facts? who needs facts?

George Neumayr throws his hat into the Godzilla vs. the Darwinists ring, with unsurprising results. I'm sorry I have to be so blunt, but why waste syllables? The article is full of shit.

Where to begin? Neumayr begins badly:

Desperate to shut down debate that exposes their evolutionary theory as unsustainable conjecture, the Darwinists are using the incantations of an ideology they call science and the power of law to prevent the teaching of any concepts besides random variation and natural selection.

This is the classic straw man: set up a definition of Darwinism that is confoundingly narrow and doesn't square with actual research, and then claim that doubting that scenario is unique to the politically driven claptrap espoused by the Discovery Institute.

If you bother to read anything on evolutionary theory written by, say, a real scientist, you'll immediately see through Neumayr's rhetorical tricks. There is plenty of controversy within scientific circles. For example, despite her questioning of the prevailing "orthodoxy," Lynn Margulis's career hasn't suffered. Why? She does the research.

I can't wait to see Ed Brayton's response to this:

Ed Brayton of Michigan Citizens for Science, commenting on another school board tussle over evolution, recently said no critic of evolution even belongs in the classroom. "They haven't done anything scientifically to warrant being in the classroom," he told the Michigan press. "Evolution is beyond a doubt one of the most well-supported theories as a result of a century and a half of painstaking research by literally thousands and thousands of scientists. Yet they are demanding equal time."

Note that Brayton's critique of the IDists--which is spot-on, as even its proponents admit, since ID isn't a full-fledged theory with research to back it up--is blanketed over all critics of "Darwinism." Oops.

Or how about this roll-out-the-martyr anecdote:

At the Mississippi University for Women, West writes, "chemistry professor Nancy Bryson was removed as head of the division of natural sciences in 2003 after presenting scientific criticisms of biological and chemical evolution to a seminar of honors students."

Except that isn't exactly what happened:

Mississippi University for Women has reinstated Nancy Bryson, an untenured associate professor of chemistry, as its division head of science and mathematics following accusations that she was demoted because of a lecture she gave advocating “intelligent design.” The university administration denies these accusations; the Chronicle for Higher Education (March 17, 2003) reports that according to the university counsel, her lecture played no part in her demotion, and that there were previous concerns about Bryson’s job performance. Conceding that the timing was unfortunate, MUW’s president reinstated Bryson, and reaffirmed MUW’s commitment to academic freedom and freedom of speech.

Ah, but no mention by Neumayr that Bryson was reinstated, and now teaches at Kennesaw State University. Interesting.

Neumayr, in closing:

While the evolutionists continue their tired celebrations of the Scopes trial, they glance anxiously over their shoulders. They are running scared, and as the list of scientists and thinkers who dissent from Darwinism grows -- the Discovery Institute lists hundreds of scientists who now regard it as an intellectually bankrupt theory -- the evolutionists will increasingly mirror the intolerance they used to bemoan.

Russell Durbin has a great response to this sort of bluster:

With what bold statement do the DI’s supporters confront their colleagues?

We are skeptical of claims for the ability of random mutation and natural selection to account for the complexity of life. Careful examination of the evidence for Darwinian theory should be encouraged.

(A Scientific Dissent from Darwinism)

Hey, I’m skeptical of such claims, too. (It’s hard to deny, for instance, that the epochal endosymbiotic event in which the ancestral mitochondrion threw in its lot with the ancestral nuclear genome had a pretty big role in the complexity of life. And I’m by no means certain of the relative contributions of natural selection, sexual selection and neutral drift.) Would the DI welcome my signature, even if I expressly forbid its use to imply support for “intelligent design”? Perhaps the people that are not skeptical of such claims are the “Darwinian fundamentalists” we’re always being warned about. (Hard to know, since the term is rarely, if ever, defined.) If so, I’ve never met one. In fact, I suspect signing the DI’s statement has nothing to do with science, and everything to do with supporting its political agenda.

Wow, so being "skeptical" of a theory and subjecting its claims to "careful examination" means the theory is "intellectually bankrupt?" Overstatement, anyone?

George Neumayr's bilge is hardly a "good article." It's hogwash. Flimflam. Tommyrot.

Bullshit.


[see also: listen at your own risk, a moment of truth, information please, and pro-neo-darwinism]