The ID Report

by Denyse O'Leary
ARN correspondent

What does Bob Marks want? He wants the right to run computer simulations at Baylor that might (possibly) reduce confidence in Darwinian evolution.

That is, the simulations might show that Darwinian evolution is not nearly as probable as professional Darwinists claim.

Actually, the Wistar meetings showed that way back in the 1960s, but Darwinism is just too good a creation story for materialism to pass up. So otherwise respectable scientists have been lying for Darwin ever since, and snuffing out the careers of anyone who breaks rank.

Contrary to popular belief, you need NOT be a creationist or an ID guy. All you have to do is stop believing in magic - Darwinian magic - and ask for evidence.

That's a Big Sin because the evidence does not support Darwinism.

Well, that explains the role of the Darwinist, who can hardly help suppressing evidence, but what about Baylor, the alleged Christian university? Elsewhere, I have pointed out that institutions like Baylor essentially protect Christians from a world that favours materialism. The justification for their existence would be revolutionized if word got out that materialism is largely disconfirmed over a broad area. As I said there,

In a trice, the harsh reality from which the institution protects its dumb sheeplike students is - a harsh UNreality. The students are not meat puppets who foolishly imagine that they have immortal souls and must therefore be humoured by their silly little campus groups. They are people who actually do have immortal souls who are being trained by the institution to accept a culture that lies to them that they are meat puppets. And the institution essentially brokers the lies in the interests of the materialist culture - and to its own prestige.
Now do you see the threat posed by an intellectually rigorous inquiry into intelligent design?

Last night, my mom and I were watching a video of one of my favourite movies - The Great Escape. Suddenly, some of the dialogue seemed startlingly relevant to the struggle of scientists like Marks.

Listen, as the German Colonel Von Luger explains to the Allied prisoners of war:

We have in effect put all our rotten eggs in one basket, and we intend to watch this basket carefully. Very wise. You will not be denied the usual facilities. Sports, a library, a recreation hall, and for gardening we will give you tools. We trust you to use them for gardening. Devote your energies to these things. Give up your hopeless attempts to escape. And, with intelligent cooperation, we may all sit out the war as comfortably as possible.

What institutions like Baylor want is precisely that - faculty who will just "sit out" the war between rampant materialist atheism and all non-materialist traditions, in the comfort of a Christian environment.

But Group Captain Ramsey responds,

Colonel Von Luger, it is the sworn duty of all officers to try to escape. If they cannot escape, then it is their sworn duty to cause the enemy to use an inordinate number of troops to guard them, and their sworn duty to harass the enemy to the best of their ability.

Ramsey's reply is the proper duty of the Christian (or other non-materialist) academic in these times.

It is also the only safe one. There is no surprise, really, in the fact that today's academic environment is quickly losing touch with the goal of intellectual inquiry. As Mario Beauregard and I show clearly in The Spiritual Brain, materialists do not believe in the reality of the mind. In that case, it is more humane as well as easier to just program the young meat puppets to be whatever is needed, and sideline any mis-programmed puppets who interfere.

Only a non-materialist tradition - in which intellect functions as a cause of events - can responsibly support intellectual freedom.

A Christian you say? Well then, do not be a good prisoner of your Christian campus. Be a Bob Marks. BE a problem!

Also:

Spying on a Darwin fan's nightstand

More on why dog breeding cannot explain evolution.

The Mindful Hack on The Complete Idiot's Guide to Life After Death

Wikipedia competitor Citizendium takes dead aim at propaganda, featured as news. And don't miss RationalWiki - more rational than a rabid raccoon.

Also, science journalist notices that people are smarter than apes - wow!

Toronto-based Canadian journalist Denyse O'Leary (www.designorchance.com) is the author of the multiple award-winning By Design or by Chance? (Augsburg Fortress 2004), an overview of the intelligent design controversy. She was named CBA Canada's Recommended Author of the Year in 2005 and is co-author, with Montreal neuroscientist Mario Beauregard, of the forthcoming The Spiritual Brain: A neuroscientist's case for the existence of the soul (Harper 2007).