With all of the controversies currently swirling around the teaching of intelligent design, it never fails to amaze me about how little proponents of teaching unscientific doctrines in science courses understand about academic freedom or science.  Take Ken Connor, for example:

In our postmodern world, however, many scholars are learning the hard way that "academic freedom" has become an Orwellian term meaning "academic tyranny." Today, in the academy, one is free only to advance notions that are consonant with the prevailing politically correct orthodoxy. Challenges to that orthodoxy are often met with denials of tenure, refusals to renew contracts, or expulsion.

Nowhere is this more evident than when the notion of Darwinian Evolution is questioned. And nowhere are the limitations of academic freedom more in evidence than in the debate over Intelligent Design. In his documentary, Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed, Ben Stein chronicles the fate of scholars who dared to proffer the theory of Intelligent Design (ID) as an explanation for the origin of life. Their efforts were rebuffed with Gestapo-like tactics carried out by the politically correct police who brooked no challenges to Charles Darwin's theories. The heterodox were deemed unworthy of membership in the academy and were expelled. Tenure was denied and their contracts were not renewed. Challenges to the existing "academic consensus" are simply not allowed. Thus, a scholar's freedom of inquiry has been transmogrified to freedom from inquiry. 

We'll leave aside Connor's stupid repetition of Stein's obnoxious "evolutionary biologists are Nazis" meme (are scientists really out there arresting intelligent design proponents in the middle of the night?).  We'll also ignore the fact the Connor believes that the natural sciences are somehow a vipers' nest of post-modernists, when the reality is is that they are the one place in the academy where post-modernism hasn't really found a toe-hold.

more after the jump...

David Horowitz recently visited the University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee as part of his on-going Tour of Perpetual Outrage and was - to but it mildly - ticked off by a cartoon bearing his likeness on a bulletin board outside of the Muslim Student Association's offices.  To be fair to DHo, being likened to a Nazi and called a fascist is, at best, unflattering and wholly unconstructive, but Horowitz's knee-jerk response of anti-semitism and the demand for an apology make the whole seen look even more ridiculous.  From Lester Hunt:

UW-Madison poli sci prof Kenneth R. Mayer commented, rightly I think, that there is no more reason for apology or reprimand here than there was when the UW-Madison Badger Herald offended the MSA by publishing the notorious Danish cartoons. Horowitz replies here. "The difference between the two cartoons," he says, "is that the university has rules against religious bigotry. The Mohammed cartoons were nothing of the sort."

I think this is a clear case of "what's sauce for the goose." I see nothing in this cartoon to indicate that it is about religion at all. And, as a friend of mine pointed out, except for a slight exaggeration in the nose, there is almost nothing in this cartoon to indicate antisemitism. True enough, references to Nazism (the armbands in this cartoon) in connection with someone known to be Jewish is offensive and contemptible for several different reasons, but they themselves don't rise (or descend) to the level of antisemitism either.

Above all, displaying the cartoon is clearly within the ASM's right of free speech. If UW had a rule against an offense as nebulous as "religious bigotry" (which of course it doesn't), it would obviously violate that right. 

We've been keeping an eye on the so-called "academic freedom" bill moving in Florida that would allow K-12 science teachers in that state to teach "alternatives" to evolutionary theory (cough*intelligent design*cough*and creationism*cough).  After passing the Senate, the Florida House of Representatives passed a version of the bill that was slightly different, stating that teachers should be able to approach evolutionary theory in a "critical" manner (as if scientists aren't always critical of the theoretical and methodological tools at their disposal - it's what makes science actually work!). 

Fortunately for those who care about the integrity of science education, the versions are different enough that the Senate rejected the House language for the bill.  With the legislative session ending today, it looks like the people of Florida might escape this cycle with their science classes intact.  Hopefully, a new state legislature next year will know better than to play chicken with their children's education.