Discovery Institute tries to cut down Forrest

May 31, 2008

Guest Post by Morbo

The neo-creationists who espouse “intelligent design” have hit a rough patch. In 2005, they lost a federal lawsuit over the teaching of ID in a Pennsylvania public school. “Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed,” the documentary that was supposed to put ID on the national stage, was a critical flop and commercial failure.

ID advocates claim to be sophisticated thinkers promoting cutting-edge science. They’re not, and just behind them lurk a band of knuckle-dragging young-Earth creationists who keep doing embarrassing things like opening multi-million museums showing dinosaurs and humans strolling around side by side. (All that’s missing is Fred Flintstone yelling, “Willllllma!”)

What’s an ID advocate to do? How about launch a crude personal attack against a prominent critic? Sure, that always works!

The target in this case is Barbara Forrest, coauthor of the book Creationism’s Trojan Horse: The Wedge of Intelligent Design. In the book, Forrest and Paul R. Gross rip the mask off the ID charade, proving that it’s all about religion, not science. That really annoyed the ID backers.

A university professor, Forrest lives and teaches in Louisiana. Recently, she has been speaking out against a proposed law there that would allow teachers to use “supplemental materials” when discussing evolution so as to promote “academic freedom.”

This is the latest stunt from the ID crowd. I have to admit, it’s pretty clever.

Their plan is to slip their theology into the classroom and undermine Darwinian evolution under the cover of legitimate instruction — thus spreading ignorance in Louisiana and other states. It’s a sneaky ploy because to most people, the use of “supplemental materials” to promote “critical analysis” sounds reasonable.

But in this case it’s not. Would we waste time teaching our children alternatives to the germ theory of disease? Why bother offering “supplemental material” critical of the existence of gravity? Should we allow “criticism” of the history of the Holocaust in the classroom? After all, some cranks write books saying it never happened. Shouldn’t our children hear both sides?

The Discovery Institute, the nation’s leading organization pushing ID, is apoplectic over Forrest. Recently, the Institute issued an entire paper attacking her. Among their charges, they note that Forrest is — gasp! — non-religious. She sits on the board of the New Orleans Secular Humanist Association.

So let me get this straight: If anyone has the temerity to point out that Phillip E. Johnson, a former law professor who almost single-handedly launched the ID movement, once pointed out that his goal is to use ID to bring people to “the truth” of Jesus Christ, that person is a religious bigot who impugns the motives of the Discovery Institute. Yet it’s perfectly acceptable for the Institute to attack Forrest for her lack of belief.

The Discovery Institute promotes lousy science and makes a sloppy attempt to dress up its fundamentalism in an ill-fitting lab coat. That’s bad enough. But there’s another reason why its “supplemental materials” must be kept out of our public schools: The group plays dirty and is unethical. It sets a poor example for children everywhere.

This doesn’t surprise me at all. These people are vicious in everything they do.

Here’s Hagee saying if people don’t work they should starve, STARVE he screams!! And all the good Christian goopers in the pews applaud wildly!

http://youtube.com/watch?v=KmFaNnRy40o

THIS is good Christian values. THIS is what these people are about.

Trying to destroy a person’s life over their belief? Not a second thought.

  • The entire basis for “Intelligent Design” is that scientists are too “materialist” (their word). They insist that scientists should embrace the concept of “intangible” forces.

    Here is the truth in a nutshell:

    IF YOU CAN’T MEASURE IT, IT ISN’T SCIENCE!

    (Sorry about all caps, of anyone is offended by that.)

    As far as I’m concerned, they are free to discuss “Intelligent Design” in a class covering comparative religions or religious history. But it ain’t science. Period.

  • The religious right needs all of these distractiojns – that is why they make the outrageous statements they do and promote things like ID.

    If people actually read the bible as a whole, placing more thought on the teaching of Jesus in the new testament, the hypocracy of the religious right would smack you in the face.

    By keeping their base all fired up with controversy and “us against them” paradigms, they can prevent people from actually learning what the bible says.

  • The creationists are like gnats. Annoying, unthinking, pestering, and many in number. After one gets tired of batting them away, what’s next? Some kind of bug spray, or citronella candles. I want to know what that bug spray is. In other words, what’s the magical-spray-truth that we can bring out whenever the gnats get too bothersome? Or do we simply shrug, and admit we have to live with them?

    I’ve long since given up trying to make sense of it or wonder about what exactly it is they want. I’ve decided they want a theocracy.

  • MsJoanne @ 1: THIS is good Christian values. THIS is what these people are about.

    I agree that “THIS” is what these people are about, but it has nothing to do with good Christian values. It’s ham-handed to make these sorts of statements when progressives are broadening the movement and making appeals to people that don’t necessarily self-identify as progressive, yet share many of our political values. What about Obama’s faith? I’m sure that you don’t identify him with Rev. Hagee’s values.

    My wife is a good Christian, me not so much. But, I guaranty that neither of us subscribe to ID or Rev. Hagee’s values. It pains me when I read or hear people that I generally agree with go out of their way to tar with the same brush, all people of faith. /rant

  • AK Liberal @ #5, I understand and appreciate what you are saying, but if you look at what Christian values are in the US are right now, this is it.

    Torture.
    Bombing innocents.
    No service to the poor.
    Fundamentalism in ID, Christianity as the only religion, scapegoating.
    Goopers hijacking a once good concept (the golden rule, et al).

    I have great heart for those who actually walk the walk that Jesus preached. How many times are the poor referenced in the bible? Which of them would want to be tortured and have it done unto them?

    I don’t lump every Christian in that category. Just the hypocrites who hijacked religion for their own twisted beliefs, and that video, with it’s applauding minions, which are far too many in our country right now.

  • Fundamentalist Christians often discuss including intelligent design in science courses. Scientists often suggest that philosophy is more appropriate, but few philsophers agree. I’ve long felt that “marketing” is the appropriate academic venue for ID. The DI’s latest diatribe coinfirms my assessment.

  • MsJoanne, I’m sure that you don’t lump all Christians into the same category. However, the statement, “THIS is good Christian values,” does just that and I don’t think that it’s good politics.

  • Oooops. In my comment #8 I mistakenly thought I was providing supplementary information. I didn’t realize we were both talking about the same Discovery Institute blog item, which appeared almost a week ago. . Anyway, the link to my own humble blog is on topic.

  • AK Liberal, not to belabor the point but the “THIS” was the people in that video – people applauding the starvation of another human being.

    I just read this on another blog and it fits in the context of starvation and the goopers:

    You could also have said that that’s all well and good, as long as you can afford a rod, bait, a spot where fish are, and enough sustenance to not starve while waiting for a bite.

    These were people in a church applauding a preacher who was advocating starvation.

    Was that a lump of all Christians? No. Was it a lump of all THOSE Christians? Absolutely! For every single one who not only applauded but didn’t walk out never to return. The most disgusting display of Christian values I have seen in a very long time (and there is a very long list of disgusting Christian values of late).

  • MsJoanne, I’ve reread your original comment and take your meaning. Perhaps my snark detector needs calibration. However, in the context of some of the statements regarding faith and the faithful that I’ve read in these comments sections I would argue for language that more clearly expresses that meaning.

  • Clever is not the correct adjective, Morbo. Their tactic is not particularly clever by any defintion of the word in my dictionary. Devious is the word you are looking for.

  • From what I’ve seen, it was a good idea on the part of the people who founded this country and wrote its constitution, to make clear distinctions between state and church. OK, duh. My point is that religion (for some) is their reason for being, and when those people get into politics, they invariably try to instill their religious beliefs into their legislative and public work. Based on the overwhelming identification with Christianity that these people have, that’s who we disagree with.

    But the problem is infusing ANY religion or religious belief into public or civic life, to the detriment of the public at large. The root problem, the way I see it, is religion itself, and the fundamentalist believers (of every religion) who cannot resist the sense of entitlement that allows them to attempt to force everyone else to live in their world under their laws.

    It simply isn’t enough to rely on traditional views about the separation of church and state. These believers become further entrenched even as their views on science and education come under ever more ridicule and exposure. They simply don’t care, they’ve stopped thinking rationally, and therefore are like the annoying cloud of gnats destined for bug spray. There is no reasoning, as we understand the word reason.

  • I’ve never understood why the ID crowd doesn’t accept evolution itself as the “intelligent design,” declare victory, and go home. The fact that they don’t tells me that their real intention is to discredit evolution because it conflicts with Genesis. It just doesn’t make sense that you can believe some god created the universe and all life foms on earth, but was just too stupid to think of evolution as a good way to do it, so he wouldn’t have to micro-manage the whole damn thing. After all, Darwin thought of it, and this god is smarter than Darwin, isn’t he? So it has to be that somehow these people have a deepseated emotional need for the Bible to be literally true. And that’s really weird.

    That’s the only way I can make sense of what they are doing. And they call it ID because they’re ashamed to admit that they’re really creationists. Probably can’t even admit it to themselves.

  • The ID movement may have hit a rough patch, but they are still moving along, helped along with the recent publicity surrounding the movie Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed. The various Academic Freedom bills should not be discounted. The Louisiana senate passed its version unanimously and it awaits a house vote before being sent to the Governor’s desk. This will open the back door for bringing intelligent design into the classroom.

    The Discovery Institute uses common sense sounding arguments to solidify its base. They don’t delve to deeply into the science because, frankly, most people would get bored and stop paying attention. Their Evolution News blog does not mention endogenous retroviruses or ring species, and only rarely transposons. They twist evidence for evolution to support their case, exposing their methods of torturing logic in doing so. However, again, it takes someone well versed in the biological sciences to see this.

    It is funny that they attack Barbara Forrest, though. She was critical in exposing Of Pandas and People as a direct descendant of a creationist text during the Kitzmiller trial in Dover, PA. Judge Jones, a conservative, slammed the ID movement pretty hard…but the Discovery Institute didn’t come anywhere near this case. They couldn’t face Barbara Forrest in the court room, so now they want to attack her outside. They think they are shrewd, but we can see they are gutless wonders.

  • Yes, Hark@15… why can’t they see science as part of God’s plan? “Gee, look what the marvelous, God-inspired scientists have discovered! A long time ago God changed apes into humans!” or something to that effect. And yeah, that deep need to have the Bible be perceived as literally, word-for-word true, I don’t understand that.

    Can’t we see the stars and wonder how they got there without drawing battle lines? Some can’t, and that’s sad.

  • MsJoanne. To be fair, the video clip you linked to was about not enabling lazy people. I don’t know many people that advocate laziness. When you take something out of context, you’re just as bad as the people you are trying to condemn.

  • What is frustrating about the Discovery Institute blog is their cowardice. They have no way of replying to their nonsense. I have e-mailed the DI many times about their unwillingness to have a real discussion about their blog, but I have never had a reply.

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