Posted on 01/31/2005 12:15:48 PM PST by Grey Rabbit
WND EVOLUTION WATCH Smithsonian in uproar over intelligent-design article Museum researcher's career threatened after he published favorable piece Posted: January 29, 2005 1:00 a.m. Eastern
© 2005 WorldNetDaily.com
The career of a prominent researcher at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History in Washington is in jeopardy after he published a peer-reviewed article by a leading proponent of intelligent design, an alternative to evolutionary theory dismissed by the science and education establishment as a tool of religious conservatives.
Stephen Meyer's article advocates the theory of intelligent design. (Photo courtesy Discovery Institute)
Richard Sternberg says that although he continues to work in the museum's Department of Zoology, he has been kicked out of his office and shunned by colleagues, prompting him to file a complaint with the U.S. Office of Special Counsel.
Sternberg charges he was subjected to discrimination on the basis of perceived religious beliefs.
"I'm spending my time trying to figure out how to salvage a scientific career," Sternberg told David Klinghoffer, a columnist for the Jewish Forward, who reported the story in the Wall Street Journal.
Sternberg is managing editor of a nominally independent journal published at the museum, Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington. His trouble started when he included in the August issue a review-essay by Stephen Meyer, who holds a Cambridge University doctorate in the philosophy of biology.
Hans Sues, the museum's No. 2 senior scientist, denounced Meyer's article in a widely forwarded e-mail as "unscientific garbage."
According to Sternberg's complaint, which is being investigated, one museum specialist chided him by saying: "I think you are a religiously motivated person and you have dragged down the Proceedings because of your religiously motivated agenda."
Sternberg strongly denies that.
While acknowledging he is a Catholic who attends Mass, he says, "I would call myself a believer with a lot of questions, about everything. I'm in the postmodern predicament."
The complaint says the chairman of the Zoology Department, Jonathan Coddington, called Sternberg's supervisor to look into the matter.
"First, he asked whether Sternberg was a religious fundamentalist. She told him no. Coddington then asked if Sternberg was affiliated with or belonged to any religious organization. ... He then asked where Sternberg stood politically; ... he asked, 'Is he a right-winger? What is his political affiliation?'
The supervisor recounted the conversation to Sternberg, who also quotes her observing: "There are Christians here, but they keep their heads down."
The complaint, according to the Journal column, says Coddington took away Sternberg's office, which prevents access to the specimen collections he needs. Sternberg also was assigned to the close oversight of a curator with whom he had professional disagreements unrelated to evolution.
"I'm going to be straightforward with you," said Coddington, according to the complaint. "Yes, you are being singled out."
Meyer's article, "The Origin of Biological Information and the Higher Taxonomic Categories," cites mainstream biologists and paleontologists from schools such as the University of Chicago, Yale, Cambridge and Oxford who are critical of certain aspects of Darwinism.
Meyer – a fellow at Seattle's Discovery Institute, a leading advocate of intelligent design – contends supporters of Darwin's theory cannot explain how so many different animal types sprang into existence during the relatively short period of Earth history known as the Cambrian explosion.
He argues the Darwinian mechanism would require more time for the necessary genetic "information" to be generated, and intelligent design offers a better explanation.
The Journal notes Meyer's piece is the first peer-reviewed article to appear in a technical biology journal laying out the evidential case for intelligent design.
The theory holds that the complex features of living organisms, such as an eye, are better explained by an unspecified designing intelligence than by random mutation and natural selection.
Klinghoffer notes the Biological Society of Washington released a statement regretting its association with Meyer's article but did not address its arguments.
Klinghoffer points out the circularity of the arguments of critics who insisted intelligent design was unscientific because if had not been put forward in a peer-reviewed scientific journal.
"Now that it has," he wrote, "they argue that it shouldn't have been because it's unscientific."
Don't ruin his day. He paid good money for that DVD.
There is nothing in this universe which has not had a cause. If there is, please list it. Don't bother with ZPE, because not knowing a cause and not having a cause are entirely different matters.
Everything that has a beginning has a cause. The universe had a beginning.
Now, you go ahead and try to explain how all the matter in the universe was compressed to nothing without a cause. Then proceed to explain how nothing exploded and produced everything that exists in the universe without a cause. I believe you have the disadvantage.
But that is the great thing about science. In science terms mean one thing, and one thing only. Evolution is the theory that the diversity of life arose from a common ancestor due to the variation over time of allele frequencies in populations of organisms. Notice that this statement is neutral when it comes to questions about what drives the process; it simply states what occurs. It makes no mention about randomness or purpose (those ideas are probably beyond the realm of science anyway.) It makes no statement about either the existence or nonexistence of God. It makes no mention of design or lack thereof. It simply states the known fact that organisms change over time and uses that fact to account for all the species that exist. The evidence suggests that the primary mechanism for this process is mutations combined with natural selection, but even if it were shown that this mechanism couldn't account for the diversity of life, it isn't necessarily true that evolution can't account for it via some other evolutionary mechanism. When ID proponents argue that organisms do evolve and speciation does occur, but that there must be design inherent in the process, they are actually arguing in favor of evolution. They simply are injecting a nonscientific idea into the mix, namely the presence of a designer.
Good observation though, as you have observed, facts are secondary to this debate.
Would that be the widely discussed drunken alien? Or the practical jokesters from the future?
Probably they mean Thor. Although lately I think they might be referring to Zeus. Don't know I'll have to think about it some more. Gee, I wonder what designer they have in mind.
Some may say that but I think that the thrust of ID is that speciation does not occur.
So let us ask again, the question yet unanswered: Are you AlaCarte and Dataman both?
You know, I actually appreciate the trouble that went into putting that together. However, my point still stands - if to have faith you must ignore everything your senses tell you, that is not faith, but blindness. A literal reading of Genesis worked fine for neolithic shepherds, since they needed no understanding of science to appreciate the gist of the message. Now that science has given us the chance to see how God makes things work, why would you deny the majesty of the Almighty by telling everyone to ignore His physics and biology?
LTS
What language did Adam talk to Eve in?
I'm sure you devoutly believe this. However, no scientific, factual evidence exists to support these claims.
That's why religion is called a "faith".
Science cannot study things or claims for which no evidence exists, or phenomena which cannot be measured and duplicated. Simply saying "The Bible says it", is not evidence. The Bible was written, and modified heavily, by MEN. Its infallibility is likewise a matter of faith.
I fully understand that asserting otherwise IS part of your faith, and that you also feel called upon to do so.
That still doesn't make it evidence. If you are, due to faith, unable or unwilling to acknowledge the fact that the actual evidence is contrary, and your position is wholly based on that faith alone in an honest manner, then at least do not "wave away" the evidence or facts. They exist.
What language did the first DNA molecule use to speak to the other cells? Where did it learn that language?
Science can only study evidence. Its theories go where the evidence takes them. It cannot in any way factor in a "what if" like that for which there is no evidence.
In fact, to do so would both shut down scientific research and make science just another Bible-study group.
Just think for a moment...if scientists, in their study of, say, viruses, encountered a problem for which a solution was immediately unknown, decided that "well, God must have made it that way. Game over." We'd have never developed vaccines. Likewise, in the study of the universe and the cosmos, scientists don't ask "what if God made it APPEAR that way?" because then you stop looking for answers.
Sumerian.
Excellent post.
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