Anyone who believes that there is no culture war in this country just isn't paying attention. To be sure, the "war" rarely manifests itself in overt violence but it certainly does result in an alarming amount of intolerance, name-calling and malicious vandalism. One recent example occurred in Colorado where a group trying to promote a film critical of Darwinian explanations of evolution has been the target of a concerted, coordinated effort to suppress their freedom of speech. Anika Smith at Evolution News and Views explains:
Earlier this month the Shepherd Project Ministries website was breached using a "brute force attack" to break the password. The hackers then deleted webpages containing information about an upcoming conference featuring Discovery Institute speakers Stephen Meyer, Michael Behe, David Berlinski, and John West.
"No question whatsoever about whom they were targeting," said Shepherd Project Executive Director Craig Smith. "That was brazen. We were a little stunned, to be perfectly honest. We had seen some hostile language about the conference, but honestly we just assumed it was cyber-flaming. We didn't really expect or anticipate any kind of actual attack."
The pages were quickly re-posted and security protocols fixed to prevent further mischief being done, but since then a distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack crippled and even crashed the Shepherd Project website, preventing many from registering for the intelligent design conference. These attacks involve multiple people coordinated in an attempt to make a website unavailable, shutting down access to information in a form of modern-day book-burning.
These attacks reveal how even having a discussion about intelligent design is threatening to those who can't countenance free speech on evolution.
In today's ID the Future podcast interview, Craig Smith said, "It's stunning to me how threatened they seem to be about the conversation that is taking place. It's not a matter of, 'I disagree with the content' or 'I disagree with the conclusion,' it's 'I disagree that the conversation should be allowed.'"
That same sentiment was behind the recent canceling of the Darwin's Dilemma by the California Science Center, and you can read it for yourself in the New York Times as Daniel Dennett's recent letter blasted them for daring to be respectful to those who doubt evolution!
When a certain class of people realizes that the theory upon which their entire worldview rests is under serious assault and when there are no good intellectual arguments to summon to its defense, it's not surprising that some of these people will resort to any means they can to protect their worldview from the challenge.
For some, the battle is not a struggle to find the truth. Rather, it's a desperate attempt to preserve the myth of atheistic materialism upon which they've staked their lives, and in such a conflict there are no rules of engagement. Whatever works is right even if it means violating a fundamental principle of intellectual integrity in a free and open society - allowing all sides to express their position. Those who seek to prevent the other side from being heard are tacitly admitting that they know their own side is intellectually inferior. They know they've committed themselves to a loser.
RLC
