According to The Sensuous Curmudgeon, the Discovery Institute (DI) has created a webpage where ID-heads can get the address and fax number of the Ball State University (BSU) Board of Trustees to complain about the “censorship” of Intelligent Design. They also provide a sample message to the Board:
Dear Board of Trustees,
I recently learned of BSU President Gora’s one-sided censorship of faculty who think there is evidence of intelligent design in nature. At the same time BSU faculty are banned from expressing their support for intelligent design, BSU has allowed an honors course on “Dangerous Ideas” where the readings tell students that “Science Must Destroy Religion.” Please tell President Gora that BSU must support academic freedom and free speech for all faculty, including those who support intelligent design.
Sincerely,
NAME (highlight if you are from Indiana)
But of course nothing is stopping you from writing to the same address (akelsey@bsu.edu ; the Board’s recording secretary, to espouse your own feelings about teaching intelligent design in a public university.
Many people would call this new DI strategy spam. It also suffers from the ad populum fallacy, if the DI had really good arguments, one mail would suffice. Or to speak with Einstein: “Why hundred? If you was wrong one would be enough.” (In reaction to a nazi leaflet, “Hundred authors against Einstein”, paraphrased from Hawkings in “The Universe in a Nutshell”.)
Maybe Kelsey will be smart enough to set up a rule to send all messages with this boilerplate directly to Trash.
/@
That would be indeed a good idea.
Shouldn’t be too difficult to set up a spam filter that pipes everything sent via that site straight to /dev/null.
Would any respectable scientific institute respond in this manner? They have ran out of ideas so they are falling back on harassment, they’re like a mild version of Scientology, just as scientific too.
This ought to backfire on them. Whether it will or now of course remains to be seen, but I’d like to think that Hoosiers on the fence about this would be turned off by such organized hectoring.
Their petition didn’t affect the outcome at all. Why would a letter-writing campaign? They are desperate
Desperate, yes. But persistent, too. Religious nuts don’t give up despite repeated losses. Makes them feel like martyrs.
Are they suggesting that IDC is a dangerous idea (in the Daniel Dennett sense)? Well yeah, dangerous to sound science education. They just can’t stop playing this “unpopular idea” card, can they?
While at the same time trying to demonstrate that it is popular.
This is EXACTLY how conservatives/fundamentalists believe that “truth” should be established: by popular vote, regardless of the evidence. There was a hilarious but disheartening segment on the Daily Show in 2011 where one of the show’s correspondents interviewed a Republican strategist who objected to the fact that scientists had usurped for themselves the right to decide whether scientific theories, such as evolutionary theory, are true. This is a MUST WATCH for anyone who wants proof of the Republican war on science. Here’s the link: http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/wed-october-26-2011/weathering-fights—science—what-s-it-up-to-.
Wasn’t that Republican strategist part of the show too, not a real one?
No, the woman interviewed, Noelle Nikpour, is a REAL Republican consultant/strategist. If you watch the video I linked to it shows one of her appearances on Fox News (no surprise there). Here is a link to her webpage. http://www.noelle-nikpour.com/
Poor old Discovery Institute! They’re like the Rodney Dangerfield of science, they don’t get no respect!
Well, I decided to help them out by using their very kindly documented email address to the Trustees, making sure to CC (not BCC as the Tute suggested) the DI and I even used some of their boilerplate letter, like, the first few words.
The letter where I refer to the Disco Tute as “insidious” can be found on the Curmudgeon’s site. It’s probably not what the Tute expected, but it’s what that disgusting nest of mendacious intellectual pornographers deserves (to quote John Kwok) .
I referred to them as a political non-think tank. It was as far as I was prepared to take it in a serious letter. :-/
I wish, I just wish, the president of BSU would reply “But you don’t understand. We have an entire course in the anthropology department on Creation Myths of the World: a Freudian Analysis. That’s where “intelligent design” is discussed at this university.”
That ID theories are suppressed at BSU is a disservice to their students. The theory that life was created, guided, and still is guided, by the FSM’s noodly appendage should be given equal consideration and treatment. As the Discovery Institute so rightly puts it, theories should not be held in low esteem simply because they lack support of the majority. Students have the right, per the principles underpinning academic freedom, to be exposed to ALL points of view.
Ramen!
I love the way the DI carries on as if Kitzmiller et al V. Dover never happened.
I actually emailed President Gora the day I read her announcement of the decision, thanking her for standing up for intellectual and academic honesty.
:shrug: