03.04.10
Proudly More Backward
If someone had asked me in 1985, the year I earned my Ph.D. in chemistry, if I thought the US would be a profoundly more backward country in 2010 I’d have likely thought they were nuts.
Today, in a front page story at the New York Times, on the unending labors of heartland US religious freaks and zealots to throw down accepted science:
The linkage of evolution and global warming is partly a legal strategy: courts have found that singling out evolution for criticism in public schools is a violation of the separation of church and state. By insisting that global warming also be debated, deniers of evolution can argue that they are simply championing academic freedom in general.
A better editor or journalist might have written the second sentence this way:
By insisting that global warming also be debated, deniers of evolution absurdly argue they are championing academic freedom in general.
Another way to put it is that they are ‘bundling their flat-earther disbeliefs.’ And as usual, it’s solely the property of the current Republican party and Evangelical Christian religion, the American Taliban.
The Discovery Institute makes an appearance in the Times story, a fringe agency that has continuously fought to have creationism taught in biology class. Quite naturally, it has also latched onto global warming denial as a convenience.
It again reminds me of Lehigh University’s predicament: Professor Michael Behe, advertised as a senior fellow at Discovery.
Behe arrived at Lehigh through vetting by its Department of Chemistry as I was leaving. The search committee, of which my advisor was a member, thought he was grand.
At the time, Behe was either keeping his opinions about evolution to himself or perhaps no one was really paying attention.
In the mide-Nineties, DD even recalls a hastily put together alumni letter issued by the same department lauding Behe’s book, Darwin’s Black Box, for landing on bestseller lists. This only demonstrated that someone rather benighted in the place had not actually read it.
By the time Lehigh — a school that prided itself on its science and engineering curricula — got its act together with regards to Behe, he’d done all the damage he could.
Writing editorial features for the New York Times and other places on intelligent design — evolution deniers code for creationism — he had generally contributed to the casting of the impression in the lay public that there was significant scientific doubt about evolution.
Behe also had tenure at Lehigh.
And the only thing the school’s biology department could do was post a really late-to-the-party disclaimer on him.