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[QUOTE=jmleadpipe]
You forfeited all legitimacy when you likened challenging evolution, a frivolous but largely danger free pseudo-academic pursuit, to denying the horrors of the Holocaust. Please do yourself a favor and either find a better analogy or just admit that you were way off base.
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<p>I fail to see how he ‘forfeited all legitimacy’ (aside from the Internet’s definition of ‘Godwin’d’) when he made this analogy. Since you’ve missed the point (or, more likely, have simply side-stepped it to continue your attack), the basic gist was, “It’s impossible to have a complete understanding of the topic without understanding this (rather significant) portion of it.”</p>
<p>As for ‘challenging evolution’ being largely danger-free, I’d laugh if it weren’t so serious. I’m assuming you’ve never heard of the Discovery Institute and their Wedge Document, whose basic purpose is, in a nutshell, to uproot the current ‘materialist’ worldview and replace it with one that has the Christian god at its center.</p>
<p>I have no problem with religion. I have no problem with somebody having a PhD in biology, or any discipline, who is devout in their faith (the program director of cellular/molecular biology at my school is such a person, and is one of the most enlightening people I’ve ever had the good fortune to speak to). What I DO have a problem with is the subversive tactics of undergoing a rigorous program, intended to enable someone to push the current boundaries of modern knowledge, with the intent of using the credentials earned to drag us back into the Dark Ages of scholarly thought.</p>
<p>You and I may see this as laughable–after all, we’ve had years of training in the methods and mechanisms of evolution, and dozens of examples that all but prove evolution a reality. Many people believe this, however, or do not know how to counter these very tantalizing (and utterly wrong) tidbits thrown to them: irreducible complexity is one of many.</p>
<p>I feel the need to stress that this is not simply “psuedo-academics”, this is a group of people attempting to gain influence to mislead and force their way into science education and public policy. And, if Kansas, Texas, and Dover are any examples, they have come dangerously close to succeeding.</p>