Don McLeroy's "Friend of Jefferson" Award
I got a whole bunch of comments today, mainly as a result of Fatheaded Ed Brayton posting an article about my "Friend of Hitler" and "Friend of Jefferson" awards, so rather than go through them all, I decided to just post them all indiscriminately, starting with the last unreviewed comment.
Several of these comments were critical of my giving the "Friend of Jefferson" award to Don McLeroy, considering that he helped remove Jefferson from the Texas state standards for education. McLeroy received the award because of his efforts against censorship of criticism of evolution in the public schools. That is a priority with me because the courts have been censoring that criticism. No jackass judge has tried to censor the study of Jefferson in the public schools, so I decided to overlook McLeroy's efforts to remove Jefferson from the Texas state standards.
Several of these comments were critical of my giving the "Friend of Jefferson" award to Don McLeroy, considering that he helped remove Jefferson from the Texas state standards for education. McLeroy received the award because of his efforts against censorship of criticism of evolution in the public schools. That is a priority with me because the courts have been censoring that criticism. No jackass judge has tried to censor the study of Jefferson in the public schools, so I decided to overlook McLeroy's efforts to remove Jefferson from the Texas state standards.
posted by Larry Fafarman | 4/06/2010 04:38:00 PM
12 Comments:
Yes, War is peace. Strength is weakness and Don McLeroy is a defender of Jeffersonian freedoms.
Thanks for at least taking up my suggestion to post your reasoning. Although I suspect that the real reason is that you agree with him and not with those you gave the Friends of Hitler award to. Which is surprising as your Holocaust denial certainly makes YOU a friend of Hitler
Don McLeroy hates Thomas Jefferson
McLeroy, along with his rightwing radical cronies, hates Jefferson and his 'wall of separation between church and state' (Jefferson's own words for what is written into the Constitution as the 'Establishment Clause'). Giving him a 'Friend of Jefferson' award is therefore really really silly, and results in the vast majority of the few who bother to read this blog laughing at Larry 'Terminally Ignored' Fafarman.
Larry Fafarman hates Jefferson & the Constitution
Fafarman calls a Federal Court judge a "jackass" for enforcing the (above-mentioned) Establishment Clause, according to well-established SCOTUS precedent. If Jones had ignored that precedent, and ruled in favour of ID (as many ID supporters had hoped he would, based upon his conservative background), he genuinely would be the "activist judge" that many ignorant or blinkered conservatives believe him to be.
Larry, if you hate the Constitution so much, then why don't you go and find yourself some nice theocracy to live in?
Jefferson wrote that the First Amendment creates a wall of separation between church and state, as I believe it does. But he didn't write that that is all that the First Amendment says. It forbids the establishment of a religion, which clearly means that it forbids the establishment of any arbitrary philosophical dogma in the public schools. The Darwinist notion that all life must have somehow emerged by perfectly mindless, mechanical causes, can't be demonstrated by any scientific evidence: it's an arbitrary dogma. And hence preaching Darwinism exclusively in the public schools as the supposed processs by which species arose, violates the First Amendment. I don't agree with McLeroy's religion or with his creationist views, or with his conservatism. But it appears that the Texas School Board has not removed Jefferson at all: although it has removed the false claim that he was an "Enlightenment thinker."
"The Enlightenment" as a movement, is much loved by materialistic atheists, since it was a movement of deists, and some materialists, who abhorred theism. In the French Revolution, "Enlightenment thinkers" gained power and adopted the practice of chopping off the heads of their political opponents. So I greatly doubt that Jefferson can be considered an "Enlightenment thinker."
Kudos to Larry for giving a Friend of Jefferson award to McLeroy. He seems to deserve it, for advocating free thought and free speech.
Jim, You should really read some of the court decisions regarding whether Evolutionary theory is a religious dogma or not.
Also, Jefferson as well as our government were heavily influenced by the enlightenment. Ideas from Locke, Hume, and other enlightenment thinkers appear throughout our founding documents. Including the idea that all men are created equal.
These Darwin-fans are evidently so paralyzed in the head, that they think ID is an inherently religious theory, in spite of the fact that some (although not very many) ID proponents are even agnostics and atheists. The apparent inability of those who are addicted to Darwinist concepts to use their own heads, is also evident in their claim that judges are competent to decide what is science and what is not. That is a truly ludicrous view.
Jim, ID is a re-packaging of Creationism and nothing more. What good does it do you to say otherwise. It just proves that your are either a liar or a fool.
Oh, and judges don't get to decide what is and what isn't science. Scientists do. And the vast bulk of experts in the field have already decided. That's why ID, Scientific Creationism, and Creationism(Three words for the same thing) are not taught in any accredited university biology program anywhere in the world.
No Jim Sherwood it is you (and your fellow woo-fans) who is "paralyzed in the head".
"intelligent design is just the Logos theology of John's Gospel restated in the idiom of information theory" -- William Dembski
("just the" clearly equates with "inherently" in this context)
As for the "D proponents are even agnostics and atheists", their relationship to ID is generally rather ambivalent, equivocal and/or incoherent. E.g. David Berlinski (probably the most prominent agnostic in the ID movement), who describes his relationship to ID as:
"warm but distant. It's the same attitude that I display in public toward my ex-wives"
I believe that provides counterexamples both to your original assertion, and your claimed evidence for your assertion. Game, set & match.
Eric said,
>>>>>> judges don't get to decide what is and what isn't science. Scientists do. <<<<<<<
Wrong -- Judge Jones decided.
Considering Judge Jones was simply upholding the obvious; Creationism is not scientific. Regardless of what you call it.
So no, he didn't decide what science was. He merely pointed out what wasn't science.
I do note that his ruling in regards to ID lines up with what every accredited biology program around the world also thinks of Creationism.
One has to be really paralyzed in the head to imagine that there are no ID theorists (who generally hold that there is scientific evidence that intelligence of some sort played a role in the origin of all species), who are agnostics or atheists. The late Fred Hoyle was the best-known example. As an atheist, he arbitrarily assumed that the intelligence involved emerged by purely natural laws. And he thought intelligence participated in a long process of "evolution," in the wide sense of descent of new species from old: as do quite a few other ID theorists. See my blog Intelligent Force, on Larry's left sidebar, for a selection from Hoyle's writings. One surely has to be paralyzed in the skull to swallow every claim made by Eugenie or P.Z., without doing a lot of independent research and checking the facts. There are other agnostic or atheist ID theorists including Davescot (David Springer), who was moderator of Dembski's ID blog for several years. Darwin-fans can Google "Davescot" and "bearded thunderer" and find Davescot mocking the Biblical God as "the bearded thunderer," right on Dembski's blog.
Although ID is compatible even with agnosticism and atheism, probably the great majority of people would interpret the intelligence in accordance with some traditional religious view. And that's what frightens those who adhere to the materialist-atheist faith.
Dembski is a devout Christian who prefers to believe that the intelligence involved is God, as does Behe. But I don't adhere to any particular religion or faith, and I'm basically agnostic about the nature of the intelligence or intelligences involved. While I don't think the intelligence arose by natural laws, niether am I much inclined to think that it was God. My own views are similar to those of quantum physicist Ulrich Mohrhoff, who believes that ID is correct. See my blog for a link to his favorable review of an ID book.
Eric said,
>>>>>> Considering Judge Jones was simply upholding the obvious; <<<<<<
If it was so obvious, bozo, then why did it take a trial of several weeks to decide the question?
>>>>> So no, he didn't decide what science was. He merely pointed out what wasn't science. <<<<<<
To point out that something is not science, you must first decide that it is not science, you stupid fathead. And deciding what is not science is automatically included in the phrase, "deciding what is science" -- in your statement, "judges don't get to decide what is and what isn't science," the words "and what isn't" are superfluous -- they are understood.
You dumb Darwinists think that you can win arguments by playing word games.
Dear Jim "paralyzed in the head" Sherwood,
Why should I care what Hoyle thought? He was neither an evolutionary biologist nor a statistician. Thus his claims about the improbability of evolution are quite worthless. Lacking a background in both fields his claims about the 'improbability' of evolution are nothing more than a rhetorical flourish on an argument from personal incredulity. Likewise your invocation of him is nothing more than an argument from false authority. If you want to demonstrate otherwise, then you are welcome to present Hoyle's detailed statistical calculations (including distributional assumptions and facts from evolutionary biology supporting these assumptions).
ROFLMAO! You blindly accept the unsubstantiated opinion of somebody whose field had no relevance whatsoever to evolution, then have the deluded gall to accuse me of "swallow[ing] every claim" by two scientists who just happen to have backgrounds in fields relevant to evolution. Even if it were something to be ashamed of, the accusation is clearly bogus, as (i) I have given no indication of hewing to either's line & (ii) they quite frequently disagree, meaning that I'd have to be schiphrenic to "swallow every claim" of each. In any case, my reading on the subject goes well beyond those two.
I am familiar with Davescot (having at times read that cross between Alice Through the Looking Glass and 1984 that is 'Uncommon Descent'). I find him neither coherent nor credible. William Dembski, wasn't he the guy who ran away (cue 'Brave Sir Robin' song from Monty Python and the Holy Grail) from Kitzmiller v. Dover, and then a fart-video mocking Judge Jones (making Dembski the real "jackass" of the trial). Due to the size differential between his overweaning ego and his miniscule scholarly output, isn't he now teaching philosophy at a small religious seminary now? With him as ID's chief theoretician, I'm sure the field will go far. And Behe, wasn't he the one who was forced (after much twisting and turning) on cross examination that astrology meets (present tense, as the court record demonstrates) his prefered definition of 'science'.
So you "swallow[ed] every claim" by another scientist whose field has nothing whatsoever to do with evolution. Why should I value his opinion any higher than the opinion of a random barber on the state of my plumbing? The Design of Life is the renamed latest edition of Of Pandas and People the notorious scientific creationism/intelligent design text at the centre of K v. D.
And yes, contrary to your blathering on your blog, Mohrhoff's views are UTTERLY IRRELEVANT! To quote Harlan Ellison:
"Everybody has opinions: I have them, you have them. And we are all told from the moment we open our eyes, that everyone is entitled to his or her opinion. Well, that’s horsepuckey, of course. We are not entitled to our opinions; we are entitled to our informed opinions. Without research, without background, without understanding, it’s nothing. It’s just bibble-babble. It’s like a fart in a wind tunnel, folks."
Mohrhoff has neither "research" in , "background" in, nor "understanding" of evolutionary biology. Thus his opinion is "just bibble-babble." It is of no more worth than that of a random individual grabbed off the street.
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