NewsWatch

MidwestOutreach.org, 9/9/21, “The Fake Scholarship of Social Justice”: A few professors in academia are publicly speaking out about the virtual abandonment of the pursuit of truth in the universities. “Social Justice is ‘Fake Scholarship,’ Oxford Philosopher Says” is one of the more recent examples.”

Sir Roger Vernon Scruton, an English philosopher and writer who specializes in political philosophy and aesthetics, said social justice is changing the very nature of scholarship—and not for the better.

“The academy has been invaded by a new form of study,” says Scruton, a senior research fellow at Oxford University.... “It used to be the case at universities you were teaching a recognized subject with a recognized curriculum and you were carrying out research or scholarship in the humanities which was open-minded, guided by the pursuit of truth, and not dismayed particularly if it came to surprising or unorthodox conclusions.”

In what were the hallowed halls of learning, rigorous inquiry, and research, the new orthodoxy is simple. Believe and salute whatever the new popular opinion may be without question. Unfortunately, this is invading the church as well.

(https://bit.ly/3EhFq6M)

Taliban Government Doesn’t Include Women

JihadWatch.Org, 9/9/21, “State Department Concerned That Taliban Government Doesn’t Include Any Women” [Excerpts]: The naivete and self-delusion of these “foreign policy experts” is apparently bottomless.

The State Department [recently] expressed concerns over the makeup of the new interim Afghan government announced by the Taliban, including the lack of female leaders and the past actions of some of those appointed to top posts.

A State Department spokesperson said in a statement shared with The Hill that although the Taliban “has presented this as a caretaker cabinet,” the U.S. “will judge the Taliban by its actions, not words.”

The statement went on to note that the list of names announced by the Taliban earlier Tuesday “consists exclusively of individuals who are members of the Taliban or their close associates and no women.”

The announced leaders come after the Taliban specifically called on women to join government offices in an apparent attempt to portray itself as a more moderate version of the group that previously enforced extreme laws on women and girls, including preventing them from going to school and barring them from leaving their homes unless they were accompanied by a man.

The State Department also said that it was “concerned by the affiliations and track records of some of the individuals.”

(https://bit.ly/3AcR3JG)

World’s ‘Tiniest Dinosaur’ Is Just a Lizard

ICR.org, 8/31/21, “World’s ‘Tiniest Dinosaur’ Is Just a Lizard” [Excerpts]: Many of the world’s top paleontologists were again recently fooled by their own preconceived ideas. This time it was a tiny skull trapped in amber that was declared a hummingbird-size dinosaur and named Oculudentavis. The initial report was published in Nature in March 2020. However, nearly as soon as it was published, a second paper was submitted to Nature showing that the fossil was a lizard and not a dinosaur. Nature’s editors promptly rejected the rebuttal. The authors of the refuting article had to publish their paper in a Chinese journal instead.

 Then, in July 2020, Nature did retract the original paper. They explained that a new specimen of Oculudentavis showed they were mistaken. Others have come forth with the same conclusion. The so-called “tiniest dinosaur” was labeled a lizard after all.

A recent paper published in Current Biology tried to rationalize that the earlier misidentification was due to distortions of the skull during fossilization.

Alan Feduccia, emeritus professor at the University of North Carolina and a paleornithologist, noticed the red flags associated with the dinosaur interpretation right away. Feduccia said the bony rings of the eyes in the original specimen (sclerotic ossicles) easily identified it as a lizard.

The Bible warns Christians about this type of so-called science, where philosophical views trump factual evidence:

“For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears.”

(https://bit.ly/3nxbAF7)