Happy Academic Freedom Day!
Today is Charles Darwin’s birthday, and the Intelligent Design community has declared a national Academic Freedom Day in his honor. The Discovery Institute think tank sponsors the Day, encouraging students to “speak out against censorship and stand up for free speech by defending the right to debate the evidence for and against evolution.”
The campaign logo is a large cartoon of Darwin saying, “A fair result can be obtained only by fully stating and balancing the facts and arguments on both sides of each question.”
Some curmudgeons are peeved by the appropriation of Chuck Darwin’s birthday for this cause.
NAS doesn’t take a position in the debate between intelligent design and evolution, but we are happy to see it take place.
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Categories: Academic Freedom
The funny thing is that while indeed, Darwin stated, “A fair result can be obtained only by fully stating and balancing the facts and arguments on both sides of each question” this was not the end of his sentence.
This is what he actually stated, “A fair result can be obtained only by fully stating and balancing the facts and arguments on both sides of each question; and this cannot possibly be here done.”