Liberalism as social policy arm of materialism - or even Kansas isn't in Kansas any more

Recently, an analyst of the Kansas state science standards controversy drew my attention to the fact that "every newspaper in southeast Kansas was against the standards and went out of their way to promote the candidacy of [x's] opponent and his defeat."
Yes, I'll bet. Most media people are liberals. And just as materialism is the organized religion of the school system (and Darwinism its creation story), liberalism - in its modern form - is the social policy arm of materialism.

(That's why so many litmus tests for liberalism (legal partial birth abortions, stem cell research, euthanasia) attack the uniqueness of humans. It's not incidental.)

One outcome is the astoundingly ignorant legacy media coverage of "religion" stories. Since the mid-Nineties, I've yawned with peers through lots of meetings on the subject but don't consider the problem resolvable until there is more diversity of ideas and cultural background in the newsroom.

But now, on Darwinism in particular, media pros can understand private non-rational dissent ("I just don't believe it in my wee little heart"), but not public, evidence-based dissent ("In my professional opinion it did not happen that way").

Actually, it doesn't even matter to the media materialist whether Darwinism is true. What Darwinism UPHOLDS is seen as true. That is, of course, promissory materialism - the belief that even if the evidence is weak now, we will find strong evidence one day because materialism is true. Lying about or suppressing contrary evidence or persecuting dissenters isn't a serious problem because materialism is true, and anyone who doesn't believe it is mad, bad, sad, or stupid.

Go here to read the rest.

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.

Are you looking for one of the following stories?

A summary of tech guru George Gilder's arguments for ID and against Darwinism

A critical look at why March of the Penguins was thought to be an ID film.

A summary of recent opinion columns on the ID controversy

A summary of recent polls of US public opinion on the ID controversy

A summary of the Catholic Church's entry into the controversy, essentially on the side of ID.

O'Leary's intro to non-Darwinian agnostic philosopher David Stove's critique of Darwinism.

An ID Timeline: The ID folk seem always to win when they lose.

O’Leary’s comments on Francis Beckwith, a Dembski associate, being denied tenure at Baylor.

Why origin of life is such a difficult problem.

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