Expelling Creationism from…Conservatism?

April 25th, 2008 RWA Posted in News | 4 Comments »

I was looking forward to reading John Derbyshire’s review EXPELLED for National Review. He’s already taken down the trailer and misleading web campaign superbly (read here for direct links and commentary by DCers), but alas, NR decided instead to give priority to two doofuses, David Klinghoffer and Dave Berg (I’m not going to link directly to them and make you waste your time; instead, read The Sensuous Curmudgeon’s witty take on them). Fortunately, both Derb and Jonah Goldberg (more reservedly) let it be known that they don’t share Klinghoffer or Berg’s views…but then Goldberg decided to share some real, real, REAL stupid mail he had gotten from people who do agree with them. In fit of pique, I wrote back, and Goldberg was kind enough to print my reply (I’m the third response down), but he did chastize me gently for “beating up” on his other correspondants.

        OK, so maybe I was a little too brutal, and I do cringe a little at my attempts at sarcasm, although it’s hard to react otherwise when confronted with people stupider than Kim Kardashian after inhaling the fumes at a Magic Marker factory. I guess you could forgive me for feeling PeeZeeish that day by the fact that infuriates me that even a mainstream publication like NR will let pseudoscientific kooks use it as a platform. The next issue of NR even features a review of David Berlinski’s latest book by George Gilder-WHEN WILL THEY LEARN???  If NR really wants to keep William F. Buckley’s memory alive, then they should work at expelling the Discovery Institute and creationism from conservatism, the same way WFB shunted the John Birch Society and the conspiracy kooks to the margins. It’s unfortunate that an “enemy of my enemy is my friend” mentality runs through the mainstreams of both the right and left, leading both of them to embrace ignorant or fringe beliefs and individuals simply because they regard them as an ally against ideological opponents. This leads the left to reprehensibly defend their dalliances with obvious slimeballs like Jeremiah Wright, Bill Ayers, Hugo Chavez and their immoral ilk, and leads the right to equally scuzzy defenses of creationists. That’s the only reason I can fathom that Goldberg, who believes in evolution and not in creationism, would let the antievos speak through his publication, even when he knows they’re wrong. It is also the only explanation I give for Ed Morrissey’s bizarre review of EXPELLED. Ed admits that evolution is correct, he admits it doesn’t interfere with his faith, he admits that ID is just a way for creationists to try to shove religion in where it doesn’t belong, and he admits that the Darwin-Hitler link is tenuous at best, but all that pales to him in comparison to the fight to “win the culture wars” and secure academic freedom. And on those grounds alone, he praises EXPELLED for trying to argue in favor of “freedom of scientific inquiry”. Tell you what, Ed. Ask your son, the physics Ph.D candidate what the real “battle for freedom of scientific inquiry” is all about. Here’s a hint: it’s not the scientists who are eating their own.

         All of this gets under my skin. It gets underneath the skin of all of us founding Darwin Central members, and is the whole raison d’etre for our being here.  We love our country, our values, and our system of free enterprise, but we also love science, and history shows that any society or movement which takes an adversarial stance towards science winds up crumbling, and we’re determined not to let that happen to either America or conservatism. And fortunately, we aren’t the only conservatives who feel that way. John Farrell, Rand Simberg and best of all, Dafydd ab Hugh have all flunked EXPELLED for being both bad science and bad politics, with Dafydd offering an especially witty, well-organized and LONG takedown.  Even Little Green Footballs is hawking EXPELLED EXPOSED! I don’t advise opening the comments if you’re using Vista because it’ll crash your browser, but let’s just say that Chris Hitchens has some friends there. It does give one pause to think that much of the conservative and Republican base is waking up to the dangers of the New Creationism, but too many people who should know better are still in a long slumber.