Physicist asks, is there academic freedom to criticize evolutionary theory?

British physicist David Tyler responds to angst among the top science brass about the effect of Expelled, for example, in alerting people to the fact that scientists cannot criticize establishment theories like Darwinism unless they offer another materialist theory - no matter how cogent the criticism or how ridiculous either the Darwinist theory or some other materialist theory:

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There are too many cases of good scientists who have been excluded because they dared question the 'unquestionable'. These scientists have been treated shabbily by some colleagues who have openly declared that they are unfit to teach or practise science. Their academic freedom is being denied.

Unfortunately, the latest issue of Science perpetuates these problems. Yudhijit Bhattacharjee starts with the comment: "If creationism is a mutating virus, as many educators believe, then its latest guise is legislation to protect "academic freedom." Politicians in five U.S. states are pushing bills to enable educators to teach alternatives to evolution by protecting their "right" to discuss with students the idea of intelligent design (ID)."

Clearly, the intent in this article is to suggest that "academic freedom" is a cloak for injecting religion into the classroom. The presenter of Expelled!, Ben Stein, is said to have "helped intelligent design proponents in their efforts to dethrone Darwin". Not a word here about the reality of intolerance within the scientific community. There is no recognition that many scientists have scientific concerns about the way evolutionary theory is taught. How can science be healthy when issues like this cannot be openly explored!
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Well, science can't be healthy that way, of course, but at least awkward questions can be safely suppressed.