Intelligent design and Holocaust denial
The following text is from an article posted on History News Network, a page by historians for historians.
Whatever Intelligent Design Is, It's Not a Theory and It's Not Science
By Richard L. Cravatts
Mr. Cravatts Ph.D., a lecturer at Boston University, Tufts University, and Emerson College, writes frequently on social policy, housing development, Constitutional law, business, and politics.
[Excerpt]
"The fact is that not every intellectual viewpoint is worthy of being discussed in the classroom, merely because one group feels passionately that their issue has intrinsic value, is true, or should be heard as part of the marketplace of ideas. Some truths are absolute and do not require a fair and balanced measurement against some contradictory body of thought. An entire intellectual ‘industry’ of Holocaust denial research has many fervent followers, for instance, but few sentient school boards would find it palatable or reasonable to have students exposed to the ‘theory’ that the Holocaust never occurred along with history lessons expressing the verifiable and incontrovertible fact that it did."
I intitated a discussion here that, while it was not frutiful, was interesting. I am always taken aback by the unwillingness of academics to argue for free inquiry through an open debate on WWII history. Historians are serious folk. I have to suppose that I'm an innocent.
If you decide to Read more, go to "comments."
Whatever Intelligent Design Is, It's Not a Theory and It's Not Science
By Richard L. Cravatts
Mr. Cravatts Ph.D., a lecturer at Boston University, Tufts University, and Emerson College, writes frequently on social policy, housing development, Constitutional law, business, and politics.
[Excerpt]
"The fact is that not every intellectual viewpoint is worthy of being discussed in the classroom, merely because one group feels passionately that their issue has intrinsic value, is true, or should be heard as part of the marketplace of ideas. Some truths are absolute and do not require a fair and balanced measurement against some contradictory body of thought. An entire intellectual ‘industry’ of Holocaust denial research has many fervent followers, for instance, but few sentient school boards would find it palatable or reasonable to have students exposed to the ‘theory’ that the Holocaust never occurred along with history lessons expressing the verifiable and incontrovertible fact that it did."
I intitated a discussion here that, while it was not frutiful, was interesting. I am always taken aback by the unwillingness of academics to argue for free inquiry through an open debate on WWII history. Historians are serious folk. I have to suppose that I'm an innocent.
If you decide to Read more, go to "comments."
posted by Bradley R. Smith @ 11:49 AM
1 Comments:
At 6:51 AM,
Holocaust Historiography Project said…
One scarcely knows where to begin with statements such as Cravatts'.
How would we arrive at the knowledge that some viewpoints are not worthy of being discussed, except by discussing them? We'd at least have to discuss who gets to decide for the rest of us what gets discussed and what doesn't, right?
As for absolute truths, there is only one source for absolute truths, as far as I know, and that is God. Man certainly isn't the source, and despite our pursuit of science using the scientific method, we have discovered no truths.
Yet, Cravatts seems to be saying that the THEORY of evolution is truth, while Intelligent Design -- that is, actions by the only entity capable of absolute truth -- is non-truth.
Given these utterances, it seems likely that Cravatts considers himself to be God, although it's more likely that he is nothing more than an ideologically-driven member of the Holocaust lobby, for whom logic and truth are secondary to the promotion of the Holocaust myth.
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