Academic Freedom?

I had a chance to see the Ben Stein film, Expelled.

Rather than summarizing the film here, I'll just suggest you go see it yourself. For me it clarified an issue that had intrigued and puzzled me before.

Now that I know what Intelligent Design actually is, I have perhaps a better perspective on why it is so loudly vilified and excoriated by academics.

The larger story is about academic intolerance. Academia has become the home for left-wing radicalism, and Ben Stein's exploration of the big flap about ID is merely a single example.

How many times have you heard the phrase,

The science on this matter is settled.

or

This is the consensus of the scientific community.

If you are a scientist who dares question one of these "settled" or "consensus" hot button issues, you do so at the risk of your career.

How can you be denied tenure? By sexual harrassment of students in your class? Probably not. By pointing out the flaws in Darwin's Origin of the Species? In a heartbeat.

How can you be fired from your position in government or even The Weather Channel? By pointing out the flaws in Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth? Unemployment line, here we come.

How many scientists have lost tenure or research funding at our universities only because they've tried to stay true to the mission of science; which is to always question and explore? I'm not sure anybody knows for sure, but Ben Stein seems to suggest it's widespread and endemic.

I wonder how much this academic intolerance spills over into other courses of study? If biologists and climatologists are not permitted to pursue their professions unless they toe the party line, how about others? Are musicians, historians, engineers, chemists also required to fall into lockstep with the Marxist politics of today's universities if they hope to attain and keep their tenured positions?

It would seem so.