Posted on 02/11/2005 12:34:49 PM PST by Zender500
A Smithsonian-backed editor is defrocked by the priesthood of science for publishing an article on Intelligent Design
Science is typically praised as open-ended and free, pursuing the evidence wherever it leads. Scientific conclusions are falsifiable, open to further inquiry, and revised as new data emerge. Science is free of dogma, intolerance, censorship, and persecution.
By these standards, Darwinists have become the dogmatists. Scientists at the Smithsonian Institute, supported by American taxpayers, are punishing one of their own simply for publishing an article about Intelligent Design.
Stephen Meyer, who holds a Ph.D. from Cambridge and is a research fellow at the Discovery Institute, wrote an article titled "The Origin of Biological Information and the Higher Taxonomic Categories." As Mr. Meyer explained it to WORLD, his article deals with the so-called Cambrian explosion, that point in the fossil record in which dozens of distinct animal body forms suddenly spring into existence. Darwinists themselves, he showed through a survey of the literature, admit that they cannot explain this sudden diversity of form in so little time.
Mr. Meyer argued that the need for new proteins, new genetic codes, new cell structures, new organs, and new species requires specific "biological information." And "information invariably arises from conscious rational activity." That flies in the face of the Darwinist assumption that biological origins are random.
Mr. Meyer submitted his paper to the Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington, a scientific journal affiliated with the Smithsonian Institute's National Museum of Natural History. The editor, Rick Sternberg, a researcher at the museum with two Ph.D.s in biology, forwarded the article to a panel of three peer reviewers. In scientific and other academic scholarship, submitting research to the judgment of other experts in the field ensures that published articles have genuine merit. Each of the reviewers recommended that, with revisions, the article should be published. Mr. Meyer made the revisions and the article was published last August.
Whereupon major academic publications—Science, Nature, Chronicles of Higher Education—expressed outrage. The anger was focused not on the substance of the article, but on the mere fact that a peer-reviewed scientific journal would print such an article.
So the wrath of the Darwinists fell on Mr. Sternberg, the editor. Although he had stepped down from the editorship, his supervisors at the Smithsonian took away his office, made him turn in his keys, and cut him off from access to the collections he needs for his research. He is also being subjected to the sectarian religious discipline of "shunning." His colleagues are refusing to talk to him or even greet him in the hallways.
His supervisors also staged an inquisition about Mr. Sternberg's religious and even political beliefs. Mr. Sternberg, who describes himself as a Catholic with lots of questions, has filed a case alleging discrimination not just on the grounds of religion but "perceived" religion.
Critics of Mr. Sternberg say that the article should not have been published because the American Association for the Advancement of Science has proclaimed that Intelligent Design is "unscientific by definition." As Mr. Meyer points out: "Rather than critique the paper on its scientific merits, they appeal to a doctrinal statement."
Historically, said Mr. Meyer, science has sought "the best explanation, period, wherever the evidence leads." But now the scientific establishment is requiring something else: "the best materialistic explanation for phenomenon." That rules out non-materialistic explanations from the onset, demanding adherence to the worldview that presumes the material realm is all that exists.
David Klinghoffer broke the story of Mr. Sternberg's mistreatment in The Wall Street Journal. The attempts to discredit him, Mr. Meyer said, have resulted in hundreds of scientists from around the world requesting and downloading the paper (available from www.discovery.org/csc/).
Mr. Meyer said that many scientists secretly agree with elements of Intelligent Design but are afraid to go public. Critics tried to force Mr. Sternberg to reveal the names of the peer reviewers—which are supposed to remain anonymous—but he refused. Darwinists shifted the discussions to evolution as a worldview, while avoiding its admitted failures to account for what Darwin purported to explain, namely, the origin of species.
The virulence of the attempts to suppress Intelligent Design demonstrates the Darwinists' insecurity. "You don't resort to authoritarianism," observed Mr. Meyer, "if you can answer it." —•
More hypocritical wailing from the creationists. This time they even got the facts wrong.
...in other news, Ward Churchill, the controversial Colorado University professor who proclaims 9-11 WTC victims to be culpable in their own deaths, continues to draw a paycheck from the university and retain his tenure as a Professor of Ethnic Studies.
And "information invariably arises from conscious rational activity."
Meyer has fallen and he can't get up.
You disagree? So give an example.
Science is a limited discipline that studies how the world works when there is no supernatural intervention.
Theology is the discipline that studies how the world works when there is supernatural intervention.
Therefore, Inteligent Design, even if absolutely 100% true and provable does not belong in a magazine of Science, any more than it belongs in a magazine on needlepoint.
So9
Nucleosynthesis in stars. The amount of information required to specify the state of, say, an atom of carbon 12 is larger than the amount of information required to specify the state of an atom of hydrogen or an atom of helium. Would Meyer claim that stars are consciously and rationally converting hydrogen and helium into heavier elements?
You disagree? So give an example.
Read any of the hundreds of articles on self organizing complexity demonstrated in Conway's game of "Life" for a start.
The idea that complexity self organizing itself was a violation of the Second Law of Thermodynamics is debunked in Enrico Fermi's "Thermodynamics" written before WWII.
Conway's 'Life' demonstrates this in action using any home computer.
So9
Presumably this means that bioengineers will have to start their own magazines and peer reviewed network or is ID time based? IOW, ID prior to the 20th Century is verboten but it is OK after that time?
But the major component of this story is not ID, evolution, lifes origins or complexity, it is technofascism gone wild if this guys boss actually interrogated him as to his religious beliefs and political affiliation.
Presumably this means that bioengineers will have to start their own magazines and peer reviewed network or is ID time based? IOW, ID prior to the 20th Century is verboten but it is OK after that time?
The rest of us are talking about ID as supernatural intervention in the world, not man's natural processes.
So9
Right, which means your a priori assumption that all ID requires a supernatural being simply wrong. And the evidence for that is all around you.
By the way is the creation of chimeras at will a "natural process".
You're right. His boss shouldn't have wasted time trying to determine if the man had made an error or was temporarily insane, or had decided to corrupt the discipline of science for religious or political reasons and just fired him out of hand.
To hell with attempted compassion.
SO9
To hell with fascists working for the government interrogating their underlings about their religious and political affiliations.
No one rejects the idea of ID by man. All technology is ID by man. It's a phoney issue. That is not what this is about.
That leaves ID by aliens or supernatural entities.
Without evidence of even the existance of alien life, that is not a viable hypothesis, but looking for evidence of alien life is.
And that leaves ID by supernatural entities, which is Theology, not science.
So9
In scientific and other academic scholarship, submitting research to the judgment of other experts in the field ensures that published articles have genuine merit.
Peer review is not perfect and does not guarantee 'genuine merit'. If an editor sends a proposed article out for peer review to people known to favor a certain viewpoint, then peer review may not be objective.
Calling for a new theory is valid science. The current on is certainly not complete, but once supernatural intervention is postulated, all theory is replaced by that one statement. Did trilobites become extinct? Why? God did it. End of story. Are fossil deposits different in this formation than in another? Why? God did it. End of story.
The 'theory' that God Did It trumps every other theory at every other level. Once yo accept it at any point you have no logical reason to reject it at any other. Go directly to the 5th Century, do not pass go, do not collect a mind you will no longer need.
SO9
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.