The list of species that global warming zealots claim will be wiped out by climate change is long: Antarctic penguins; Arctic polar bears; Australia’s koalas; British dragonflies …  Â
But in what could be a case of Darwinian evolution in action, the BBC reports that “great tits cope well with warming.†Presumably, great tits won’t do as well – at least in the short term – when the pendulum shifts towards global cooling and there’s a pronounced nip in the air.Â
Or, maybe not. The Stiletto highly recommends Ben Stein’s documentary, “Expelled,†about how evolutionary biologists who worship at the altar of Darwinism have thuggishly barred all dissenting opinions – particularly, intelligent design – from the marketplace of ideas and expelled (fired, denied tenure, blacklisted) apostates from universities, scientific journals and research facilities. They include biologist Richard Sternberg, who was fired by the Smithsonian Institution after publishing a peer-reviewed article that mentioned intelligent design; astrobiologist Guillermo Gonzalez, who was denied tenure at Iowa State University – despite having discovered several planets; and Caroline Crocker, who lost her professorship at George Mason University for showing students a PowerPoint presentation that mentioned intelligent design on two slides. Â
Dinesh D’Souza and other conservatives zero in on this scene: Â
Richard Dawkins is going on about how evolution explains everything. This is part of Dawkins’ grand claim, which echoes through several of his books, that evolution by itself has refuted the argument from design. The argument from design hold that the design of the universe and of life are most likely the product of an intelligent designer. Dawkins thinks that Darwin has disproven this argument. Â
So Stein puts to Dawkins a simple question, “How did life begin?†… One might expect Dawkins to invoke evolution as the all-purpose explanation. Evolution, however, only explains transitions from one life form to another. Evolution has no explanation for how life got started in the first place. Darwin was very clear about this. Â
In order for evolution to take place, there had to be a living cell. The difficulty for atheists is that even this original cell is a work of labyrinthine complexity. Franklin Harold writes in “The Way of the Cell†that even the simplest cells are more ingeniously complicated than man’s most elaborate inventions: the factory system or the computer. …Â
Francis Crick, co-discoverer of the DNA double helix … is a committed atheist. Unwilling to consider the possibility of divine or supernatural creation, Crick suggested that maybe aliens brought life to earth from another planet.
And this is precisely the suggestion that  Richard Dawkins makes in his response to Ben Stein. Perhaps, he notes, life was delivered to our planet by highly-evolved aliens. Â
Even Dawkins admits that his “X-Files†explanation just kicks the can down the street a ways, because it doesn’t answer the question of how these aliens came into being.Â
Aside from the sheer delight of seeing Dawkins – author of “The God Delusion†– hoist on his own petard, Stein also explores the association between Darwinism and atheism (you can’t have one without the other); explains how Darwinism was used to justify the eugenics movement in the U.S., during which tens of thousands of Americans were sterilized against their will because they were deemed too physically or mentally flawed to breed; and – most chilling – reminds us that Adolph Hitler combined Darwinism and eugenics to rid the Third Reich of  “inferior†races and human specimens.Â
At its heart, “Expelled†is about scientific, academic and MSM censorship. Whatever your position on intelligent design, there is no denying that the stifling of scientific inquiry is spreading.  Global warming skeptics, for instance, are called “deniers†and the media gives their research short shift – or ignores evidence suggesting that global warming could be a cyclical phenomenon related to solar flare activity, for example – to create the false impression that the science is settled. It is not. And neither is the science settled on Darwinian evolution. Â
Scientific inquiry depends upon continually challenging hypotheses – no scientific finding is supposed to be considered “fact.†Stop people from asking the questions or dismiss research that doesn’t fit into the consensus, and you stop scientific progress and go down blind alleys. Â
Note: The Stiletto writes about politics and other stuff at The Stiletto Blog, chosen an Official Honoree in the Political Blogs category by the judges of the 12th Annual Webby Awards (the Oscars of the online universe) along with CNN Political Ticker, Swampland (Time magazine) and The Caucus (The New York Times).Â
9 users commented in " Global Warming Won’t Harm Great Tits "
Follow-up comment rss or Leave a TrackbackStiletto–I’m not even going to try to add to the hilarity and cleverness of your opening comments. Global warming, globasl cooling, whatever… “A thing of beauty is a joy forever,” and let’s just leave it at that.
As for the scientific Inquisition you have spotlighted, an interesting historical reversal has emerged. For hundreds of years the most serious persecution of scientific pioneers was spearheaded (sometimes quite literally) by the church. Now the persecution is led by other “scientists” who, according to the scientific standards you have articulated, should know better. Thus, as history marches on, blackboot style, Darwin appears to have gotten everything backward: If scientists of today are acting with the same dogmatic, closeminded ruthlessness of medieval religionists, isn’t this evidence that the human race is DEVOLVING?
Richard Sternberg was unpaid research volunteer at the Smithsonian. He was never an employee. He wasn’t even fired or kicked out of that gig. The term of his volunteer position simply expired. He was threatened or had his keys taken away. He was given a new card-key pass and asked to turn in the old, now useless keys.
In fact, ever detail of how the Sternberg case is presented in Expelled is wrong. You really should pay more mind to the details about such things before trumpeting them as facts.
That should have never “never threatened or had his keys taken away.” Stupid typo.
Ben Stein is a professional liar who knows nothing about biology.
Intelligent design creationism is a childish belief in magic. Only uneducated religious nuts believe in it. People who prefer intelligent design magic instead of science deserve to be ridiculed and laughed at.
Not to mention that Gonzalez did not have the output to deserve tenure by any measure. Crocker didn’t just mention “ID”, her slides would have embarrassed Ken Ham. This is the problem with documentaries of this type, if it satisfies somebodies prejudices, then they don’t look below the surface.
Is there anywhere that I can find Crocker’s slides? I’d like to see what kind of ID info she was trying to slip into biology and judge the issue for myself.
I find it funny that the religious, who offer themselves up as the most honest and benign often tend to be the most unscrupulous and dishonest of the lot. I can understand and sympathize with a little honest ignorance, but movies like Expelled go flying into outright, straight-up, in-your-face lying to support a malicious agenda. And the target audience, who has been groomed to despise and distrust evolutionary theory, eats it up with zeal! Preach to the choir and keep them ignorant and under control. Gotta keep those coffers and pews full and minds empty.
Pity you didn’t mention http://www.expelledexposed.com – it exposes the many lies of “Expelled.”
Thanks, Mark! A free marketplace is self-regulating so you don’t need “tariffs” in the form of censorship. The Stiletto thinks you should just put it all out there and let the bogus stuff be disproved and discredited. Not talking about ID isn’t going to make it go away.
And as for The Smithsonian – refused to step foot in the place again since watching an educational film on the spirit of exploration that included this completely unsubstantiated sentence: “Unknown Africans may have gotten to the New World before either the Vikings or Columbus.” It’s not like The Smithsonian has never been intellectually dishonest.
Stiletto: “The Stiletto thinks you should just put it all out there and let the bogus stuff be disproved and discredited.”
… which is what happened with intelligent design. Scientists looked it over, decided it was just another creationist rehash, and that’s that. But intelligent design was never really about science anyway, which is why the IDers are now aiming for school boards, state legislatures, and those so easily persuadable that even stuff like “Expelled” strikes them as thoughtful.
They failed their test, and are now trying to game the system.
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