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At Yale, Official Correctors Are Thwarted; Memories of Meyer, Wells at the University of Oklahoma

360px-Yale_University_Shield_1.svg.pngAyaan Hirsi Ali, women’s rights advocate and vocal critic of Islam, spoke at Yale yesterday without incident, despite objections from Muslim and other student groups. At National Review Online, the brilliant Yale computer science professor David Gelernter wrote a scathing and very funny reply to the protest contingent, which in turn caught the eye and won the admiration of — irony alert! — Jerry Coyne at Why Evolution Is True. Dr. Coyne, our currently reigning Censor of the Year, wonders why it’s always conservative publications and organizations who seem to support freedom of speech.

He quotes Gelernter’s article addressed to the "Yale Muslim Students Association and its many sister organizations":

Your inspired suggestion, having Official Correctors speak right after Ali to remind students of the authorized view of Muslim society, is the most exciting new development in Free Speech since the Inquisition — everyone will be talking about it!

Coyne:

This is a great letter, far more effective than had Gelernter simply penned an angry rebuke (something that I might have done). I love the bits about the Official Correctors and the proper Authorities.

It is a great letter, but…"Official Correctors"? I told you to watch out for flying ironies. Coyne himself was pivotal in getting Ball State University physicist Eric Hedin officially corrected by Ball State’s president — that was after Dr. Hedin let students know of the existence of books favorable to intelligent design. Coyne aside, precisely that tactic of deploying Official Correctors has been used in the evolution debate by Coyne’s compatriots.

Stephen Meyer writes in Darwin’s Doubt about his experience with our colleague Jonathan Wells at a presentation of the film Darwin’s Dilemma at the University of Oklahoma’s Sam Noble Science Museum in 2009.

There were protests ahead of them from faculty and the online Darwin defense brigade, threats to disrupt the event, a repudiation of Discovery Institute by the museum, campus police out in force, and finally a scheduled Official Correction by the Authorities. Before the film, a paleontologist at the university lectured to explain how the missing fossils of the Cambrian creatures’ hypothesized ancestors aren’t actually missing.

Which is exactly what happened at Yale, except there the Muslim student group didn’t get their demand met for a Corrector and had to sit and listen like everyone else and then line up for the Q&A.

Meyer frames Chapter 4 of Darwin’s Doubt with the Oklahoma story, concluding, by the way, with the further irony that the museum’s own displays make the paleontological facts of the matter clear, a fitting correction to the Official Corrector.

Image source: Wikipedia.

David Klinghoffer

Senior Fellow and Editor, Evolution News
David Klinghoffer is a Senior Fellow at Discovery Institute and the editor of Evolution News & Science Today, the daily voice of Discovery Institute’s Center for Science & Culture, reporting on intelligent design, evolution, and the intersection of science and culture. Klinghoffer is also the author of six books, a former senior editor and literary editor at National Review magazine, and has written for the Los Angeles Times, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Seattle Times, Commentary, and other publications. Born in Santa Monica, California, he graduated from Brown University in 1987 with an A.B. magna cum laude in comparative literature and religious studies. David lives near Seattle, Washington, with his wife and children.

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