A life long and world renowned atheist, Flew worked with some of the worlds leading professionals and came to the conclusion that it's impossible for life to have evolved from chemicals and there appears to be a higher deity in the design of life.
Can't the Smithsonian just follow the historic ritual and burn him at the stake already?
What a surprise.</sarcasm>
I subscribe to a school of biological thought often termed “process structuralism.” Process or biological structuralism is concerned with understanding the formal, generative rules underlying organic forms, and focuses on the system architectures of organisms and their interrelationships. Structuralist analysis is generally ahistorical, systems-oriented, and non-evolutionary (not anti-evolutionary). Both creationism and neo-Darwinism are, in contrast, emphatically historicist with one positing extreme polyphyly (de novo creation of species) and the other radical monophyly (common descent). Since the structuralist perspective runs somewhat perpendicular to the origins debate, creationists and evolutionists tend to see it as inimical to their positions. The truth is structuralism has little at stake in the origins issue, leaving a person like myself free to dialogue with all parties. For this reason, I frequently discourse with ultra-Darwinians, macromutationists, self-organization theorists, complexity theorists, intelligent design advocates, theistic evolutionists, and young-earth creationists without necessarily agreeing with any of their views.Structuralism does, however, provide an important perspective on the origins debate. Structuralists' lack of commitment to an historical theory of biology allows them to explore the historical evidence more objectively. Moreover, because they focus on formal analysis, struturalists are far more open than neo-Darwinians to the powerful evidence for continuity within species (forms) and discontinuity between and among species. They also allow themselves to wonder about the cause of the amazing repetition of forms across the biological world rather than being forced by prior commitments to accept a major neo-Darwinian epicycle known as "convergent evolution."
- Dr. Richard M. v. Sternberg
I'm glad I'm in physics. :P
We're a much more laid-back lot.
Can you imagine what a psychologist could do with this scenario? We see the insecure antagonists bullying, exhibiting paranoia, assuming the role of thought police, and having a collective panic attack. A little further investigation might reveal thumb-sucking and bed-wetting.
William H. Rehnquist, Chief Justice of the United States, ex officio, Chancellor
Richard B. Cheney, Vice-President of the United States, ex officio
Thad Cochran, Senator from Mississippi
Bill Frist, Senator from Tennessee
Patrick J. Leahy, Senator from Vermont
Sam Johnson, Representative from Texas
Robert T. Matsui, Representative from California Ralph Regula, Representative from Ohio Hanna H. Gray, Professor of History and former President of the University of Chicago
Anne d’Harnoncourt, the George D. Widener Director of the Philadelphia Museum of Art and a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
Manuel L. Ibáñez, President Emeritus and Professor Emeritus, Texas A&M University in Kingsville, Texas
Walter E. Massey, Physicist and President of Morehouse College in Atlanta Roger W. Sant, chairman emeritus and cofounder of the AES Corporation and chairman of the board of The Summit Foundation
Alan G. Spoon, managing general partner in Polaris Venture Partners, former President of The Washington Post Company
Patricia Q. Stonesifer, co-chair and president of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation; Wesley S. Williams Jr., of Washington, D.C., Partner in the law firm of Covington & Burling
We should contact the Board members. Certainly, Sen. Frist and Sen. Cochran should be sympatric
Why would anyone get two Ph.D.s in the same field?
Much though I hate to give any support to creationists, it appears Sternberg was unfairly treated. His acceptance of Meyer's paper, while I think it was an abuse of his editorship, was unrelated to his position at the Smithsonian; and the inquiries about his religious convictions are completely unacceptable. Unless his creationist (er, I mean structuralist) beliefs can be shown to have in some way negatively impacted his job performance, firing him for them is outrageous.
ID does nothing. It explains nothing. It is non-functional. It also fits no data points.
are better explained by an unspecified designing intelligence than by an undirected natural process like random mutation and natural selection.
In other words, all unknown things, phenomenon, etc., are best explained by 'an unspecified designing intelligence' (=God) rather 'than by an undirected natural process'. We can't just say 'We don't know'.
So scientifically, all unexplained phenomenon are now attributed to 'an unspecified designing intelligence' and this attribution is called 'scientific'.
In other words...all that cannot be explained by science must 'scientifically' be attributed to God.
This is the usual attempt to drape religious beliefs in scientific robes. That is, all things that cannot be explained by science are by definition 'scientifically' attributed to 'an unspecified designing intelligence'. Sheesh. I have no problem attributing these things to 'God', but to say this is scientific is ignorant or disingenous and dishonest.
If they just said...all that is unkown is proof of God (the God of your choice, of course) then I'd be sympathetic. But to call it scientific proof, evidence, etc., is basically an attempt to forcefully and aggressively proselytize.
bump
If this editor let in an article on ID into a scientific journal, he should be fired. He has lost touch with what science is all about.