Culture

How is misinformation spread about intelligent design?  In some cases, it’s a simple pathway going from lawyers working with the NCSE and ACLU right into the willing hands of the media. First, attorneys cooperating with the NCSE and ACLU during the Kitzmiller v. Dover case invented text from the “Wedge Document,” wrongly stating in their “Proposed Findings of Fact and Conclusions of Law” submitting during the Kitzmiller trial that, “The Wedge Document states in its ‘Five Year Strategic Plan Summary’ that the intelligent design movement’s goal is to replace science as currently practiced with ‘theistic and Christian science.’”  Next, Judge Jones copied and pasted this misinformation directly into his Kitzmiller ruling, stating: “The Wedge Document states in its ‘Five Year Strategic Read More ›

Darwinists in Florida are in a tizzy trying to figure out why they oppose the proposed Academic Freedom Act in their state. Sometimes they claim the act isn’t needed because no one who questions Darwin is being denied academic freedom. Other times they insist the act should be rejected because academic freedom is nothing but “smelly crap.” Still other times, they insist the act is bad because it supposedly authorizes the teaching of religion in science class, even though the text of the act clearly says the exact opposite (“This section shall not be construed to promote any religious doctrine, promote discrimination for or against a particular set of religious beliefs, or promote discrimination for or against religion or nonreligion.”)

(UPDATE: I’ve updated this post with two smaller MP3s to make downloading easier. Part 1 features a number of speakers including Rep. Hays describing his bill. Part 2 features Casey Luskin and Ben Stein at the end, among others.) If you’d like to hear for yourself what was said at the press conference in support of Florida’s proposed Academic Freedom Act in Tallahassee yesterday you can download an MP3 part 1 here and part 2 here. The speakers at the press conference included CSC’s own Casey Luskin, and Ben Stein, among others.

Now we know where some Florida legislators who oppose academic freedom in the evolution debate are getting their ideas about evolution. And it’s not from any science textbook. It’s from the bombastic play Inherit the Wind, long discredited by historians for its fantasy version of the history of the Scopes trial.

Last week, Florida’s Senate Minority Leader Steve Geller cited Inherit the Wind in his attack on the proposed Academic Freedom Act in his state that would prevent teachers from being disciplined or terminated “for objectively presenting scientific information relevant to the full range of scientific views regarding biological or chemical evolution.”

For another story on the press conference today about the Florida Academic Freedom Act, see here. And you can watch a news report here.

The Tallahassee Democrat has just posted an updated article about the Florida Academic Freedom Act press conference earlier today: Actor and social activist Ben Stein visited Florida’s capitol today, urging lawmakers to pass an “academic freedom” bill that would protect teachers and students from questioning evolution under newly adopted science curriculum standards. Stein also joined John Stemberger, head of the Florida Family Policy Council, and Casey Luskin, a lawyer from the Seattle-based Discovery Institute, in defending a private screening of Stein’s new film that has been arranged tonight for legislators. They showed a brief preview of the film, in which Stein recounts his meetings with teachers and scientists who have been shunned for questioning evolutionary theory. You can read the Read More ›

Discovery Institute’s Casey Luskin is in Florida today participating in a press conference with sponsors of the proposed Academic Freedom Act there. The press conference also featured actor Ben Stein, who will be screening a pre-release version of the film Expelled for Florida legislators tonight. The press conference just concluded, and so here is the text of Luskin’s prepared remarks. (Because of limited time, some parts of these remarks may not have been actually delivered.)

TALLAHASSEE — “Academic freedom is not ‘smelly crap.’ It’s the foundation of a free society,” says science education expert Casey Luskin, program officer for public policy and legal affairs at Discovery Institute. “That’s why Florida’s proposed Academic Freedom Act on evolution is so important.”

Florida legislators recently introduced SB 2692, the Academic Freedom Act, to protect teachers and students from retaliation for discussing the scientific evidence for and against Darwin’s theory.

Opponents are already trying to scare the public about what the Act is meant to do, falsely claiming it is an attempt to put religion in the classroom. Some have gone so far as to call academic freedom “smelly crap.”

Recently Channel One News decided to tackle the evolution debate and focused on the Florida state board of education’s decision to revise science standards to proclaim Darwinian evolution as the foundation of biolgoy. If you’re not familiar with Channel One it probably means you’re not a high school student. Channel One is the self-poroclaimed “news and public affairs content provider to teens” and claims to reach six million students across the country every single day.

The media in Florida are all aflutter this week on a bill introduced into the state legislature by state senator Ronda Storms, called the Academic Freedom Bill. Discovery Institute has recommended such legislation in the past. We even maintain a website at www.academicfreedompetition.com that has a model of an academic freedom bill. So we’re happy that Storms has taken the ball and run with it.

Not everyone is happy though, which is clear from reading the newspaper stories on this latest development in the debate over how to teach evolution. Darwinists are downright unhappy, so much so those at Florida Citizens for Science think academic freedom is “smelly crap.”

This academic freedom stuff is merely the next evolutionary step as anti-science folks continue their attempts to shove creationism into the public school classroom. First, there was blatant creationism. Next there was intelligent design. Both failed miserably. Now comes along academic freedom. Same smelly crap, different packaging.

So it shouldn’t be surprising that the media got the story wrong. They’ve been fed some “smelly crap” from FCS.