Darwinist Edge group freaks about the intelligent design "Visigoths"

Darwinsite The Edge is flogging a book featuring their guys denouncing intelligent design ideas, Intelligent Thought: Science Versus The Intelligent Design Movement.

Science is the big news. Science is the important story. Science is public culture....Yet at the same time, religious fundamentalism is on the rise around the world, and our own virulent domestic version of it, under the rubric of "intelligent design," by elbowing its way into the classroom abrogates the divide between church and state that has served this country so well for so long. Moreover, the intelligent-design (ID) movement imperils American global dominance in science and in so doing presents the gravest of threats to the American economy, which is driven by advances in science and in the technology derived therefrom.

[ ... ]

The Visigoths are at the gates. Will we let them in?

And so forth.

What I don't get is how these smart guys - or so one would think (they are leading scientists, apparently) - fail to see that the more they caterwaul about Visigoths, the more people actually buy and read ID books. Who wouldn't rather find out about the Visigoth than about the churchgoing prof who announces that there is no conflict between faith and science, in like, 22,000 words?

Oh ... oh, I get it now. Stupid little me. The evil Discovery Institute is actually paying these Edgies to make all this noise! It nefariously slips them a bundle for groceries whenever ... Ah yes, I remember now, that's Wedge III, also known as Wedge the Edge.

No wait, it's too hot in here. The thermometer on the back steps registered 40 degrees Celsius this afternoon, but actually the mercury had merely reached the top of the tube ... it could easily have been hotter. No, it's more likely that the Edgies really.do.not.get.it.

Well, here's a clue: Over at Access Research Network (ARN), an ID outfit, they're flogging Visigoth T shirts.

Caption: "First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win."

ARN comments,

While Brockman [Edge's book agent] intended the "Visigoths" reference as an insult equating those who do not embrace materialistic Darwinism to uneducated barbarians, he has actually created an interesting analogy of the situation, and perhaps a prophetic look at the future. For it was the Visigoths of the 3rd and 4th centuries that were waiting at the gates of the Roman Empire when it collapsed under its own weight. For years the Darwinists in power have pretended all is well in the land of random mutation and natural selection and that intelligent design should be ignored. With this book (and several others like it), they are attempting to both laugh and fight back at the ID movement. Mahatma Gandhi summarized the situation well with his quote about the passive resistive movement: "First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win." The Visigoths Are Coming image was created and copyrighted by political cartoonist Chuck Asay and is used here with permission.

When I get paid again, I'm ordering one. I'll be interested to know if anyone in Toronto "gets it."

If you like this blog, check out my book on the intelligent design controversy, By Design or by Chance?. You can read excerpts as well.