowd is highly intolerant. They will destroy one of their own if someone isn't sufficiently radical enough. All it takes is being moderate or violating their norms just once.
That shouldn't be surprising to anyone who knows a broad cross section of Christians. The fact that it is surprising is probably due to the media's dislike of Christians.
Christians are, or should be, wildly optimistic people. It's that eternal life thing.
I know, right? That statement sort of came out of left field (please excuse the pun).
One of the flaws of Common Sense seems to be an unconscious need to bash the right a little, every time they are mainly going after far left craziness. It is almost a kind of prerequisite to continue to insist that the right is just as bad as the left these days: “I’m still one of the good people, I’m bashing conservatives!”
There is plenty to criticize on the far right, in my opinion. But the idea that Creationists had the power to censor scientists at any significant university at any time in the past 50 years, is ludicrous. You might find a very small private college somewhere, but nothing that would back up the spirit of her claim.
No publication is perfect, and it’s not a fatal flaw, but this sort of thing seems to be a persistent blind spot for Common Sense.
Tom, agree. And not to digress but I’ve been reading up on Darwin and his followers. There’s major holes in his and related theories. Our author has her own blind spots imo.
I do not find this to be a bias. She is simply flaying open the flaws of both the right and the left. As far as I’m concerned, the criticism of the left that I read here is exceptional and one of the reasons I first subscribed. And while I am an Independent, I have always leaned to the (classical) left, a position I find is disappearing.
Yep, I have noticed this in articles. A bit of right bashing is mandatory. Perhaps this is done to establish the author's leftie credentials. However, the content of the article is terrifying. You can only conclude that the students professing these idiot views are not very bright (to put it mildly). Maybe that is the fundamental problem. Years of grade inflation and the 'nobody can fail' mentality of educationalists have resulted in a generation of dim students.
It would seem the Common Sense bashes the Right for the same reason it bashes the Left. Common Sense comes from a Moderate/ Centrist, Classically Liberal perspective. It just stands to reason which seems surprising to some of the Right leaning commentators who appear to expect CS is a Righty publication... It's not...
I'm surprised that Bari didn't say this was Trump's fault in her introduction to the article.
This kind of NYT/TDS nonsense is why I'm letting my subscription to Common Sense expire in a week. The occasional article like this is almost enough to make me stay, but I'm tired of the TDS.
You guys want Fox News. Why would you pay for anything less. I mean, the idea that creationists have ever suppressed anything or anyone is ludicrous? What was that about dim students? But you’re all convinced that you’re the ones who have seen the light, just like the idiots described in this very good and terrifying article.
Stem Cell Research was opposed at the highest level in the US under Bush. That was entirely a religious crusade. The Pinker Book "Blank Slate" has a history of opposition to research in various fields but by both the right and left. Genetic Determinism is the bigger controversy there.
You don't know the difference between embryonic stem cell research and research using other kinds of stem cells. And what does embryonic stem cell research have to do with creationism? Nothing. You're desperately trying to change the subject.
Look up embryonic stem cell research, and once you understand what it is look up therapeutic treatments based on embryonic stem cell research. I can save you some time. There are no therapeutic treatments based on embryonic stem cell research in spite of decades of researchers claiming there would be at some point in the future if they just got more funding.
The opposition to embryonic stem cell research was due in part to the fact that it is a therapeutic dead end. The research funding would be better used elsewhere.
Embryonic stem cell research is a subdivision of stem cell. Embryonic stem cells because of their pluripotent characteristics, make them a most important facet of stem cell. It is not a minor thing. I was on my cell last night so posting in depth was not a priority. It was a controversial area to defund and oppose and it was led by Christians. We generally agree that Creationists are not the main impediment to STEM. You are too angry to be civil and charitable. I bow out.
I'm with Kent Lawrence. I read CS, in part BECAUSE it gives me a perspective different from my own. As I said in the comment, I get irritated by the reflexive, out-of-context right-bashing, but it also tells me something worth learning about those who do it. And it does not cancel out the often-excellent reporting and commentary. Like everything, we just need read with awareness, and form our own opinions independently.
Good for you! I read this from perhaps the left of BW and would hope that it's possible for people who are both appalled by this stuff could agree on the basics. But I guess some of us can't vote for a fool who comes out with "Jim Crow is going to look like Jim Eagle" and some of us can't stomach the idea that we should be governed by a criminal psychopath. It's tough to balance that because it doesn't balance. It's a mouse and an elephant, so to speak....
Hey, come on. She may not be perfect--and she is left of me--but look at all the stuff she finds and gives to us BESIDES her writing. Give her a break.
Well this article was mostly excellent, but so many others aren't.
I've only got so much time to spend reading articles, and I've decided that my time will be better spent on Roger Pielke Jr's Honest Broker. That's where I'll be going.
I consider the current woke dogma that "sex is a spectrum" to be the modern version of creationism. It offers a simplistic and ideologically attractive theory that is not only not based in science, but easily refuted by examples and common sense. But just like creationism, it persists and spreads among the faithful.
You really should do a LOT more independent research on evolution and Darwin before you worship at the alter of science. Scientists are fallible therefore science is fallible. Sometimes science goes whichever way the wind blows (eg. this piece), but the Bible has been the same for thousands of years. Just sayin’
Except that creationism assumes a creator (and transcendent religion), while transgenderism assumes a world view devoid of creator (a naturalist-materialist immanent religion). And this immanent religious world view is not simplistic - it requires a lot of complex assumptions about life and human nature leading to a philosophical acceptance of what amounts to solipsistic narcissism. This world view has been in ascendence now - slowly - over the past 2 centuries at least. Many of us continue to resist...
Remember the lying little bastard geneticists who swore at the beginning of the pandemic that that virus could not possibly have come from a Chinese lab?
You're correct. In order for a creationist to suppress research they would have to be on the faculty or administration. I've never heard of a creationist on a university faculty.
Her moral equivalence argument is baseless and detracts from a report on a serious problem.
I was in a group of people in the early '80s who liked to sponsor evolution-vs-creationism debates. For funsies, I argued the creationist side a couple of times. I soon realized that the only "young earth" theory that was self-consistent was the preposterous "God is a practical joker" theory: He created the Earth 4000 years ago, containing pre-installed fossils and other evidence of a past that never actually happened, just to fool scientists. The problem with that theory is, if that event occurred, how do you know it was 4000 years ago? How do you know we weren't all created... just now? With pre-wired "memories" in our heads of a past that doesn't actually exist?
Well, yes. That and the fact that there's nothing the Bible that says God created "old light" or preformed, aged fossils. For that matter the Bible doesn't give an age of the earth at all.
In 1954, Bernard Ramm published ‘The Christian View of Science and Scripture’. The book catalogues and discusses the views of creationism versus scientific theories of creation and seeks to clarify the debates. By the time I was studying biology in the 1970’s, the scientistic point of view was so widely accepted that creationism was viewed as a joke or a delusional conspiracy of religious kooks. The idea of anyone in power during the 20th century suppressing the scientistic viewpoint in this country is ludicrous.
Interesting, too, is the fact that there are a lot of religious scientists and a lot of religious people who accept scientific teachings wholeheartedly. Even Darwin was quite religious. I never understood why there had to be a vitriolic dichotomy between the two.
For an update on the conversation between the scientistic versus transcendent view, see Darwin's Resolution : Evolution or Creation - A Treatise, by Ernest L. Brannon, WestBow Press 2019
No, that law did not prohibit teaching evolution, it required teaching creationism in addition and only if evolution was being taught. And it was voided as unconstitutional. And it was not at the university or corporate level.
“As an evolutionary biologist, I am quite used to attempts to censor research and suppress knowledge. But for most of my career, that kind of behavior came from the right. In the old days, most students and administrators were actually on our side; we were aligned against creationists.”
—————————————————
I am highly skeptical that anyone alive has actually experienced suppression in the university or corporate context at the hands of creationists.
From my background in life sciences textbook publishing, I can testify that there have been some epic battles on the local school board level regarding the teaching of creationism as a fact.
But creationists never threatened to shut down research, which is the issue in this article. Creationists never even threatened to interfere with teaching evolution. They mostly just wanted their story to be heard alongside evolution.
We published the leading introductory biology text by the late Neil Campbell. Demanding that the company place a sticker on the book regarding creationism as a viable theory may not have directly affected research in the moment but could have downstream.
Quite right and on target! My comment just a moment ago leads here as well.
“… regarding the teaching of creationism as a fact.”
Of course, if one’s world view is aligned with theism, and a Creator God is seen as reality, then creation - described in some way consistent with what is seen and believed - is a fact worthy of being taught. And if one’s world view is aligned with atheistic materialism, then gods are irrelevant and and creation is oxymoronic. Thus nature - seen and believed in this way - is unexplainable, and this is then taught as a fact. So which ‘fact’ is taught in schools? Perhaps one teaches students to appreciate these two world views and then let them consider the questions as they might…?
I don't dispute your claim. But that doesn't mean we have to accept pseudo-science either.
I deplore ‘pseudoscience’! But then there is an enormous amount of this floating around (e.g. so called nutrition science), so how does one choose? Creationism is not necessarily pseudoscience if there is in fact a Creator.
There cannot "in fact" be a Creator. Once there is factual proof, there is no need for faith, and without faith, there is no religion. That's why religion is comforting, but illogical.
With apologies to Douglas Adams.
You misunderstand the meaning of ‘proof’, and absent a strong positivistic philosophy, one might consider that ‘proof’ as you use the word does not exist. Considering proof on your terms there is no proof that a Creator does not exist.
The imminent pagan religious views of scientific materialism have nothing to say on the matter of creation or creationism as such a thing is presuppositionally excluded from consideration. The transcendent Abrahamic religious views presuppose a Creator - this as you call it ‘faith’ is as valid as the atheistic faith you seem to embrace - and this presumption attains as fact just as do the presumptions of the opposite world view.
If you were at a Christian college you might have felt this. Certainly those teaching high-school and community College still deal with this.
This is a very interesting comment. I've heard it voiced by a number of people who say that they have experienced much more tolerance and acceptance among conservative Christians than among (usually atheistic), secular academics. Interesting, isn't it?
Two friends who are both trans women as well as being leaders in the gun rights movement have both independently told me that they get greater and easier cceptance from the NRA and local rednecks at the shooting range than from LGBQT organizations and most LGBQT individuals they meet.
The woke crowd is highly intolerant. They will destroy one of their own if someone isn't sufficiently radical enough. All it takes is being moderate or violating their norms just once.
That shouldn't be surprising to anyone who knows a broad cross section of Christians. The fact that it is surprising is probably due to the media's dislike of Christians.
Christians are, or should be, wildly optimistic people. It's that eternal life thing.
I know, right? That statement sort of came out of left field (please excuse the pun).
One of the flaws of Common Sense seems to be an unconscious need to bash the right a little, every time they are mainly going after far left craziness. It is almost a kind of prerequisite to continue to insist that the right is just as bad as the left these days: “I’m still one of the good people, I’m bashing conservatives!”
There is plenty to criticize on the far right, in my opinion. But the idea that Creationists had the power to censor scientists at any significant university at any time in the past 50 years, is ludicrous. You might find a very small private college somewhere, but nothing that would back up the spirit of her claim.
No publication is perfect, and it’s not a fatal flaw, but this sort of thing seems to be a persistent blind spot for Common Sense.
Tom, agree. And not to digress but I’ve been reading up on Darwin and his followers. There’s major holes in his and related theories. Our author has her own blind spots imo.
It wasn't just evolution. Read Pinker's Blank Slate. Also gene research was limited
Where and when was gene research limited by creationists? Be specific, please.
Yes, I agree.
Even our Founding Fathers had flaws, flaws that are just coming to light, like owning slaves.
just coming to light?? where have you been?
🤣😂🤣😂 sarcasm.
I do not find this to be a bias. She is simply flaying open the flaws of both the right and the left. As far as I’m concerned, the criticism of the left that I read here is exceptional and one of the reasons I first subscribed. And while I am an Independent, I have always leaned to the (classical) left, a position I find is disappearing.
Yep, I have noticed this in articles. A bit of right bashing is mandatory. Perhaps this is done to establish the author's leftie credentials. However, the content of the article is terrifying. You can only conclude that the students professing these idiot views are not very bright (to put it mildly). Maybe that is the fundamental problem. Years of grade inflation and the 'nobody can fail' mentality of educationalists have resulted in a generation of dim students.
It would seem the Common Sense bashes the Right for the same reason it bashes the Left. Common Sense comes from a Moderate/ Centrist, Classically Liberal perspective. It just stands to reason which seems surprising to some of the Right leaning commentators who appear to expect CS is a Righty publication... It's not...
I'm surprised that Bari didn't say this was Trump's fault in her introduction to the article.
This kind of NYT/TDS nonsense is why I'm letting my subscription to Common Sense expire in a week. The occasional article like this is almost enough to make me stay, but I'm tired of the TDS.
You guys want Fox News. Why would you pay for anything less. I mean, the idea that creationists have ever suppressed anything or anyone is ludicrous? What was that about dim students? But you’re all convinced that you’re the ones who have seen the light, just like the idiots described in this very good and terrifying article.
You can't give even a single example to back up your claim that creationists suppressed research. That's why you love the NYT mentality.
Stem Cell Research was opposed at the highest level in the US under Bush. That was entirely a religious crusade. The Pinker Book "Blank Slate" has a history of opposition to research in various fields but by both the right and left. Genetic Determinism is the bigger controversy there.
You don't know the difference between embryonic stem cell research and research using other kinds of stem cells. And what does embryonic stem cell research have to do with creationism? Nothing. You're desperately trying to change the subject.
Look up embryonic stem cell research, and once you understand what it is look up therapeutic treatments based on embryonic stem cell research. I can save you some time. There are no therapeutic treatments based on embryonic stem cell research in spite of decades of researchers claiming there would be at some point in the future if they just got more funding.
The opposition to embryonic stem cell research was due in part to the fact that it is a therapeutic dead end. The research funding would be better used elsewhere.
Wow. You are in a really bad mood. Hope you feel better.
Sorry to have overwhelmed you. But please do learn the difference between embryonic stem cells and other kinds of stem cells.
Embryonic stem cell research is a subdivision of stem cell. Embryonic stem cells because of their pluripotent characteristics, make them a most important facet of stem cell. It is not a minor thing. I was on my cell last night so posting in depth was not a priority. It was a controversial area to defund and oppose and it was led by Christians. We generally agree that Creationists are not the main impediment to STEM. You are too angry to be civil and charitable. I bow out.
I'm with Kent Lawrence. I read CS, in part BECAUSE it gives me a perspective different from my own. As I said in the comment, I get irritated by the reflexive, out-of-context right-bashing, but it also tells me something worth learning about those who do it. And it does not cancel out the often-excellent reporting and commentary. Like everything, we just need read with awareness, and form our own opinions independently.
Good for you! I read this from perhaps the left of BW and would hope that it's possible for people who are both appalled by this stuff could agree on the basics. But I guess some of us can't vote for a fool who comes out with "Jim Crow is going to look like Jim Eagle" and some of us can't stomach the idea that we should be governed by a criminal psychopath. It's tough to balance that because it doesn't balance. It's a mouse and an elephant, so to speak....
Hey, come on. She may not be perfect--and she is left of me--but look at all the stuff she finds and gives to us BESIDES her writing. Give her a break.
Well this article was mostly excellent, but so many others aren't.
I've only got so much time to spend reading articles, and I've decided that my time will be better spent on Roger Pielke Jr's Honest Broker. That's where I'll be going.
I consider the current woke dogma that "sex is a spectrum" to be the modern version of creationism. It offers a simplistic and ideologically attractive theory that is not only not based in science, but easily refuted by examples and common sense. But just like creationism, it persists and spreads among the faithful.
You really should do a LOT more independent research on evolution and Darwin before you worship at the alter of science. Scientists are fallible therefore science is fallible. Sometimes science goes whichever way the wind blows (eg. this piece), but the Bible has been the same for thousands of years. Just sayin’
ALToronto
Except that creationism assumes a creator (and transcendent religion), while transgenderism assumes a world view devoid of creator (a naturalist-materialist immanent religion). And this immanent religious world view is not simplistic - it requires a lot of complex assumptions about life and human nature leading to a philosophical acceptance of what amounts to solipsistic narcissism. This world view has been in ascendence now - slowly - over the past 2 centuries at least. Many of us continue to resist...
The anti-science position of the Woke is proof that it is actually a secular religion.
Remember the lying little bastard geneticists who swore at the beginning of the pandemic that that virus could not possibly have come from a Chinese lab?
As always Bruce the only person here with CS.
Apparently and thankfully not the only...
You're correct. In order for a creationist to suppress research they would have to be on the faculty or administration. I've never heard of a creationist on a university faculty.
Her moral equivalence argument is baseless and detracts from a report on a serious problem.
I was in a group of people in the early '80s who liked to sponsor evolution-vs-creationism debates. For funsies, I argued the creationist side a couple of times. I soon realized that the only "young earth" theory that was self-consistent was the preposterous "God is a practical joker" theory: He created the Earth 4000 years ago, containing pre-installed fossils and other evidence of a past that never actually happened, just to fool scientists. The problem with that theory is, if that event occurred, how do you know it was 4000 years ago? How do you know we weren't all created... just now? With pre-wired "memories" in our heads of a past that doesn't actually exist?
Well, yes. That and the fact that there's nothing the Bible that says God created "old light" or preformed, aged fossils. For that matter the Bible doesn't give an age of the earth at all.
Yes
In 1954, Bernard Ramm published ‘The Christian View of Science and Scripture’. The book catalogues and discusses the views of creationism versus scientific theories of creation and seeks to clarify the debates. By the time I was studying biology in the 1970’s, the scientistic point of view was so widely accepted that creationism was viewed as a joke or a delusional conspiracy of religious kooks. The idea of anyone in power during the 20th century suppressing the scientistic viewpoint in this country is ludicrous.
Interesting, too, is the fact that there are a lot of religious scientists and a lot of religious people who accept scientific teachings wholeheartedly. Even Darwin was quite religious. I never understood why there had to be a vitriolic dichotomy between the two.
FR Prete
For an update on the conversation between the scientistic versus transcendent view, see Darwin's Resolution : Evolution or Creation - A Treatise, by Ernest L. Brannon, WestBow Press 2019
They both can coexist side by side.
It was happening in classrooms in 1987
https://www.britannica.com/topic/Edwards-v-Aguilard
Yet another case of historical ignorance on the part of those who want to suppress speech. Thanks for posting this!
No, that law did not prohibit teaching evolution, it required teaching creationism in addition and only if evolution was being taught. And it was voided as unconstitutional. And it was not at the university or corporate level.