Posted on 10/01/2005 6:31:08 AM PDT by truthfinder9
Today CSC Director Dr. Stephen Meyer debated Dr. Eugenie Scott of the NCSE on MSNBC. Dr. Scott claimed that there have been no peer-reviewed science articles which support intelligent design. This claim has also been made by plaintiffs' expert witnesses at the Dover trial. MSNBC host Dan Abrams had also been misled into believing this false claim.
Meyer, who authored a peer-reviewed science article supporting intelligent design, made a clear rebuttal. Yet Scott persisted in saying that his article did not support intelligent design. Meyer should know he wrote the article. Judge for yourself.
Here is what Meyer's article actually says:
"An experience-based analysis of the causal powers of various explanatory hypotheses suggests purposive or intelligent design as a causally adequate--and perhaps the most causally adequate--explanation for the origin of the complex specified information required to build the Cambrian animals and the novel forms they represent. For this reason, recent scientific interest in the design hypothesis is unlikely to abate as biologists continue to wrestle with the problem of the origination of biological form and the higher taxa."
Stephen C. Meyer, "The origin of biological information and the higher taxonomic categories" in Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington, 117(2):213-239, 2004 (emphasis added) Click this link for a PDF version of Meyer's article with text directly discussing and trying to support design theory highlighted in red. This is primarily at the end of the article where Meyer lays out the case for intelligent design as a better explanation than Darwinian evolution.
1) I don't have to listen to you: your remarks have not been published after a suitable peer-review.
2) Your remarks were published, but not in a suitable journal.
3) The journal may have been suitable, but your article does not really defend Intelligent Design.
4) Your article may have defended Intelligent Design, but it's wrong.
5) I don't have to listen to you: you believe in a Flying Man with a magic wand.
Tpical shove fingers in ears, run in place,shout LA LA LA Allah UAkbar!
I labored through that paper which was at least well-written. It is a review article and has the guts to expose the writers bias which is a good thing.
So although I am unfamiliar with this journal I can accept that this review article may have passed peer review.
Science, Nature, New England Journal of Medicine, etc., or other first-tier journals would be more demanding of a review article but thats beside the point.
What is note-worthy is the slide into teleology that this paper descends. When "scientists" adopt an outlook that emerging biological systems seems to be converging on similar structural patterns and that this is an indication of "purpose", they have jettisoned all readers who are hoping for maintenance of objectivity.
When otherwise bright folks throw up their arms and declare "its too complex for me to understand therefore it must be due to a magician inthe sky" others more grounded in reason have to shrug and say buh bye.
Nice job!
B-Hold, my PhD, cigars and horses! NOW PICK UP THE PHONE and call me if I taught you something!
...sorry, scary flashback, wrong Dr. Eugene Scott
The editor who sent the Meyer article out for peer review and decided to publish it, Rick Sternberg, is a courageous person who respects the truth. He says that evolution does not explain all of the existing facts, but is not a proponent of intelligent design because he considers it an idea rather than a fully developed theory.
For his temerity he has been blacklisted and will likely lose his job at NIH once his current contract expires. Despite two PhDs he will also likely be blacklisted at all secular universities as well. He had no idea how vicious the response would be to any paper that calls evolution into question and is paying a huge price for doing the right thing. See his website at http://www.rsternberg.net/
Read his story. Think about global warming, the nonsense that has been coming out of government drug research studies and public health organs. Do you feel queasy about government science funding yet?
Exactly. Folks like Bill and Hillary Clinton make very sure to bring ideologically correct people into the NIH and other government agencies, whereas it seems as if these problems fly below George Bush's radar.
If the head of the NIH made it very clear that he would not tolerate this kind of ideological harrassment, it would be greatly reduced if not eliminated. But conservatives operate under the mistaken illusion that professionals should be let alone to do their professional thing, whereas liberals operate under the assumption that professionals should be forced to follow their political agenda.
Bush's single worst fault, in my view, has been his failure to shovel the clintonoids and their ilk out of the federal agencies. They still control most of the levers of power and continue to undermine the Bush agenda.
Rick Sternberg is a baraminologist -- a form of creationist. He apparently handed off the article to fellow creationists for review (although we won't ever know who). So while Meyer's article was published in an obscure, off-topic periodical, it was also quickly retracted. Better luck next time.
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