Category: Culture
Discrimination Against Intelligent Design Film Cited in California Science Center Lawsuit
More details are now coming out from the lawsuit filed against the California Science Center by the American Freedom Alliance (AFA), filed in the Superior Court for the State of California for the County of Los Angeles (Central District). AFA’s lawsuit contends that the California Science Center engaged in viewpoint discrimination when cancelling AFA’s contract to screen the pro-intelligent design (ID) documentary Darwin’s Dilemma at the Center’s IMAX Theatre on October 25th. As discussed below, AFA’s complaint contains e-mails from California Science Center staff revealing that the Center cared more about how it would be perceived by ID-critics in the scientific community for renting its facilities to screen a pro-ID video than it did about AFA’s constitutional rights. The abrupt Read More ›
California Science Center Sued for Cancelling Screening of Intelligent Design Video
A lawsuit has been filed against the California Science Center by the American Freedom Alliance (AFA) for cancelling the AFA’s contract to screen the Darwin’s Dilemma documentary on October 25th. According to AFA’s press release: American Freedom Alliance (AFA), a non-profit group, has filed a lawsuit in Los Angeles against a popular science museum for cancelling an event exploring the topic of intelligent design. The group says its free speech rights were violated when the California Science Center (CSC) abruptly reversed a decision to allow the showing of a pro-intelligent design documentary at the museum’s IMAX Theater. The program was also scheduled to screen a pro-evolution film, but, the lawsuit alleges, museum officials were fearful of having intelligent design discussed Read More ›
Moore v. Gaston County Board of Education: Teachers Can Say they Support Darwin, But Can They Dissent?
May a teacher answer questions from students about her personal religious beliefs or her beliefs on Darwin’s theory of evolution? That’s the issue addressed in Moore v. Gaston County Board of Education, where a lower federal court found it legal for a agnostic teacher who supported evolution to express his views in response to student questions about what he believed. Would a teacher who doubts Darwinism also be granted the academic freedom to openly answer student questions about whether she finds evolutionary biology persuasive? 1. Summary A student teacher, George Moore, sued the Gaston County School District in North Carolina after being dismissed because he supported evolution in class by giving “unorthodox answers to student questions (derived from the day’s Read More ›
NCSE Theologian Parrots Dawkins: ID “Practitioners” Are “Ignorant of Science or Seriously Deluded or Fundamentally Dishonest”
At last week’s ID legal symposium at St. Thomas University School of Law, Peter Hess, a theologian with the National Center for Science Education (NCSE), gave a talk titled “Creation, Design and Evolution: Much Ado about Nothing.” Nearly all of his objections to ID were theological in nature, as he stated that ID is “not only not science” but also “poor theology” and “blasphemous.” The NCSE is increasingly turning to religious objections in their campaign against ID, pitting one particular religious view (theistic evolution) against ID’s science. This is of course their right to do, but it’s amusing since the NCSE regularly attacks ID on the grounds that the ID movement allegedly unnecessarily pits one narrow religious view against the Read More ›
Do Ideas Have Consequences Only When They’re Associated with Radical Islam?
Why do so many writers who insist on emphasizing the consequences of radical Muslim belief tend to ignore the social consequences of other belief systems — for example, Darwinism? My question is prompted by reflections that are being published about the Fort Hood massacre. Darwinist blogger PZ Myers is among many voices to be raised in protest that shooter Nidal Hasan’s Islamic beliefs are getting too little attention: “Unfortunately, there’s [a] factor that seems to be getting minimized in the press accounts: [Hasan] was also a member of an Abrahamic death cult” (i.e., Islam). PZ quotes Ibn Warraq’s comment on Hasan’s crime, “To leave Islam out of the equation means to forever misinterpret events,” before broadening the scope of the Read More ›