To wear the mantle of Galileo, you must also be right

The makers of the film Expelledclaim that supporters of Intelligent Design are persecuted and hounded out of their jobs because of their beliefs, which are religious beliefs, and therefore this is religious persecution. In general, their examples are of people who are incompetent, unproductive, or simply misrepresenting the facts altogether. But there’s more… A commenter at the Twin Cities Pioneer Press gives some counterexamples. David Edwards from Runcorn, U.K., has this to say:

…the basic premise of this film, namely that scientists who dare to question an existing paradigm have their careers trashed, is garbage. I can name three scientists who did precisely that and whose careers flourished afterwards. Two of them won Nobel Prizes. Look up Barry Marshall, Stanley Prusiner and Lynn Margulis. None of whom were “Expelled” – instead, their work became part of mainstream science.

Creationists and IDists whinge about being denied a place at science’s top table, yet perform NO experimental laboratory work, perform NO critically robust research, submit NOTHING to critically robust journals for peer review and examination of the arguments. They want the privileges and imprimatur of science without doing any of the work. Instead, they spend their tax-exempt funding on propaganda, misinformation, continued carping about evolutionary biology despite the fact that evolutionary biology has been responsible for advances that have helped keep people alive via the subsequent development of medical technology, and have NO positive argument. All that they have is carping, and the PRETENCE that their ideas are somehow “scientific” whilst anyone who has read the Dover Trial transcripts knows that they are in fact a front for RELIGION. The FACTS and the EVIDENCE are on the side of REAL SCIENCE.

To wear the mantle of Galileo, it is not enough to be persecuted: you must also be right.