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."
"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?'"
Yep. Can't have one of those Republican, conservative, religious types moving into our neighborhood! You know what THOSE people will do to the property values.
How biased, stereotypical, and insufferable these holier-than-thou types are!
And then they have the gall to label Christians "know-nothing, bigots."
Pathetic.
Boy, these people hate Christians...
You must be incredibly brilliant to judge the universe, how it works, and how it was created so succintly. I'm quite impressed.
Someday I'm afraid this cute little post of yours is going to burn in your mind.
Evolution is merely the scientific THEORY that describes the FACT that life has changed over the millenia. I.E. life "Evolved" and it is a very confirmed fact, and the "theory" merely describes the "fact".
By using the device of Evolution, life has continually operated and adapted itself for 2+ billion years.
I must put fuel in my car, but life finds it's own fuel. I must repair my car, but life repairs itself during a lifetime by immune systems, and it repairs itself over the ages via Evolution.
If I want a new car, I must purchase another one built from the ground up by an Intelligent human, and it will "die" within a generation or so. But life reproduces itself, with no direct hands on required by its original creator.
Looking at life and how it functions via Evolution, is like a vehicle that will adapt itself for changing conditions from submarine, tank, sports car, SUV, motorcycle, and airplane. Said vehicle will find it's own energy, and is virtually immortal because it will reproduce on it's own.
That's not just an Intelligent Design. That's a Brilliant Design, and it's a shame that some Christians have such a simpleton view of the world that they believe that God was incapable of creating it.
Right. Specific examples: the knee and the lower back.
What new theory? There's not a new scientific theory that challenges evolution. If there is I haven't read about it.
Indirect Darwinian paths as postulated by anti-IDers are, more often than not, open-ended. Thus we see that the lack of falsifiability and testability is not limited to IDers alone.
Questioning the faith-based religious dogma which is the theory of evolution can be hazardous to your scientific career. You must march in lock step with the scientific establishment or you will be outcast or destroyed. Disturbing...
"What part of science don't you understand?"
The part where the Zoology chairman is so concerned about science that he asks about Sternberg's RELIGIOUS PREFERENCES, and then his POLITICAL LEANINGS!!
Sounds like the makings of 'good' (sarcasm) science to me.
Disturbing, but predictable.
This is the kind of reverse logic that gets intelligent design nowhere. Proving one theory invalid, does not prove another to be true. Instead of spending all the time and effort finding flaws in evolution, IDers would be wise to present logical and rational evidence that all we se was created by a designer. Despite my readings I have yet to see any
The nature of a scientific hypothesis is that it attains a high degree of probability for being true, but never certainty.
Universal facts and truths are few and far between. A fact is only that which can be directly observed. Facts are confined to particular spatial and temporal scales. Microevolution is a fact, in that we have seen changes in the allele frequencies of organisms from one generation to the next. There is much evidence for macroevolution, but we cannot say it is fact until we can observe it directly taking place. This is much more difficult than it sounds as the concept of species is still in debate with recent genetic information. You will not convince many unless someone unearth Gods design blueprints or uncover some kind of actual evidence.
Your ignorance is showing. The "known hoaxes" number about 2. And the other factoids of evidence for Evolution number in the many thousands.
Christians bringing up 100 year old evolution hoaxes is equivalent to trashing Christians by talking about Jim Jones and the murders at Jones Town.
We can trade examples of evolution hoaxes and false prophets all day, but I don't think you want to start that fight.
Its a very strange story. Wasn't on-topic for that journal and if what I hear is true, journal's customary peer review process was not followed.
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I think the article is biased in that the whole context is not being reported. The adminsistrator was concerned that Sternberg was inserting religious doctrine (an agenda) into a scientific enterprise---sounds reasonable to me.
This is exactly why ID is not "scientific". They have nothing, except to poke holes (most are invalid) in Evolution.
This is the same technique that french author used to "prove" that the US was responsible for 9/11. By poking "holes" in the known facts of what happened that day.
Such hole poking sells books, and sways minds. The french guy is a best seller, and ID has swayed lots of minds that don't have the imagination to believe that God was smart enough to have created Evolution.
Are you an engineer who can design something that lasts as long, reproduces itself with out skilled labor (old joke), builds fantastic machines, creates art, reaches for the stars and continues to question it's own very existence??? And don't go starting arguments between engineers and scientists! :-)
Could be that MAN brought this all on himself. Matter of fact I believe the Bible, at the very least, hints of that. God gave you volition and if you want to make love to another man, don't bitch when you get AIDS. (not you personally)
And if what he says is true, I can understand why. If Coddington did this:
"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?'
then Coddington's attorney's have rightfully told him to keep his mouth shut because Coddington is in violation of the Constitution and the Civil Rights Act.
I don't know if he said those things but if he did it is a case of technofascism gone wild.
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