Intelligent Design Theory: Science or Religion?

Re: farmerman(Post 3583817)
Quote:
. My schedule for "retirement" is taking shape for the end of March, so my schedule will be freed up .

I would never use a word like "schedule" twice in the same sentence.

I don't know how we're going to get back to the kind of criticism the New York critics wrote, or the kind of intellectual life that criticism made possible. Their emergence was the result of a historical juncture that will probably never recur. But I do know that we won't get back to it by taking Wood as our critical template. Ozick's thicket of Woods would be a dwarf forest. We are immensely fortunate to have him--his talent, his erudition, his judgment--but if American criticism were to follow his lead, it would end up only in a desert.

Quite extraordinarily, the Science Museum in London and the Manchester Museum of Science and Industry have both been made available (on 3 and 5 March respectively) for an event called "Israel Day of Science". The museums argue they are not sponsoring the event, but have merely hired out their premises. This subtle distinction is unlikely to be appreciated by the many thousands of all ages and faiths who have repeatedly taken to the streets round the country to protest against Israeli war crimes in Gaza.

The event is promoted by the Zionist Federation and is designed to showcase the scientific achievements of seven Israeli universities. But all of these are complicit in the Israeli occupation and in the policies and weaponry so recently deployed to such disastrous effect in Gaza. To take just one example, Tel Aviv University, in its most recent annual review, states that "the Israel ministry of defence is currently funding 55 projects at TAU", which "is playing a major role in enhancing Israel's security capabilities and military edge". The head of TAU's security studies programme was a former director of the R&D directorate of the Israel ministry of defence. He holds the rank of major-general in the Israel Defence Forces and is a member of the Knesset.

Israel Day of Science is aimed particularly at sixth-form students, who can be expected to come in parties from schools across the country. What reaction can be expected from the many young people, already disaffected from science, who will associate the science museums with this Israeli public relations exercise? The event is being billed as a celebration of science. In fact it is an attempted celebration of Israel.

In the immediate aftermath of the indiscriminate slaughter and attempted annihilation of all the infrastructure of organised society in Gaza, how can this "celebration" be allowed to borrow some respectability from the use of these distinguished institutions? The museums should cancel these unseemly events.

No--nothing like that. Getting them back in their labs instead of them parading up and down the country telling us how our kids should be brought up is all we ask. After all, it was what we payed them to get qualified to do.

The article, which made Sky News last night, purports to demonstrate that scientific institutions can be bought to lend the hallowed name of science for political purposes.

Whether others think that is fair comment is a matter for them.

There's no need for me to carry a placard either way. Suggesting, sarcastically, that I might is merely a method of not addressing the thing and is a rather traditional rhetorical device dating back a few thousand years.

Its on the front page of the Indy too. Ok I'll address the thing. "Stop killing children" Please

Sorry but "thrusting feminists" just naturally brought up that picture immediately.