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26 of 31 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Well-Documented and Sobering Book, May 22, 2009
This review is from: Slaughter of The Dissidents (Paperback)
Slaughter of the Dissidents (SOD) is a much needed look at the state of academic freedoms in our country. While many people naively believe that illegal discrimination against people due to their personal views is rare and speedily dealt with, this book demonstrates that this is not the case. There is a group of people that find themselves under frequent and often severe attack simply because of the views they hold. These people are not of a specific race, religion, or gender, yet the discrimination is no less wrong. These are the Darwin Doubters - those who dare to disbelieve or criticize the idea that purely naturalistic processes such as mutation and natural selection are sufficient to account for the complexity and diversity of living things. The unwarranted discrimination against those who dare to question the status quo in academia has been thoroughly researched and well-documented by Dr. Bergman in 386 pages of text and 69 pages of bibliography (and this is just the first of five volumes). In almost every instance the Darwin Doubters had notable accomplishments and were not advocating any religious views. However, the fact that they disagreed with the views of their peers made them a target for harassment, censorship, threats, demotion, loss of employment, and denial of earned degrees, tenure, and promotions.
This book is very well written and engaging. However, it is not a light and fun read; it is a sobering view of an issue that needs to be addressed. It reveals the cancer in the depths of the academic establishment that will tolerate no dissent from Darwin. This is not the kind of book that you can read and simply shrug off. This is the civil rights issue of our day. If we do nothing, this offense to the freedoms guaranteed by our Constitution will continue. This issue is also where the battle for academic freedom is being waged. If we allow only one hypothesis, one viewpoint, one explanation in scientific inquiry we have eroded the very basis of science. We are then left with pure dogma, not an open evaluation of ideas.
SOD does not advocate presenting Intelligent Design, creationism, or religion in the classroom. In fact, it makes no case for or against the views of Darwin Doubters. It simply presents the views of the people involved that led to their encounter with the intolerance of the scientific establishment. Every effort was made to interview people on both sides of the conflict in order to present a fair and unbiased evaluation of the situation. What Dr. Bergman found is a shocking trend - a concerted effort to derail the careers of those who disagree with the prevailing views. In most cases, no attempt was made to determine what they were actually teaching in the classroom or even what their views actually were. They were dismissed on suspicion based on the perception of their personal religious and/or scientific views, not because of a deficiency in teaching ability, academic accomplishments, or any other job related criteria. In not a single case presented was there any documentation of the teaching of creation or religion or of academic incompetence. However, those who sought help in the courts found them unsympathetic. The courts consistently upheld the right of the institutions to fire or discriminate against their employees in the case of dissent from Darwin.
If you find it hard to believe that such things are occurring right here in the land of the free, this book will open your eyes. It presents documentation for case after case in which these things have occurred - stories of real people who simply have views that differ from those of the majority. These are not isolated incidents; they are occurring in public schools, colleges, and universities all across the U.S. Perhaps most telling are the many witnesses who requested that their identity remain undisclosed so that they would not face the same persecution. Whether or not you agree with the views of Darwin Doubters, as an American you should defend their right to hold those views without fear of discrimination. Both academic and religious freedoms are at stake when we allow people with minority views to be unfairly (and illegally) silenced, censored, fired, and denied the degrees and awards they have earned.
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25 of 30 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Decline of openminded discussion, October 19, 2008
This review is from: Slaughter of The Dissidents (Paperback)
The book could have been subtitled "and the Decline of Openminded Discussion". The fact that so many people have been denied the opportunity to teach or do research because they want to suggest alternative approaches to the same observable data suggests that science is not open-minded after all.
That is too bad, too, because evolution has impeded the progress in some cases. For example, in Dr. Bergman's area of expertise, genetics, progress in an area of "junk DNA" was impeded for decades because the the arrogant assumption of evolutionists that if they didn't know a function for the specific regions of the DNA molecule, then there was none and these regions were simply junk DNA left over from evolution. So, no research was done on these areas. After decades of suppression, new research is now finding that there are uses for these areas after all.
It is time the scientific establishment is brought to account for its narrowness of vision and suppression of consideration of alternatives to evolution.
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25 of 30 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Encouraging, October 19, 2008
This review is from: Slaughter of The Dissidents (Paperback)
In the fall of 2008, my wife and I had the privilege of being guests with Dr. Jerry Bergman and his wife on our trek from Philadelphia to Cokato, MN. On that occasion, he signed a purchased copy of his book, Slaughter of the Dissidents. It took me awhile to read through it--snippets here and there before turning out the light beside my bed.
It is not my purpose here to give a comprehensive review, but I thought that I would at least refer to several aspects that stood out for me.
Marvin Olasky was a "Communist" who became a Christian. He wrote of Prof. Marvin Felheim (University of Michigan) that "He was angry when he read a draft of my dissertation and saw that I was no longer a Marxist. He wrote plaintively, `I thought you were one of our most intelligent students.' Apparently, moving from atheistic left to biblical right causes brains to fall out" (p. 125).
Raymond Damadian, the inventor of the extremely important medical tool, the MRI, believed, with reference to the evolutionary account of how life came into being, that the "sheer statistics of that violate any sense of reality." See page 290.
I also appreciated Bergman's chapters on 1. Creationist Werher Von Braun, 2. the outspoken opponent-of-Darwinism Mortimer Adler, and 3. The founder-of-the-field-of-antibiotics Ernst Boris Chain.
Dr. Bergman has supplied us with a very large amount of documentation that there is indeed intolerance and even hostility in academia toward theism--especially of the Christian variety.
Jesus, when He walked this earth, said: "If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated Me first. If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you."
The world put Christ to the cross, but He conquered even death. There is also hope for His followers: "No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us." It may be rough for His followers now, but there is a wonderful future for all you bow the heart to the Lord Jesus, Creator Christ, my wonderful savior.
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by David Berlinski Ph.D.
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