Now that the furore over the tanking ID phauxmentary is calming down, it would be nice to talk about the real persecution that is taking place. This
is somewhat apt, as a claim of scientists in fear of denying evolution was also made in a recent thread.
Whilst
Expelled suggested that people have supposedly been persecuted for their pseudoscientific belief in
intelligent design, the real campaign of the dark-age hordes goes unnoticed by most.
So, here we go, a list of individuals who have been 'expelled' - persecuted, attacked, sacked, threatened etc, for accepting evolutionary theory
and/or doubting the fundiegelical dogma.
More details (and information below) avaliable
here. Whilst we haven't reached the level of a
mathematician being pulled apart by motorbikes (Taleban afghans; although Bruno might say being burned at the stake was pretty bad), the modern
anti-science fundiegelical crusade in the west is real.
Steve Bitterman was an instructor who taught the Western Civilization course at Southwestern Community College in Red Oak, Iowa. In 2007, at the
age of sixty, he was fired because he did not teach the story of Adam and Eve as literal truth.
Alex Bolyanatz was an assistant professor of anthropology at Wheaton College, a Protestant liberal-arts college in Illinois. He had been popular
with both students and his fellow teachers, but in the spring of 2000, he received a letter from his provost issuing a stern rebuke: “During your
term at Wheaton College,” Stanton Jones wrote, “you have failed to develop the necessary basic competence in the integration of Faith and
Learning, particularly in the classroom setting.” Jones castigated Bolyanatz for not treating creationism with respect and instead teaching
evolution as the plain, scientific truth.
Likewise, Richard Colling graduated from Olivet Nazarene University and taught there for twenty-seven years. A man of strong religious
convictions, he argued that one could believe in the Christian God and still accept the scientific truth of evolution. In 2004, he published a book
about this belief, and for his pains, he was barred from teaching general biology or having his book used in the school.
Nancey Murphy of Fuller Theological Seminary did not have that shield [i.e. Tenure], and so when her negative review of Phillip Johnson’s Darwin
on Trial aroused Johnson’s ire, she had to fight for her job. Johnson, a lawyer who was one of the instigators in rebranding creationism as
“Intelligent Design,” has never displayed a grasp of basic biological facts, but that didn’t stop him from calling up a Fuller trustee and
starting a campaign to get Nancey Murphy fired.
Gwen Pearson taught biology at the Permian Basin branch of the University of Texas, located in the city of Odessa. Her three years as an assistant
professor ended with assaults on her integrity and her physical self.
Her crime? Teaching evolution.
She got out while she could.
Chris Comer was not so lucky. A dedicated employee of the Texas Education Agency, Comer was serving as Director of Science when she forwarded a
brief e-mail message mentioning that the philosopher Barbara Forrest would be giving a talk at an Austin public events center. Forrest and her
colleague Paul Gross are authors of Creationism’s Trojan Horse, a book which details how creationism has masqueraded as serious science in order to
slip particular religious beliefs into the public schools. For sending a brief “FYI,” Comer was forced to resign
Paul Mirecki was professor of religious studies and department chair at the University of Kansas. He planned to teach a class called “Special
Topics in Religion: Intelligent Design, Creationism and other Religious Mythologies,” but canceled those plans after events took an unfortunate
turn. He had displayed an acerbic tongue in online discussion forums, and on further reflection apologized for his less temperate remarks, concluding
that the class was better taught at another time; that apology and change of plan did not prevent two men from beating him in the street one December
morning, for the crimethink of having proposed the class in the first place. Sympathy for a physically assaulted human being did not stay the KU
administration, who forced him to step down as department chair.
The real occurrence of violence gives death threats a certain cachet of intimidating force. Eric Pianka, a biologist at UT Austin, gave a speech
before the Texas Academy of Science, which was presenting him with a distinguished-service award. In his speech, he articulated his fears that
overpopulation will lead to a disaster for the human species. The story then took a twist which a fiction writer would be hard-pressed to surpass: a
creationist named Forrest Mims claimed that Pianka advocated releasing the Ebola virus to eliminate 90% of the world’s population. Other
creationists, like William Dembski, soon picked up the story, leading to online hysteria. Within days, Pianka himself and others in the Texas Academy
of Science received death threats.
Judge John E. Jones III, a Republican and faithful Lutheran, delivered a landmark verdict in which he summarized the claims of Intelligent Design
proponents as “breathtaking inanity.” Once the verdict was revealed, Judge Jones became the target of character assassination and even received
death threats for the crime of doing his job.
Michael Korn sent threatening letters, adorned with skulls and crossbones, to several biology professors at the University of Colorado, Boulder.
Several of the messages were delivered by slipping envelopes under the professors’ office doors after working hours; Korn’s missives referred to
“killing the enemies of Christian society.” He then skipped town and is currently a fugitive from justice.
Oh, and I’ve also been alerted to the unfortunate case of Terry Gray, a Christian biochemist whose negative review of Phillip Johnson’s Darwin
on Trial sparked an unhappy response from the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, which eventually forced Dr. Gray to recant.
So don't cry wolf, or create faux martyrs, because some IDer who can't formulate a grant application failed to get tenure, or some creationist was
talked about in nasty way on the intertubz. There is a real-world crusade, and it's an anti-science one.
That is something Ben Stein and the other ID sophists don't want you to know.
Have fun!
[edit on 11-5-2008 by melatonin]
religious 
