THEY'RE CERTAINLY RIGHT THAT IT CAN'T SURVIVE CRITICAL THINKING...:

Big Bang on the Bayou (Ken Connor, 7/06/08, Townhall)

Secularists have exploded over the passage of the "Louisiana Science and Education Act". The Act was recently signed into law by Governor Bobby Jindal after having been passed by an overwhelming majority of the Louisiana legislature. The Act protects the freedom of "teachers, principals, and other school administrators" in elementary and secondary schools to promote "critical thinking skills, logical analysis, and open and objective discussion of a variety of scientific theories including, but not limited to, evolution, the origins of life, global warming, and human cloning."

In other words, the act provides for the freedom and support of teachers and school boards to present varied analyses on these and other scientific issues. So why are the denizens of blogs like the Huffington Post in such a huff? Because "science" is their "truth," and it is blasphemous to question their beliefs.

Secularists are unwilling to have their orthodoxy challenged. Just as Galileo had to fight against the church and government of his day, those who dare to question today's "settled" theories are banished by scientific and political Inquisitors. The implications of being wrong are too much to fathom; therefore, the secularist worldview must go unchallenged.

Academic freedom and the pursuit of scientific knowledge are laudable goals and are often parroted by secularists in defense of their pursuits. But, when those pursuits veer from politically correct orthodoxy into the exploration of a differing opinion or analysis, secularists will not reciprocate that freedom. Their usual response is not to critique the substance of the opposing opinion or analysis, but to transmute any opposition out of the realm of science and into religion. Thus, any analysis that calls into question any aspect (no matter how small) of the theory of evolution becomes an educational and/or constitutional crisis.

...but given how few Americans believe in the ideology already, isn't it too late for protectionism to save it?

Posted by Orrin Judd at July 7, 2008 4:27 PM