academic freedom

How NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory Punished David Coppedge for His Views on Intelligent Design

Supervisors at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory illegally harassed, demoted and humiliated a computer specialist and high-level system administrator for his beliefs about intelligent design, according to a lawsuit filed in California Superior Court. BACKGROUND: David Coppedge has worked on the Cassini mission since 1997. In 2000 he earned recognition for excellence, receiving the important role of “Team Lead SA” (system Read More ›

BESE Expected to Take Up Controversial Science Instruction Act Today

This article, published by The Times-Picayune, quotes Discovery Institute Senior Fellow John West: That goes further than the Legislature intended, according to John West of the Discovery Institute, which publishes materials that discuss “strengths and weaknesses” of Darwinian theory. “The bill was silent on intelligent design,” West said. The rest of the article can be found here.

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Expelled From the New York Times

My sister nailed it many years ago when she said, “Your basic human is not such a hot item.”

Keep that filed in your head as I tell my little tale.

About five or six years ago, roughly, I was solicited to write a column every two weeks for the Sunday New York Times Business Section. I was really thrilled. I have written for the Washington Post (when I was a teenager), for the Wall Street Journal edit page under the legendary Bob Bartley, for Barron’s, under the really great Alan Abelson and Jim Meagher, for my beloved American Spectator, under the great Bob and Wlady, and now having a regular column at the Times was going to be great stuff.

The column went well. I got lots of excellent fan mail and fine feedback from my editors, who, however, kept changing.

The first real super problem I had was when the movie I narrated and co-wrote, Expelled — No Intelligence Allowed, was in progress. A “science writer” for the Times blasted the movie on the front page and noted that I, whom she repeatedly called “…a freelance writer…” (not a columnist) for the Times, was somehow involved. That was followed by a really fantastically angry blast against the movie by a reviewer who really hated it a lot. (I note that the Times also disliked Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. Hmm.)

Expelled was a plea for open discussion of the possibility that life might have started with an Intelligent Designer. This idea, that freedom of academic discussion on an issue as to which there is avid scientific disagreement has value, seems obvious to me. But it drives the atheists and neo-Darwinists crazy and they responded viciously.

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THE SCOPES INDICTMENT-Reah County Courthouse, Dayton, Tennessee,
THE SCOPES INDICTMENT-Reah County Courthouse, Dayton, Tennessee, the courtroom where the Scopes evolution case is being tried. (1925) - CPL Archives/Everett Collection
The Scopes Indictment, Reah County Courthouse (1925)

Debunking the Scopes ‘Monkey Trial’ Stereotype

Whenever a challenge to the truth of Darwinian evolution arises, the scientific establishment and its allies trot out the Scopes Monkey Trial. It is their position that if the scientific establishment has ratified a science textbook, such as the book from which Scopes taught evolution, the state should not engage in “censoring” the material in that book.

The Scopes Monkey Trial plays such a prominent role in the debate that I purchased a copy of the transcript; a copy of the textbook from which Scopes taught, A Civic Biology; and a copy of the companion lab guide to that textbook. Review of these source materials-very different from the biased picture presented in Inherit the Wind-was a real eye-opener.

In the Scopes trial, there was never any judgment or verdict that Darwinian evolution is true. The prosecution argued and the judge agreed that the Tennessee statute in question barred the teaching of the Darwinian theory even if it were true, so its truth was not an issue in the case. Nor, notably, was the truth of the theory of Darwinian evolution and the supposed evidence for it ever subjected to cross-examination. Scopes’ lawyers presented extensive written statements from seven scientists stating that Darwinian evolution is the correct explanation for the diversity of life on earth. The prosecution sought permission to cross-examine the five pro-Darwinian science experts whose statements had been read in open court, but Clarence Darrow and the other Scopes lawyers objected and the court refused to allow it.

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CSC Promo 2009

The Mission of the Center for Science and Culture: To advance the idea that life and the universe is a product of intelligent design and to challenge the Darwinian view that the world was built from a blind a purposeless process. Our perennial initiatives are on Research & Scholarship, Education & Communication, and Academic Freedom.

Discovery Institute Honors Charles Darwin With Academic Freedom Day

Discovery Institute today announced the launch of Academic Freedom Day in honor of Charles Darwin’s 200th birthday on February 12, 2009. “We’re celebrating Charles Darwin’s birthday by supporting what he supported: academic freedom,” said Robert Crowther, Director of Communications at Discovery Institute. “Like Darwin, we recognize the importance of having an open and honest debate between evolution and intelligent design.” Read More ›

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Empty chairs in university lecture hall
Photo by Nathan Dumlao on Unsplash

Professors Show Need for Academic Freedom Bill

Two OU professors who are adamantly opposed to Senate Bill 320 — a Science Education and Academic Freedom bill filed by Sen. Randy Brogdon, R-Owasso — have recently shown why the bill is necessary. Zoology professors Vic Hutchison and Richard Broughton have passed out fliers encouraging opposition to the bill, which would permit high school science educators to teach the strengths and weaknesses of science topics that can cause controversy. The blatant misrepresentation of the bill that Hutchison and Broughton display creates a climate of fear that warrants such academic freedom legislation. Read More ›

Discovery Institute Announces Academic Freedom Day Student Video and Essay Contest

SEATTLE — Discovery Institute is sponsoring a student video and essay contest to commemorate Academic Freedom Day, February 12, 2009, on Charles Darwin’s bicentennial. Darwin once wrote, “A fair result can be obtained only by fully stating and balancing the facts and arguments on both sides of each question.” That famous quote will be the touchstone for students to communicate Read More ›

Texas Freedom Network Manufactures Bogus Controversy Over Science Standard Reviewers

AUSTIN, TX — The Chicken Littles at the Texas Freedom Network (TFN) are ranting that the sky is falling because two of the six experts selected to review the state’s science standards co-authored Explore Evolution, a textbook that examines both the strengths and weaknesses of Darwinian evolution (www.exploreevolution.com). What the TFN doesn’t reveal is that another of the expert reviewers co-authored Read More ›

Photo by The Climate Reality Project

ID is Constitutional and has Educational and Legal Merit

[Editor’s note: This article was posted as part of a series of articles both for and against ID at OpposingViews.com.] “The part of Kitzmiller that finds ID not to be science is unnecessary, unconvincing, not particularly suited to the judicial role, and even perhaps dangerous both to science and to freedom of religion”1 Jay D. Wexler, Anti-ID legal scholar at Read More ›