Tenure if you profess faith in Darwin, ten count to get out if you have questions

Friend Wintery Knight alerts me to this story in the Toledo Blade (May 02, 2009), about Jerry Bergman's book, Slaughter of the Dissidents:

For the last 30 years, Mr. Bergman, 62, has interviewed hundreds of people in academia and documented cases in which he contends that careers were derailed because of doubts about evolution.

The results of his interviews and research are compiled in his latest book, Slaughter of the Dissidents: The Shocking Truth about Killing the Careers of Darwin Doubters, published last fall by Leafcutter Press.

The students, professors, and scientists suffered not because they were advocating the teaching of biblical Creationism or Intelligent Design, he said, but for questioning or debating aspects of Charles Darwin's famous theory.

It's an issue Mr. Bergman takes personally.

"In 1979, I was let go by Bowling Green State University openly due to my increasing disillusion with Darwinism," he said in a lecture Monday night at WLMB-TV, Channel 40, Toledo's Christian television station. The two-hour program was filmed before a studio audience of 60 and will be broadcast at a later date, according to Jamey Schmitz, WLMB's president and CEO.

Well, why don't we begin with the fact that, as Will Provine, himself a pure naturalist, crows, 78% of all US evolutionary biologists are pure naturalists (= no God and no free will). This is a fact, and if anyone thinks that fact that doesn't affect decision-making about such questinos as tenure, well, they are pretty naive.

I have often pointed out: Darwinism is the creation story of atheism. No sensible person would believe it except for that. Yes, yes, there are "theistic evolutionists", but they are yesterday's men. The real battle is between the materialist atheists and the theists/advocates of cosmic moral law.

Review of Stu Pivar's book Lifecode

Okay, here at last is Jerry Bergman's review of Stuart Pivar's Lifecode:

Lifecode is an attempt to deal with some of the well documented problems with Darwinism.

First, I want to stress that I firmly believe that this research should be pursued, even though I am not enthusiastic about it.

This could well be because of my genetic bias. I was trained to believe, and it appears to me that the evidence supports, the conclusion that organisms are a result of the expression of genes which make proteins. In other words, the body plan results from the genome, not some Lifecode self-organization force.

Specifically, Pivar proposes an embryogenesis based on the properties of a toroidal surface - that is, the shape of a doughnut. The surface of the doughnut, known as a torus, is an annular shape generated by revolving a circle around an axis external to the circle.

All cells and embryos assume the toroidal shape. How they respond to this initial shape determines their adult morphology. The details of how this shape guides development and morphogenesis in general were, in my opinion, not very well defended in this work. This theory may explain certain aspects of the external morphology of a life form, but how much else does it explain?

Conversely, Pivar proposes a radically new theory, of which parts may well have merit. Only time will tell. What he needs is empirical and experimental evidence.

In the meantime, the comments on Amazon and various Web sites leave me wondering why there is such an emotional and vociferous reaction to a new theory of evolution. Part of the reaction is that any theory that proposes to replace Darwinism produces a knee-jerk reaction of uncalled-for invective. This attitude hardly encourages new ideas.

It is said that almost every genius produces a few good ideas and a lot of bad ideas, and that the only way to produce breakthroughs is to think a lot outside of the box. One or two, or perhaps several, ideas may pan out.

Criticism is needed, but it must be constructive criticism that focuses on the author's thesis and his support of his thesis, not attacks on the creator of the idea.

One reason I am cautious about simply rejecting this work is the new work done by the ENCODE project, which found that evidence exists for a much greater epigenetic influence than previously believed.

My second caution is that most of the reviews have been irresponsible character assassinations of the author. Why not attack the theory instead of the author? Some critics do just this, but many seem to express only dislike. The emotional invective which appears to be orchestrated by the same people who have rallied against intelligent design. - Jerry Bergman

(By the way, Bergman is himself about to publish a book, tentatively titled The War Against Darwin Skeptics, and edited by my able compatriot Cameron Wybrow.)

Here are some other Post-D stories about Stu Pivar and/or Lifecode:

Dissing St. Stephen Jay in his own church (September 20, 2005)

Pivar to NCSE: Change the wording on the Steve statement (November 2, 2005)

(July 16, 2007)

Morpho field theory again (July 18, 2007)

Stuart Pivar suing PZ Myers? (August 22, 2007)

Flash! Pivar is unsuing PZ Myers (August 28, 2007)

Note: The Post-Darwinist hits the Reject button practically every day. If you want to be part of this process, write some vulgar diatribe attacking Stu Pivar, Jerry Berman, Cameron Wybrow, or all three.