No Room for Discussion of Origins

Ball State to professor: No room for origins-of-universe discussion at university [Excerpts]

Intelligent design think tank Discovery Institute is condemning an Indiana university that permits a class that condemns religion while silencing a professor promoting intelligent design. 

Discovery Institute Vice President John West says he is upset that Ball State University has banned faculty from discussing intelligent design while permitting a class that uses a religion-bashing textbook.

The textbook contains “chapter after chapter bashing religion, bashing intelligent design,” West tells OneNewsNow. “In fact, one of the chapter titles is ‘Science must destroy religion.’ And that’s pretty much what the book is about.”

The book called “What is Your Dangerous Idea?” is a compilation of essays edited by literary agent John Brockman, an atheist.

The theory of intelligence design argues that earth and the universe, due to their precise nature, could not have been [formed] by pure chance. The theory is criticized by scientists for its religious tone since it mirrors the Genesis account of creation.

The school is targeting Eric Hedin, an assistant professor of physics, who taught intelligent design in an honors class called The Boundaries of Science, The Huffington Post reported.

The Freedom from Religion Foundation, an atheist group, complained to Ball State about Hedin.

Jo Ann Gora, president of Ball State, announced the school would no longer teach intelligent design in its science courses because “intelligent design and creation science do not qualify as science.”

West says universities should provide a forum where opposing views concerning religion can be freely expressed.

“What a public university can’t do is gag some professors,” says West, “namely those who support intelligent design or even those who are theistic in perspective – and provide open season on attacking religion or attacking intelligent design.”

On the Huffington Post website, a commenter who claimed to be a former student of Hedin described him as a “deeply religious man” who was also an “open-minded person.”

“I doubt that he was in any way shoving anything down students' throats, as his only goal with all of us students was to get us to think critically,” the student wrote on the blog.

http://onenewsnow.com//education/2013/09/17/ball-state-tells-physics-professor-no-room-for-origins-of-universe-discussion#.UjiXf0QYIlI