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Dear Moira,

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Thank you for drawing my attention de Mr Hilaly and his opinion of Australian women.

I understand that Mr Hilaly was somewhat begrudgingly granted "permanent residence" in 1990, at the age of 49 after having arrived in Australia in 1982.

Though Mr Hilaly has now been living in Australia for the past 30 years, it is quite evident that he does not accept the lifestyle of Australian women. Nor does he accept Australian law which severely condemns rapists. He obviously remains immersed in the Egyptian tradition which considers the female victim as the guilty party and the rapist to be her innocent victim.

Mr Hilaly is now 71 years old. As he has never managed to accept Australian laws and traditions, it is most unlikely that he will be able to do so during the coming years. It is difficult to teach an old horse new tricks.

As it would seem that he is Egyptian, as a foreign national he has a duty to refrain from interfering in Australian internal affairs. Failure to do so exposes him to the risk of being expulsed from the country back to his homeland.

Even if he has been granted Australian citizenship, he probably has double nationality: Australian and Egyptian.

Whatever his status, there is a good case for having his permanent residence permit or Australian nationality cancelled and deporting him back to his beloved Egypt whose culture he dearly wishes to impose on all Australians.

The fact that he is still here raises the question as to possible connections he may have with the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO).

On the subject of ostentatious dress attire, some Australians may consider that Mr Hilaly's robe, sandals, beard and borderless hat are more noticeable and offensive in the street than a mini-skirt on a pretty young girl.

Perhaps he should be confined to his mosque or bedroom in such provocative attire and only allowed out on the street, cleanly shaven, wearing a t-shirt, a pair of shorts and tongs, accompanied by his wife or wives in proper knee-high floral dresses.

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Foyle,
At the end of the article it says, 'freedom (of speech) is a two-way street, otherwise it is not freedom at all.'

Yet there are those in educational circles that wish to stifle any and all discussion of the possibility of intelligent design or divine creation. They claim that the evolutionary story, their version of what took place in natural history in the unseen eons of time past many millions and billions of years ago, is beyond doubt and strictly the only way that history may be interpreted. And therefore all other theories of history must be suppressed and the Neo-Darwinian account must not even be critiqued.

Just to clarify, do you count yourself among these?

Creation and ID are junk:

http://www.ratbags.com/rsoles/comment/wackononsense.pdf

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Dear cohenite,

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Many thanks for that interesting comparative study of evolutionary theory and intelligent design theory by John Rennie, editor in chief of Scientific American.

I shall keep it for further reference.

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Dear Dan,

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It is my understanding that for any theory to be accepted, if only temporarily, it must be capable of resisting challenge based on natural deduction from all and any quarters, including peer review.

It would certainly be contrary to scientific method to "stifle discussion" on Darwin's theory of evolution.

I think you will agree that there continues to be a lively debate on this subject. The problem, evidently lies elsewhere.

It relates essentially to what we should teach our children. Parents are free to teach them what they want. Some religious or independent schools may also have this possibility. It is more complicated for state or public schools and all those schools which are obliged to respect state educational policy and curriculum.

Barring domination by a religious authority, the state usually bases its teachings on state of the art scientific knowledge. That by no means excludes the fact that such knowledge may later be proven to be totally inaccurate, as has often been the case in the past.

For the time being, there is a fairly large consensus among biologists that we have no better explanation of life in all its diversity than Darwin's theory of evolution.

Proponents of the intelligent design theory are mostly recruited among the various religious communities, including some of the best scientific minds who can find no scientific explanation for their observations. But that, of course, should not be interpreted otherwise than as a lack of scientific knowledge.

Lobbying for a change in school curricula is putting the cart before the horse. Proponents of the intelligent design theory have first to convince their peers among the scientific community that their theory is both scientifically well-founded and a superior explanation of life in all its diversity, not just the usual universal response of religion, whatever the topic and whatever the query: faith.

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Dear Banjo,
My comments on this topic were made in support of free speech and freedom of discussion. From Cohenite’s link above to John Rennie's article, it would seem there is some debate occurring on creation and evolution. Why else would Rennie write such an article? Rennie admits, "in the most scientifically advanced nation the world has ever known, creationists can still persuade politicians, judges and ordinary citizens that evolution is a flawed, poorly supported fantasy." He omits to make mention of the number of scientists that are also persuaded.

From your response, you give the impression that the "large consensus" towards Darwinian evolution is something other than a simple majority of opinion. However, science never progressed by means of majority vote but rather by the advance of evidence and argument.

That certain ideas are favoured and in vogue for a time is the history of science. The change from geocentrism to heliocentrism did not occur overnight. Often changes are generational, like 'scientific revolutions', a phrase popularised by Thomas Kuhn. Your post admits that certain views which are well held are often discarded at a later time.

So with evolution still struggling (perhaps increasingly so) to gain overall acceptance, debate must continue. The degree to which the current debate is being stifled is described in the Ben Stein documentary film "Expelled" and in the book 'Slaughter of the Dissidents’ by Jerry Bergman, which documents cases of discrimination against those who doubt the Darwinian orthodoxy.

With regard change in public school curricula, no creationist organisation is lobbying for creation to be inserted. It’s too controversial. Yet they do argue that there be freedom for evolution to be questioned and its weaknesses be open to query. Rather than forever propped up, it be taught ‘warts and all’ so students are not kept in the dark about the controversy.

Those sceptical of Darwinism are not just religious. To summarise the position of the agnostic David Berlinski. There are really only two reasons to doubt Darwinian Evolution: 1. it makes very little sense and 2. it is supported by very little evidence.