One way you can tell an ideologue is if he ditches an old friend because the old friend no longer agrees with him. It has happened to me occasionally on the issue of Darwinism, and I rather relish it, frankly. I have been a card carrying member of the Centrist Establishment my whole adult life, so I experience a certain excitement in being stigmatized as an extremist by the Leftist Establishment. Me? An extremist? Why thank you so much!
The same thing is happening to Anthony Flew now, in double dossage, and I hope he, too, is enjoying the notoriety. http://www.publishersweekly.com/article/CA6501078.html
The New York Times--media headquarters for the Give No Quarter to Darwin Doubters campaign--decided to respond to the recent apostasy of England's hallowed Professor of Atheism by intimating that the old man must be daft. Never let it be said that The NYT lacks for objective anaylsis and journalistic professionalism on science issues. They simply are following the lead of that noted Darwinian ethicist, Richard Dawkins.
But Flew is fighting back. I may be old and slow, he says, but stop your carping insinuations about my intelligence and your eggregious age discrimination (okay, I added that last twist myself). Let my recent book speak for itself, he says.
Lovely. I say that the AARP (or their UK branch) should file a suit against The Times.
Meanwhile, let The New York Times wallow in its patronizing zeal. When the history of our real times is written it will be noted that The Times newspaper was no more accurate about trends in science in the early 21st century than it was about the nature of communism in the middle of the 20th. It is easily addled by its ideology.
I had the honor as a young man to write editorials for the late, great New York Herald Tribune. We distrusted The Times then and I can't find any reason to think better of it as years go by.
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