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March 28, 2005
More Free Marketing for Creationism
Jason Rosenhouse, writing at Panda's Thumb and more expansively at Evolutionblog, addresses an article by Paul McHugh in the Weekly Standard entitled Teaching Darwin: Why we're still fighting about biology textbook. The article is, as Rosenhouse says, ". . . the usual melange of literary arrogance coupled with scientific ignorance."
It is also good marketing. Intentional or not, this kind of article works to re-brand both creationism and science to creationism's advantage. It is much like the equally misleading op ed piece written by Michael Behe's and published in the Feb. 7, 2005 New York Times . Truthfully, Behe's piece was a somewhat better marketing for no other reason than that it was in the Times. I wrote a post on Behe's piece. Almost everything I said there can also be said of McHugh's piece and a host of others. McHugh even reinforces Behe as an authority!
Perhaps more than the Behe piece, the McHugh piece gives the creationist's cause "legs." Anytime a naive reader hears of a controversy between science and something else they will have a lingering memory that scientists seek "to close off the conversation by excessive claims for any privileged access to truth." You've got to love having ideas reinforced by vague memory even if the claims are false.
There is an unhealthy dose of the "I can't taste my beer" theme all over the place. The best example,
Official science is too much at ease with the Darwinian narrative--primarily because it can't come up with anything better.
And then there was a little "It's not TV, it's HBO;"
Lots of views are consistent with the cell's complexity--including the view Behe explores, that an intelligent creator designed the cell to work.
We are to understand that Behe's views are not creationism; they are science.
And then there is the identification of modern science with those evil "isms." "Darwinism" and "Darwinian" appear some 22 times in McHugh's piece, twice in the first paragraph.
Perhaps its time for science to have a marketing plan.
It is interesting that McHugh has favored limited human embryo cloning. He has also expressed strong concerns about sex re-assignment. He's against it. He has also written other pieces for the neo-conservative First Things.
Posted by DuaneSmith at March 28, 2005 12:39 PM | Read more on Evolution |
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