Ben Stein: Civil Rights Activist
This from an interview with Ben Stein:
We want more freedom. I just spoke to some young people in Orlando. And I said, this, to us - at least to me . . . is a bit like the Civil Rights movement. You want to have freedom, . . . our goal is freedom. We want freedom. We want all our rights, not some of them, all our rights to free speech. We want them here in America, and we want them now. That’s what we want; we’re not going to get it. But we hope to open the door wider to some serious debate on these issues.
By the way, I saw my father march with Ben Stein.
And have a nice weekend.
posted by Lawrence Selden @ 12:57 PM
5 comments
5 Comments:
In the debate over evolution education, I wonder why we have heard so little from those who are most affected -- the students themselves.
Larry, I disagree with you. Students are not the ones most affected.
Like it or not, our school and college system is mostly about passing exams. Very few undergraduates and school kids have the opportunity to contribute to cutting-edge research.
We can all think what we want but we do not have the freedom to express original thoughts in science exams. Being a science student is mainly about studying the established science.
Colleges and universities are generally not intended to be places of academic freedom - at least not until you find yourself a tenured researcher. At that point, and armed with a budget of your own you have a great deal of freedom.
Another point worth mentioning is that research (particularly in biology) is driven by the available funds. Corporations invest huge amounts of money in teams who show potential of solving important problems.
Researchers who obtain tenure are generally the ones who have the best track record of raising funds.
There are other routes to tenure and academic freedom - but that's just how it seems to work in Biology.
Dobson
You misunderstood me. I wasn't talking about the students doing cutting-edge research or anything like that. I was talking about the students maybe holding demonstrations saying "we want to learn about intelligent design" or something like that.
I was talking about the students maybe holding demonstrations saying "we want to learn about intelligent design" or something like that.
It's true - student's rights to protest have been dramatically reduced but that's not the fault of the evolutionists, if you want to blame somebody try blaming Roberts, Alito and Thomas. I refer you to the BongHits4Jesus decision by the Supreme Court. Academic freedom has no worse enemy than conservtive judges.
I think this whole academic freedom thing is a red herring - that's not the reason why almost no schools and colleges teach ID.
The real issue why ID is not widely accepted in education is simply that the ID proponents have made such a bad job of convincing the scientific community that their beliefs have any merit.
Most ID activists seem to be concerned by 'grass roots' advocacy rather than getting on with the business of fundamental research and precisely refining their theories.
I think recent events like the Dover trial and the attempts to introduce ID into the Florida state curriculum make ID look really bad because it looks as if the IDers are trying to short-cut the scientific process by trying to get their theories into schools before they are proven.
I wish IDers would stop complaining about how schools are and how things are unfair and just get on with their lab work.
"I think recent events like the Dover trial and the attempts to introduce ID into the Florida state curriculum make ID look really bad because it looks as if the IDers are trying to short-cut the scientific process by trying to get their theories into schools before they are proven."
I agree. So why don't evolutionist need to "prove" their theories? The theory of evolution goes against proven laws of science, evolutionists use faulty dating methods and choose the dates that best fit their ideas, have gap after gap in the fossil records, and won't ever be able to repeat and prove in a lab where matter came from or how life originated. Yet it's practically taught as fact. Creationists don't pretend to be able to prove anything. Just follow the evidence where it leads, which is basically either "we don't know," or "God created the world as recorded in the Bible."
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