Friday, February 16, 2007
Discovery Institute Dodos are Closet Socialists
The Wichita Eagle recently published an article headlined “ID backer knocks Tuskegee deletion from Kansas standards.” The article describes John West’s predictably wrong-headed (and politically-motivated) objection to the removal, by the Kansas State Board of Education, of anti-evolution provisions from the state’s science standards by, in part, deleting passages about past abuses of science, such as the horrible and immoral Tuskegee Syphilis Study.
John West is the Program Associate Director at Discovery Institute’s Center for Science and Culture. In other words, he’s a DI/ID dodo.
West calls the deletion “a travesty,” and an attempt to “…whitewash the history of science…” Of course, he ignores the fact that its inclusion by anti-evolution board members in 2005 was a backdoor effort to further smear evolution, since only abuses somehow linked to evolution were included in the standard.
But as Steve Case, associate director of the Center for Science Education (University of Kansas) pointed out in the same article, West confuses the political philosophy of social Darwinism with the scientific work associated with evolution.
(As an aside, the term “survival of the fittest” wasn’t coined by Darwin. Herbert Spencer, the originator of social Darwinism, first used it.)
Steve Case was being too kind. West wasn’t confusing social Darwinism with the science of evolution; rather, he was deliberately attempting to create confusion.
Since credentials seem to be so important to DI dodos, let’s recount John West’s lineage. According to his biography on the DI website, he has a Ph.D in Government from the Claremont Graduate University. He’s a member of Pi Sigma Alpha, the national political science honor society, as well as Phi Beta Kappa. Before joining DI, he taught political science at various universities.
Does this look like someone who is confused about political philosophy? Or who accidentally conflates political science with the natural sciences? I don't think so! It looks like an intellectually dishonest attempt to associate a distasteful political philosophy with the natural sciences.
Of course, as the Wedge Document shows, that’s exactly what DI is trying to do. Its fellows aren’t really concerned with science; they want to wean America away from materialism. Fair enough, as a political goal. But their method of attacking the natural sciences in the name of an unnamed Designer is anti-intellectual and morally bankrupt.
Or maybe their claim that the Intelligent Designer is unknown is true. If the Designer is the Christian God, and the Christian God forbids “false witnessing,” DI dodos are in trouble, because their work is based on “false witnessing.” Seems like they really don't know their own God.
I can go further. As Steve Case points out (supported by the Wedge Document), what the DI dodos really oppose is social Darwinism. Social Darwinism has a number of tenets that are similar to free market capitalism. Ergo, the DI fellows must oppose capitalism. Using the same illogic West and his ilk apply to the science of evolution, I can confidently assert that the DI dodos are really nothing more than closet socialists.
John West is the Program Associate Director at Discovery Institute’s Center for Science and Culture. In other words, he’s a DI/ID dodo.
West calls the deletion “a travesty,” and an attempt to “…whitewash the history of science…” Of course, he ignores the fact that its inclusion by anti-evolution board members in 2005 was a backdoor effort to further smear evolution, since only abuses somehow linked to evolution were included in the standard.
But as Steve Case, associate director of the Center for Science Education (University of Kansas) pointed out in the same article, West confuses the political philosophy of social Darwinism with the scientific work associated with evolution.
(As an aside, the term “survival of the fittest” wasn’t coined by Darwin. Herbert Spencer, the originator of social Darwinism, first used it.)
Steve Case was being too kind. West wasn’t confusing social Darwinism with the science of evolution; rather, he was deliberately attempting to create confusion.
Since credentials seem to be so important to DI dodos, let’s recount John West’s lineage. According to his biography on the DI website, he has a Ph.D in Government from the Claremont Graduate University. He’s a member of Pi Sigma Alpha, the national political science honor society, as well as Phi Beta Kappa. Before joining DI, he taught political science at various universities.
Does this look like someone who is confused about political philosophy? Or who accidentally conflates political science with the natural sciences? I don't think so! It looks like an intellectually dishonest attempt to associate a distasteful political philosophy with the natural sciences.
Of course, as the Wedge Document shows, that’s exactly what DI is trying to do. Its fellows aren’t really concerned with science; they want to wean America away from materialism. Fair enough, as a political goal. But their method of attacking the natural sciences in the name of an unnamed Designer is anti-intellectual and morally bankrupt.
Or maybe their claim that the Intelligent Designer is unknown is true. If the Designer is the Christian God, and the Christian God forbids “false witnessing,” DI dodos are in trouble, because their work is based on “false witnessing.” Seems like they really don't know their own God.
I can go further. As Steve Case points out (supported by the Wedge Document), what the DI dodos really oppose is social Darwinism. Social Darwinism has a number of tenets that are similar to free market capitalism. Ergo, the DI fellows must oppose capitalism. Using the same illogic West and his ilk apply to the science of evolution, I can confidently assert that the DI dodos are really nothing more than closet socialists.
