Evolving standards of dispassionate scientificness

Lately I've been intrigued to observe how the issue of Evolution is deeper than science for Lefties. After seeing Expelled and thereafter having a couple of battles on the subject (here, and here). I started wondering how it is that--despite the Left-of-center stranglehold on the opinion-shapers of public education, Academia and the so-called Mainstream Media--a majority of Americans are still skeptical about Neo-Darwinism.

To begin with, I'm a Neo-Darwinism skeptic; in sum, I do not believe that all living beings have a common descendant.

I won't pretend that I have a deep understanding of science, much less that I'm an expert. However, there are people who do have a deep understanding of science who agree that Neo-Darwinism is shot through with holes.

Nor will I pretend that Evolutionists aren't (typically) well-credentialed and well-armed with impressive-sounding evidence supporting their theories.

Lastly, I won't pretend that my views on this issue aren't deeper than science . . . too bad most Neo-Darwinists aren't willing to acknowledge the same. But the fact that a majority of Americans intuitively disbelieve Neo-Darwinism is worthy of consideration. Here are several reasons I perceive Neo-Darwinists struggle to proselytize.

Neo-Darwinist defensiveness is rather suspicious.
It's often said that the best defense is a good offense, and Neo-Darwinists live by that principle. Challenging the existing presumptions of "science" is what any genuinely altruistic, objective, apolitical, dispassionate scientist does, but Neo-Darwinists are vigilant to shout down those who would raise questions about Neo-Darwinism.

One of the challenges of this debate is that the term "Evolution" is a little ambiguous. Just because someone accepts that--for example, some species go extinct and animals within species change over time--often as adaptations of some sort, doesn't mean that s/he believes in Neo-Darwinism. And that's where a lot of the controversy comes: Neo-Darwinists rely on a fairly broad acceptance of evolutionary principles to inject their views on "Origins" into "science" curricula.

Evolutionary theory is an historical science--we're never going to observe (unless the "scientists" also solve "death") inter-species Evolution. Evolutionary theory offers plausible explanations for some questions about how living things got to be the way they are, but Neo-Darwinism leaves many questions unanswered. Pardon me (us . . . in the majority) if the failure of your theory (to offer plausible explanations for crucial questions) inclines me to disbelieve other tenets of your theory. It hurts your cause even more when you disingenuously ignore the weaknesses of your theory.

And the lengths to which Neo-Darwinists are willing to go in defense of their belief system is well-documented and troubling. Read Survival of the Fakest for some of the more notorious examples. It kind of undermines the "dispassionate scientist" shtick when there is such evidence of deception.

Moreover, given the evidence put forth in the movie Expelled--not to mention the oppressive know-it-all-ism demonstrated by many who call themselves Evolutionists, one can fairly wonder if anything that doesn't comport with secular Neo-Darwinianism could ever get a fair hearing within the scientific community.

(Aside: there's an impressive website that has been put together to bash Expelled, called www.expelledexposed.com. I was intrigued to read all the rebuttal evidence offered to say, "The persons featured in the film were never mistreated, ostracized, unfairly penalized, etc. etc." If you've ever gone up against the HR in a big company it is almost laughable how unquestioningly the apologists accept what appears to be run-of-the-mill corporate or bureaucratic wagon-circling. Butt-covering personnel memos or press releases are hardly compelling evidence of what did or did not happen to an individual who challenged corporate/bureaucratic conventions.)

I guess it comes down to objectivity, and the majority of Americans have real doubts about the objectivity of the "scientific" powers that be. As stated at intelligentdesignnetwork.org

Government and public education Institutions supporting Origins Science should also strive for Objectivity as they inform the public about the state of our scientific knowledge regarding origins.

Unfortunately, many Institutions of Science and government employ unyielding preconceptions that favor certain explanations of origins over others and thereby take sides in this important controversy. The establishment of an “orthodox” explanation of origins impairs good Science, restricts freedom, disturbs peace and offends laws requiring government to be religiously Neutral.

A majority of us don't agree that intelligent design theory is non-scientific.
In any discussion on Evolution, Neo-Darwinists are quick to assert that Intelligent Design theory is not scientific, and that it (ID) is controversial only because "Creationists" are attempting to teach religion as science. Wrong. Here's a good description--I'd say, of what most Americans think on this issue,

ID is controversial because of the implications of its evidence, rather than the significant weight of its evidence. ID proponents believe science should be conducted objectively, without regard to the implications of its findings. This is particularly necessary in origins science because of its historical (and thus very subjective) nature, and because it is a science that unavoidably impacts religion.

Questions lead to hypotheses, and there are lots of legitimate questions about Evolutionary Theory. While we cannot "prove" or "disprove" irreducible complexity in a lab, we can--using math and statistical analysis, deduce that the odds of some seemingly irreducibly complex organs or organisms "evolving" or happening by chance mutation are beyond belief. In the face of that assessment, it seems a true scientist would want to keep looking--with an open mind, to find a more plausible explanation . . . that is, unless that scientist has too much vested in the paradigm or over-arching theory already in place.

Interestingly, once you can get a Neo-Darwinist to stop sniffing and start talking, they begin to offer scientific "proofs" or reasons that Intelligent Design, for example, isn't good science. Such "proofs," dear reader, are testable, which makes them scientific, which kind of hurts Neo-Darwinists' argument. That may be part of why they'd rather sniff than talk.

No doubt, there's more to the debate about Evolution than science. If Neo-Darwinists could ever admit that fact, they might have more success at persuading us that they're only "following the science."