These are fascinating sections that incorporates numerous secular scientists’ own words on the problems with communicating the problems with modern evolutionary theories.
I have copied a large section here, because I want you to read it! I thought it was so telling to hear it from the secular experts:
“The concealment of funding
Lynn Margulis saw that government funding for evolutionary research comes in a disjointed manner from various distinctly separate government agencies and departments, rather than from a coherent single entity. So she, together with other evolutionists, wrote a letter to the National Science Foundation [NSF] urging it to set up a single entity, especially for funding evolution research.
“So we talked about ways of putting pressure on the National Science Foundation to set up an evolution section. … . This would lead to reduction of redundancy and save money for the funding agencies. … . Anyway, I deduced that the NSF scientist-bureaucrats were conflicted about our letter. The woman [representative from the NSF] assigned to answer us wrote to say there were so many American citizens opposed to evolution that if the NSF put chemistry, geology, etc. into a single evolution division, it would be like sticking out our heads to be chopped off. Such a proposal, no matter its intellectual validity, would surely not fly! She said the NSF thought it would strengthen evolution science by avoidance of the word ‘evolution’ and not by centralizing research activities” (Lynn Margulis, pp. 263–264).
This shows how a centralized government can relabel things and partition a large funding stream in various confusing ways, so as to intentionally obscure where taxpayer money is going—and intentionally get around the will of the people. Evolutionists use this maneuver, and Mazur reports no objection to it. Evolutionists feel justified in intentionally withholding key information from the public. This is consistent with their belief system that morals are merely products of evolution.
Censorship
Mazur calls attention to the existing censorship against non-Darwinian ideas. She opposes that censorship, and rightly so. Creationists experience far heavier censorship against their ideas. Yet her explanations for the censorship are nearly identical to what creationists say.
“The commercial media is both ignorant of and blocks coverage of stories about non-centrality of the gene because its science advertising dollars come from the gene-centered Darwin industry. … . At the same time, the Darwin industry is also in bed with government, even as political leaders remain clueless about evolution. Thus, the public is unaware that its dollars are being squandered on funding of mediocre, middlebrow science or that its children are being intellectually starved as a result of outdated texts and unenlightened teachers” (Mazur, p. ix).
“The mainstream media has failed to cover the non-centrality of the gene story to any extent. … this has to do largely with Darwin-based industry advertising, editors not doing their homework and others just trying to hold on to their jobs” (Mazur, p. 104).
“The thinking is we can no longer pretend evolution is just about Darwinian natural selection even if that’s what most biologists say it’s about and textbooks repeat it” (Mazur, p. 105).
“The consensus of the evolution pack [i.e. the science blogs] still seems to be that if an idea doesn’t fit in with Darwinism and neo-Darwinism—keep it out” (Mazur, p. viii).
“Unless the discourse around evolution is opened up to scientific perspectives beyond Darwinism, the education of generations to come is at risk of being sacrificed for the benefit of a dying theory” (Stuart Newman, p. 104).
“One reason that so little progress has been made in this area is that perfectly valid scientific concepts that employ nonadaptive evolutionary mechanisms are rarely considered because of the hegemony of the neo-Darwinian framework” (Stuart Newman, p. 131).
Lynn Margulis reveals how the established worldview (evolution) enforces unity within its ranks:
“[P]eople are always more loyal to their tribal group than to any abstract notion of “truth”— scientists especially. If not they are unemployable. It is professional suicide to continually contradict one’s teachers or social leaders” (Lynn Margulis, p. 275).
Self-censorship
Disinterest by the mainstream media is one thing, but Mazur is especially alarmed with the self-censorship by evolutionary leaders themselves. Why are they keeping the American public in the dark? She asks why have the two major evolution conferences of the year “been hosted outside the United States”? Why in foreign languages? She is alarmed “The English-speaking world may not be getting the message” (p. 217). Why are evolutionary leaders not getting the message out? She repeatedly returns to this puzzle.
“I asked [Eugenie Scott, from the National Center for Science Education—the NCSE] what she thought about self-organization and why self-organization was not represented in the books NCSE was promoting? She responded that people confuse self-organization with intelligent design and that is why NCSE has not been supportive” (Mazur, p. 101).
More precisely, the NCSE “does not recommend textbooks for schools if those texts include a discussion of self-organization” (p. 254).
Eugenie Scott’s statement is nonsense. No matter what the new evolutionary theories may be, no-one will confuse those with intelligent design. She’s trying to blame her opponents for something within the evolutionist camp. I’ll explain her mischief later.
Mazur then asks Stuart Newman: “To what do you attribute the reluctance to distribute literature about self-organization by organizations like the National Center for Science Education?” (p. 131). He gets a little closer to the truth.
“I think there is a challenge that self-organization and plasticity in general presents to Darwinian theory … . To my mind, self-organization does represent a challenge to the Darwinian, i.e. the modern synthesis and the perceived understanding of evolutionary theory. … [P]eople are concerned that if they open up the door to non-Darwinian mechanisms, then they’re going to allow creationists to slip through the door as well [emphasis added]” (Stuart Newman, pp. 131–132).
Evolutionists are again blaming creationists as a factor that keeps evolutionists silent.
“I think that abandoning Darwinism (or explicitly relegating it where it belongs, in the refinement and tuning of existing forms) sounds anti-scientific. They [the many contributors to non-Darwinian evolutionary theories] fear that the tenants of intelligent design and the creationists (people I hate as much as they do) will rejoice and quote them as being on their side. They really fear that, so they are prudent, some in good faith, some for calculated fear of being cast out of the scientific community” (Massimo Piattelli-Palmarini, p. 317).
Mazur writes, “This is a big debate, which the media is not covering. It’s reached a crescendo and a lot of people are saying there’s a sea change happening” (p. 252). Meanwhile, at nearly the same time, the National Academy of Sciences published its book, Science, Evolution, and Creationism, as a denunciation of intelligent design and a defense of teaching only evolution in the public schools.3 In other words, the NAS book omitted the crescendo of controversy and painted a false picture of unity about evolutionary theory and origins. Mazur pans it as “a very general book” and wryly asks Niles Eldredge about its ‘simplicity’. He responds:
“No. I mean look, when you’re fighting school boards who want to adopt Intelligent Design, you’ve got to write in very basic terms. It is a political problem. And there’s always a problem, as you know … in communicating science to the public and being clear about it [Mazur’s ellipsis]” (Niles Eldredge, p. 329).
Eldredge adopts the usual justification: when dealing with the public, simplification is necessary— so long as the simplification favours evolution. If the simplification were to dis-favour evolution, evolutionists would soon discover their tongues and loudly denounce it.
(Note: It would be helpful if evolutionists dealt with origins in the same way they wanted their opponents to deal with it. Habitual ‘simplification’ in one’s own favour can be a form of dishonesty.)
Mazur objects that the NAS book didn’t include any ‘additional ways’ to consider, such as self-assembly and self-organization. So Eldredge answers:
“No, because it’s all regarded as speculative and on the forefront and stuff … . What they’re trying to do [in the NAS book] is say where we are now, where we’re comfortable, where we can actually say that this is the way people really do think for the most part” (Niles Eldredge, pp. 329–330).
Eldredge is comfortable omitting the new evolutionary explanations, because those are ‘speculative’. But the problems aren’t speculative; they’re rock solid scientifically, and Eldredge/Mazur did not object to omitting those from the NAS book.
The self-censorship can now be explained. The new evolutionary mechanisms of self-assembly and self-organization arise from the evolutionists’ attempts to answer overwhelming problems that are scientifically rock-hard and straightforward to describe. But the evolutionary ‘answers’ are flakey, fluff, undemonstrated, and untestable—not scientific.
Silence is the strongest weapon. The disregard for science’s ethical principles is widespread.
That explains why evolutionists prefer venues where evolution is taken as ‘fact’—say, at their by-invitation-only conferences. That explains why evolutionists avoid ‘self-organization’ for the general public, such as the NAS book. That explains why Eugenie Scott and the NCSE actively oppose including ‘self-organization’ in school textbooks. The NCSE is America’s leading anti-creation organization, and they don’t want ugly questions rising, such as: “What is the evidence for self-organization?” Because the answer would be: “The evidence for ‘self-organization’ is the overwhelming problems faced by evolutionary theory, taken together with the ‘fact’ of evolution?” This won’t look pretty in classrooms.
“Silence is the strongest weapon. The disregard for science’s ethical principles is widespread” (Lima-de-Faria, p. 91).
Suzan Mazur observes self-censorship in America, and she searches sincerely for its causes. But the dark truth is that she has censored her own book. Because she’s an evolutionist, she withheld from her readers a robust discussion of the many serious problems that are forcing evolutionists to such desperate solutions as self-assembly and self-organization.4 I would welcome a sequel from her documenting these in the same professional, journalistic (unbiased) fashion with which she’s handled the majority of the material.”
Read more about this review here: https://creation.com/review-altenberg-16
Picture from: https://pixabay.com/photos/secret-shut-up-shh-whisper-5137229/ accessed 1/6/23.
