Vision America has a nice article on how dissenters from scientific
orthodoxy, be it global warming or evolution, are mocked, ousted, and
persecuted just like religious heretics.
Scientists who dissent from the alarmism [over global
warming] have seen their grant funds disappear, their work derided, and
themselves libeled as industry stooges, scientific hacks or
worse….Some have gone so far as to propose that “global warming
deniers” are aiding and abetting a global holocaust and should be
prosecuted.
A new report from the U.S. House of Representatives has condemned
officials at the Smithsonian Institution for imposing a religious test
on scientists who work there. And it suggests their attacks on a
scientist who just edited an article on intelligent design are just the
tip of the iceberg of an industry-wide fear of anything that suggests
man might not have come from a puddle of sludge.
You tell 'em Seeker. Our creation scientists are not getting due credit for their hard work. They are unfairly ostracized by the scientific community just because they start with a conclusion that there is no global warming or that God created all species 6000 years ago. We did not come from a puddle of sludge. Man came from dust and Woman came from ribs. Stupid scientists.
OK, now I am sure you are a Colbert-like troll. Ugh.
I don't know seeker,
Neo-Con is working very hard. That's important. A descendant of sludge has many… many reasons to fight for truth. Of course, they're all illusions because reason and morality and truth are illusions based on that world-view, but, it's important to be pragmatic. That way, people can keep busy and not have to deal with themselves or reality.
Neo-con isn't even a real neo-con. He just plays one on this blog, and badly because he is doing a parody. He should go read the latest My Two Cents about the difference between caricaturization and characterization.
The "report" from the House of Representatives appears to be the work of one Republican staffer, working for the Congressman who asked for it. It's been thoroghly fisked on other sites, but it certainly does not suggest the sort of care for accuracy that would be able to win support on a committee. The report was not issued by the committee, it has had no review by senior staff of the committee so far as anyone can tell, and it was never proposed as a report from the committee — other congress members have not approved it in any fashion.
Dr. Sternberg committed some high academic sins. The report fails to mention that. Had Sternberg's actions been done on government time (so far we have no data to suggest they were) they might be crimes. The report defends this unethical action, it appears. Clearly, Congress should not be in the business of encouraging research fraud. It is highly unlikely such a report could win approval from other members.
The report's appendices, however, verify that there was no retaliation against Dr. Sternberg.
Moreover, there is no recorded instance of any intelligent design paper ever having been refused by any science publication.
Therefore, to argue that attempts to stamp out fraud are "bias" against intelligent design is to claim that intelligent design is nothing but academic fraud. Interesting position, but wrong, I suspect. Further, we still lack any evidence of bias against dissenters from scientific "orthodoxy" in the area of evolution theory. This report shows none.
Actually, the author does not really rely much on the one reference you are rightfully debunking. He quotes it to support his contention that there is anti-ID and pro-global-warming orthodoxy in science which stifles and punishes dissent. I'm sure there are more detailed arguments supporting this, but to deny it is, I think, to be willfully blind to the problem of the unhealthy stifling of valid debate, painting all doubters as loons or heretics.
This is one of the many reasons why modern science can not be trusted, unfortunately – corporate money and ideologues, esp. Darwinist boobs, have stolen the reigns of power in science and are now hindering science. That's the point the author tried to make.
Perhaps a more deeply researched and documented article is in order. I could not get the Wall Street Journal article he mentioned, since I don't have paid access.
A goodly bunch of the global warming dissenters are on the payroll of oil companies and oil company-funded advocacy groups. They make big bucks. There is no evidence their papers are not published when they write them. Where is the "penalty" they pay for shilling (unethically, often) for an interested party? There is no evidence.
In intelligent design, every paper ever submitted to a science journal even half-heartedly supporting intelligent design has been published. Those who advocate design have research to back their claims, but they get lucrative speaking engagements, book contracts for books that will sell millions at religious bookstores, foreign travel . . . that's a problem?
Generally, real rebels do have difficulty. Alfred Wegener was poverty-struck and dead before his continental movement theories were accepted. But he was a real scientist, not a faux scientist.
Faux scientists shoudln't complain. They should do science instead.
I agree Ed, nice comment