Darwin Central

One thing he has failed to disclose, however, is his link to the "intelligent design" movement and the Discovery Institute, the Seattle-based think tank that is a leading proponent of the neo-creationist theory that life and other aspects of the universe came into being not by evolution but by the work of an intelligent "cause."

Campbell is a fellow at the Discovery Institute and has written articles in favor of "making students aware of the arguments for and against Darwin's theory of evolution," including intelligent design, as he put it in a written statement [NOTE: link is to a PDF] he submitted in the closely watched Dover, Pa., court case fought over teaching intelligent design there. (A scathing opinion by the judge scuttled the local school board's plan to do so and served as a major setback for the intelligent design movement.) He also co-authored a book with Stephen Meyer, director of the Discovery's Institute's Center for Science and Culture, called Darwinism, Design and Public Education.

"Notice how he's running as John Campbell, not John Angus Campbell," says Eugenie Scott, executive director of the National Center for Science Education, an Oakland,Calif.–based nonprofit opposed to the teaching of intelligent design. Campbell uses the latter name at the Discovery Institute and in his writings on intelligent design. "Is he trying to hide that he's running for school board, or that he is who he is?" Scott wonders.

By phone from Belfair, Campbell insists he isn't hiding anything. He says he hasn't mentioned his work on intelligent design because "it hasn't come up as an issue" and "it's not part of my motive in running."

By phone from Belfair, Campbell insists he isn't hiding anything. He says he hasn't mentioned his work on intelligent design because "it hasn't come up as an issue" and "it's not part of my motive in running."

PatrickHenry wrote:Rural School Board Candidate Hasn't Been Forthcoming About His "Intelligent Design" Agenda.

By phone from Belfair, Campbell insists he isn't hiding anything. He says he hasn't mentioned his work on intelligent design because "it hasn't come up as an issue" and "it's not part of my motive in running."

Ichneumon wrote:

By phone from Belfair, Campbell insists he isn't hiding anything. He says he hasn't mentioned his work on intelligent design because "it hasn't come up as an issue" and "it's not part of my motive in running."

Let me get this straight... This guy has written and published a number of things on the subject of changing school curriculums in favor of "ID" and against evolutionary science, but when he then runs for a position on a school board, it "just happens" to have nothing whatsoever to do with his "let's change the school science classes" drum that he's been banging for a long time?

Uh huh...

PatrickHenry wrote:No response from the Discovery Institute. I wonder how they'll spin this?

Funny thing is that this school board race is in Seattle, the home of the Discovery Institute.

JennyP wrote:

PatrickHenry wrote:No response from the Discovery Institute. I wonder how they'll spin this?

Funny thing is that this school board race is in Seattle, the home of the Discovery Institute.

Specifically, 1 1/2 hours away from Seattle by car, out on the Kitsap Penninsula. It's beautiful (albeit damp) country. The county seat of Macon County is Shelton, home of Taylor Shellfish Farms, the big geoduck harvester.

Wyatt Earp wrote:

JennyP wrote:

PatrickHenry wrote:No response from the Discovery Institute. I wonder how they'll spin this?

Funny thing is that this school board race is in Seattle, the home of the Discovery Institute.

Specifically, 1 1/2 hours away from Seattle by car, out on the Kitsap Penninsula. It's beautiful (albeit damp) country. The county seat of Macon County is Shelton, home of Taylor Shellfish Farms, the big geoduck harvester.

I wonder how many people will be wondering what a geoduck is, or how to pronounce it.

Kitsap ain't Seattle. Mason County is bible belt. Thanks, Jenny.

Article wrote:He also says that, despite his advocacy for bringing intelligent design into the classroom, he himself is a "Darwinist." He says he sees debating Darwin as a way of engaging students' interest and sharpening their critical thinking skills. "Rather than demonizing people that believe in ID, I think there are ways people could use their ideas to study Darwinism more closely," he explains.

Scott isn't buying it, not least because she says evolutionary biology has advanced way beyond Darwin's 19th-century tracts, so that a real follower of modern science would never call himself a "Darwinist."

Wyatt Earp wrote:Actually, what he said was, "it's not part of my motive in running." In cretardspea(tm), this is a true statement. It is not part of his motive, it is his motive. Therefore, he didn't really lie, and therefore he wont really burn in hell.

Campbell's bio page at the DI website wrote:Professor Campbell is one of the founders of the rhetoric of science, a now flourishing sub-specialty of academic inquiry, and has published numerous highly regarded technical articles and book chapters analyzing the rhetorical strategy of Darwin's The Origin of Species.

He is the co-editor, along with Dr. Stephen C. Meyer, of the new volume from Michigan State University Press, Darwinism, Design, and Public Education. He guest edited and contributed to a special issue on the intelligent design argument in the Journal of Rhetorical & Public Affairs (vol. 1, 1998 no. 4). He is currently at work on a scholarly book with the working title, Charles Darwin: A Rhetorical Biography. As a communication educator Professor Campbell is strongly committed to teaching controversy as a civic and democratic art as indicated by the title of his essay "Oratory, Democracy and the Classroom," and again in his prize-winning JIS essay "The Educational Debate Over Darwinism."

Elmo Zoneball wrote:

By phone from Belfair, Campbell insists he isn't hiding anything. He says he hasn't mentioned his work on intelligent design because "it hasn't come up as an issue" and "it's not part of my motive in running."

This is just too funny. It seems one of the character flaws that goes hand-in-hand with being an anti-Evo is the propensity for compulsive lying, even when it is to their own detriment.


Nathan Thurm & John Campbell: Separated at Birth???

SeaLion wrote:That's what the DI are fielding against 150 years of Science: a rattle bag of lawyers and orators!