Thoughts in a Haystack

Ben Stein may not know much, but he knows what Intelligent Design is talking about:

Freedom of inquiry ... includes the ability to inquire whether a higher power, a being greater than man, is involved with how the universe operates. This has always been basic to science. ALWAYS.

Some of the greatest scientists of all time, including Galileo, Newton, Einstein, operated under the hypothesis that their work was to understand the principles and phenomena as designed by a creator. ...

Now, I am sorry to say, freedom of inquiry in science is being suppressed.

Under a new anti-religious dogmatism, scientists and educators are not allowed to even think thoughts that involve an intelligent creator. ...

They cannot even mention the possibility that -- as Newton or Galileo believed -- these laws were created by God or a higher being.

Despite the best pretenses of the Discovery Institute and its merry band of dissemblers, no one, especially its supporters, thinks ID isn't about God.

Ben Stein doesn't know spit about the philosophy of science or academia but he may know something about marketing. We'll know better come next February.

Taylor Kessinger, a junior at Arizona University, majoring in math, philosophy and physics, and a columnist for the student newspaper, the Arizona Daily Wildcat also has ID's number but in a more honest form. After noting Stein's invocation of the First Amendment, Mr. Kessinger says:

[F]reedom of speech doesn't protect the rights of professors to make claims with no scientific backing without repercussions. Universities don't stand for professors who waste funds and time researching astrology, parapsychology or other pseudoscientific ideas, and they never should.

Stein and his fellow design advocates don't care about equality or fairness. They want intelligent design to be "special" in this regard, so that they can pretend their belief in God -- a faith-based belief -- somehow has scientific backing.

Contrary to the popular belief among beleaguered design theorists, there is no conspiracy to destroy religion in science. University faculty members continue to hold a multitude of religious positions even in evolutionary biology departments, and in the dozen or so biology textbooks I've looked through, I have yet to find the phrase "God does not exist."

On the other hand, does science discriminate against proponents of intelligent design? Well, sure, but only in the same sense that a university discriminates against bad students or the stock market discriminates against people who make poor financial decisions.

Why, it's almost like selection is taking place ...