Judge in Dover case reports hostile e-mails

In the days after U.S. Judge John E. Jones III issued his decision in Dover's intelligent design case, outraged people sent threatening e-mails to his office.

Jones won't discuss details of the e-mails, or where they might have come from, but he said they concerned the U.S. Marshals Service.

So, in the week before Christmas, marshals kept watch over Jones and his family.

While no single e-mail may have reached the level of a direct threat, Jones said, the overall tone was so strident, marshals "simply determined the tenor was of sufficient concern that I ought to have protection."

Jones, a judge with the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania, decided to speak publicly about the e-mails this week in light of recent reports about threats of violence against federal judges. He said statements made by "irresponsible commentators and political figures" have gotten so extreme that he fears tragedy.

Jones pointed to a Sunday New York Times article about U.S. Supreme Court justices speaking of the recent threats.

The article concerned a speech in which Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg revealed details of an Internet death threat targeting her and recently retired Justice Sandra Day O'Connor.

A February 2005 posting on an Internet chat site addressing unnamed "commandos" said: "Here is your first patriotic assignment. ... If you are what you say you are, and NOT armchair patriots, then those two justices will not live another week."

In another speech this month, the Times said in the same article, Justice O'Connor addressed comments made last year in the Terri Schiavo case by Rep. Tom DeLay and Sen. John Cornyn, both Texas Republicans.

Cornyn hinted after the judge's decision that such rulings could lead to violence.

"It builds up and builds up and builds up to the point where some people engage in violence," Cornyn said. "Certainly without any justification, but a concern that I have."

Jones is also concerned with a statement uttered recently by conservative pundit Ann Coulter regarding Justice John Paul Stevens' past votes upholding Roe v. Wade.

At a speech in Little Rock, Ark., this month, Coulter was quoted as saying, "We need somebody to put rat poison in Justice Stevens' crème brulee."

Jones said such remarks could fuel irrational acts by misguided individuals thinking they're being patriotic.

"There is an element here that is acting like it is open season on judges," Jones said.

"It saddens me that it's come to the point, where we're talking about what ought to be an honest disagreement, then you heighten it to something that is darker and much more disturbing."

Last year, Pinellas County, Fla., Circuit Judge George Greer and his family were under the protection of armed guards because of death threats over his ruling to allow Michael Schiavo to remove the feeding tube from his wife, who doctors determined was in a persistent vegetative state.

And 13 months ago in Illinois, U.S. District Judge Joan H. Lefkow's husband and her mother were killed, both shot in the head. Authorities determined that their killer was a disgruntled, unemployed electrician who was a plaintiff in a medical malpractice suit that Lefkow dismissed.

This is the first time Jones, who was appointed to the federal bench in August 2002, has availed himself of marshal protection.

But he said most federal judges who have spent enough time on the bench will need security at least once in their careers.

"It doesn't anger you," he said. "It saddens you. The reason I chose to talk about it now is that attacks on judges have really gone beyond the pale."

In a 139-page opinion [Kitzmiller et al. v Dover Area School District et al.], Jones ruled that intelligent design was not science but merely repackaged creationism, which courts had previously ruled should not be taught in science classes. Jones struck down Dover Area School Board's curriculum policy that required biology students to hear a statement that told them "intelligent design is an explanation of the origin of life that differs from Charles Darwin's view."

And he referred to the "breathtaking inanity" of the school board's decision. "The students, parents and teachers of the Dover Area School District deserved better than to be dragged into this legal maelstrom, with its resulting utter waste of monetary and personal resources."

While most judges are reticent, Jones said he's opted to use his recent exposure - Wired News named him one of 2005's top 10 sexiest geeks - to educate the public about judicial independence.

In the wake of his decision, the pro-intelligent design Discovery Institute dubbed him "an activist judge."

And conservative commentator Phyllis Schlafly chided him for going against the wishes of fundamentalist Christians.

"Judge John E. Jones III could still be chairman of the Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board if millions of evangelical Christians had not pulled the lever for George W. Bush in 2000," Schlafly wrote less than two weeks after the decision. "Yet this federal judge, who owes his position entirely to those voters and the president who appointed him, stuck the knife in the backs of those who brought him to the dance in Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District."

Jones, a Republican who received the judicial endorsement of Pennsylvania conservative Sen. Rick Santorum, said he anticipated such reaction, but "I didn't know what corner it would come from."

People who hurl such accusations don't understand the role of an independent judge, he said. A judge's responsibility is not to interpret the desires of a political base. Rather, it is to interpret the law based on existing legal precedent.

He said decisions can't be determined by political affiliations. They must be made without bias.

"Had I ignored existing precedent," he said, "that would have been the work of an activist judge."

DISCOVERY'S DISCOURSE

Discovery Institute, an organization championing intelligent design, has released a book critical of U.S. District Judge John E. Jones III's ruling in Dover's intelligent design lawsuit.

The book, "Traipsing Into Evolution: Intelligent Design and the Kitzmiller vs. Dover Decision" dissects Jones' December decision, in which he ruled intelligent design was creationism posing as science.

The book, which is 15 pages shorter than Jones' 139-page opinion, is written by Casey Luskin, a Discovery attorney, and Discovery fellows David K. DeWolf, John G. West and Jonathan Witt.

The writers argue that Jones' decision was the work of "an activist judge" and that he ignored the science behind intelligent design.

The book is priced at $14.95 and is available at bookstores throughout the country and online at Amazon.com. It also can be ordered directly by calling 800-643-4102.

A pubmed search for "sternberg" + "intelligent design" yields a grand total of zero abstracts.

He was the managing editor of the independent scientific journal called Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington, published at Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History.

And why would anyone need two Ph.Ds in similar fields? Is that supposed to be impressive? Nobody who is serious about a career in science would do that.

You are illustrating my point.

Refereed Publications
1.	Sternberg, R. v., G.E. Novick, G.-P. Gao, & R.J. Herrera (1992). Genome canalization: the coevolution of transposable and interspersed repetitive elements with single copy DNA. Genetica 86: 215-246.
2.	Sternberg, R. v. & D.C. Yoch (1993). Molecular cloning and sequencing of the ferredoxin I fdxN gene of the purple bacterium Rhodospirillum rubrum. Biochim. Biophys. Acta 1144: 435-438.
3.	Sternberg, R. v. (1994). Systematic implications of color pattern polymorphism in Goniopsis pulchra (Decapoda: Brachyura: Grapsidae) from Ecuador. Proc. Biol. Soc.Wash. 107: 721-728.
4.	Sternberg, R. v. & H. Motoh (1995). Notes on the phylogeny of the American Penaeus shrimps (Decapoda: Dendrobranchiata: Penaeidae). Crust. Res. 24: 146-156.
5.	Sternberg, R. v. (1996). The role of constrained self-organization in genome structural evolution. Acta Biotheoretica 44: 95-118.
6.	Sternberg, R. v. (1996). Carcinization as an underlying synapomorphy for the decapod crustacean taxon Meiura. Evol. Theory 11: 153-162.
7.	Sternberg, R. v. (1996). Genome self-modification and cellular control of genome reorganization. Riv. Biol./Biol. Forum 89: 445-484.
8.	Sternberg, R. v. (1997). The phylogenetic and systematic position of the Penaeus subgenus Litopenaeus (Decapoda: Dendrobranchiata: Penaeidae). Rev. Biol. Trop. 44(3)/45(1): 441-451.
9.	Sternberg, R. v. (1997). Cladistics of the freshwater crab family Trichodactylidae (Crustacea: Decapoda): appraising the reappraisal. J. Comp. Biol. 2: 49-62.
10.	Rodríguez, G. & R. v. Sternberg (1998). Revision of the freshwater crabs of the family Pseudothelphusidae (Decapoda: Brachyura) from Ecuador. Proc. Biol. Soc. Wash. 111: 110-139.
11.	Sternberg, R. v. (1998). The sister group of the freshwater crab family Trichodactylidae (Crustacea: Decapoda: Eubrachyura). J. Comp. Biol. 3: 93-101.
12.	Sternberg, R. v. & G. Klir (1998). Generative archetypes and taxa: a fuzzy set formalization. Riv. Biol./Biol. Forum 92: 403-423.
13.	Sternberg, R. v., N. Cumberlidge, & G. Rodríguez (1999). On the marine sister groups of the freshwater crabs (Crustacea: Decapoda). J. Zool. Syst. Evol. Res. 37: 19-38.
14.	Sternberg, R. v. & N. Cumberlidge (1999). A cladistic analysis of the genus Platythelphusa A. Milne-Edwards, 1887 from Lake Tanganyika, East Africa (Decapoda: Potamoidea: Platythelphusidae) with comments on the phylogenetic position of the group. J. Nat. Hist. 33: 493-511.
15.	Cumberlidge, N., R. v. Sternberg, R. Bills, & H. Martin (1999). A revision of the genus Platythelphusa A. Milne-Edwards, 1887 from Lake Tanganyika, East Africa (Decapoda: Potamoidea: Platythelphusidae). J. Nat. Hist. 33: 1487-1512.
16.	Sternberg, R. v., L.A. Galindo, & E.M. González (1999). Cladistic analysis of the Eudaniela species complex (Crustacea: Decapoda: Pseudothelphusidae). Hydrobiologia 416: 139-147.
17.	Cumberlidge, N. & R. v. Sternberg (1999). Phylogenetic relationships of the freshwater crabs of Lake Tanganyika (Decapoda, Brachyura). In: “Crustaceans and the Biodiversity Crisis”, F.R. Schram & J.C. von Vaupel Klein (eds.), Brill, Leiden, pp. 405-422.
18.	Sternberg, R. v. (2000). Genomes and form: the case for teleomorphic recursivity. In: “Closure: Emergent Organizations and their Dynamics,” J.L.R. Chandler and G. van de Vijer (eds.), Ann. NY Acad. Sci. 901: 224-236.
19.	Sternberg, R. v. & N. Cumberlidge (2000). Taxic relationships within the Grapsidae MacLeay, 1838 (Crustacea: Decapoda: Eubrachyura). J. Comp. Biol. 3(2): 115-136.
20.	Sternberg, R. v. & N. Cumberlidge (2001). On the heterotreme-thoracotreme distinction in the Eubrachyura De Saint Laurent, 1980 (Decapoda, Brachyura). Crustaceana 74(4): 321-338.
21.	Sternberg, R. v. & N. Cumberlidge (2001). Notes on the position of the true freshwater crabs in the brachyrhynchan Eubrachyura (Crustacea: Decapoda). Hydrobiologia 449(1/3): 21-39.
22.	Lemaitre, R., J. García-Gómez, R. v. Sternberg, & E. Campos (2001). A new genus and species of goneplacid crab (Crustacea, Decapoda, Brachyura, Goneplacidae) from the Caribbean. Proc. Biol. Soc. Wash. 114(4): 938-943.
23.	Cumberlidge, N. & R. v. Sternberg (2002). The freshwater crabs of Madagascar (Crustacea: Decapoda: Potamoidea). Zoosystema 24(1): 41-79.
24.	Sternberg, R. v. (2002). The roles of repetitive DNA elements in the context of a unified genomic/epigenetic system. In “From Epigenesis to Epigenetics: The Genome in Context,” L. van Speybroek, G. van de Vijver, and D. De Waele (eds.), Ann. NY Acad. Sci. 981: 154-188.
25.	Sternberg, R. v. & N. Cumberlidge (2003). Autapomorphies of the endophragmal system in trichodactylid freshwater crabs. J. of Morphology 256: 23-28.
26.	Sternberg, R. v. (2003). Review: “Development and Evolution: Complexity and Change in Biology,” by Stanley N. Salthe. International J. General Systems 32: 96-98.
27.	Cumberlidge, N. and R. v. Sternberg (2003). The freshwater crabs of Madagascar. In: The Natural History of Madagascar, eds. Steven M. Goodman and Jon Benstead, University of Chicago Press, pp. 612-617.
28.	Cavanaugh, D.P. & R. v. Sternberg (2004). Analysis of morphological groupings using ANOPA, a pattern recognition and multivariate statistical method: a case Study involving centrarchid fishes. J. Biol. Systems 12: 137-167.
29.	Salthe, S. N. & R. v. Sternberg. Complex systems and explanation. In the journal Nature’s: “Encyclopedia of the Human Genome” (in press).
30.	Sternberg, R. v. & M. Schotte (2004). A new species of the anchialine shrimp genus Procaris (Decapoda: Caridea: Procarididae) from Mexico. Proc. Biol. Soc. Wash. 117(4).
31.	Shapiro, J.A. & R. v. Sternberg (2005). Why repetitive DNA is essential for genome function. Biol. Rev. Cambridge Philos. Soc. 80: 227-250.
32.	Sternberg, R. v. & J. A. Shapiro (2005). How repeated retroelements format genome function. Cytogenet. Genome Res. 110: 108-116.
Other Published Contributions
	Cumberlidge, N. & R. v. Sternberg (1998). An expert opinion analysis of global freshwater crab biodiversity. Prepared for the Biodiversity Assessment Programme, World Conservation Monitoring Centre, Cambridge, UK.
Selected Abstracts (national and international meetings)
	Cumberlidge, N. & R. v. Sternberg. Phylogenetic relationships of the freshwater crabs of Lake Tanganyika. Fourth International Crustacean Congress, Amsterdam, 21 July 1998.
	Cumberlidge, N. & R. v. Sternberg. A contribution to the taxonomy of the freshwater crabs of Madagascar. 1999 Summer Meeting of The Crustacean Society, 27 May 1999.
	Sternberg, R. v. & N. Cumberlidge. Cladistic analysis of the freshwater crab marine sister groups. Colloquium Crustacea Decapoda Mediterranea, Lisbon, Portugal, 8 Sept. 1999.
	Cumberlidge, N., R. v. Sternberg, & W. Wranik. Phylogeny and biogeography of the freshwater crabs of the Island of Socotra, Yemen. 2000 Summer Meeting of The Crustacean Society, Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, 29 June 2000.
Cordially,

....Contrary to typical editorial practices, the paper was published without review by any associate editor; Sternberg handled the entire review process...

Returning to the original dispute (and the reason for which I first created this web site): Many distortions and inaccuracies have circulated in the press and on the web regarding the publication of the Meyer paper. The key facts are:

	I hold two PhDs in the area of evolutionary biology, one in molecular (DNA) evolution and the other in systems theory and theoretical biology. I have published more than 30 articles in peer-reviewed scientific books and publications. My current areas of research and writing are primarily in the areas of evolutionary theory and systematics.
	In the case of the Meyer paper I followed all the standard procedures for publication in the Proceedings. As managing editor it was my prerogative to choose the editor who would work directly on the paper, and as I was best qualified among the editors I chose myself, something I had done before in other appropriate cases. In order to avoid making a unilateral decision on a potentially controversial paper, however, I discussed the paper on at least three occasions with another member of the Council of the Biological Society of Washington (BSW), a scientist at the National Museum of Natural History. Each time, this colleague encouraged me to publish the paper despite possible controversy.
	The Meyer paper underwent a standard peer review process by three qualified scientists, all of whom are evolutionary and molecular biologists teaching at well-known institutions. The reviewers provided substantial criticism and feedback to Dr. Meyer, who then made significant changes to the paper in response. Subsequently, after the controversy arose, Dr. Roy McDiarmid, President of the Council of the BSW, reviewed the peer-review file and concluded that all was in order. As Dr. McDiarmid informed me in an email message on August 25th, 2004, "Finally, I got the [peer] reviews and agree that they are in support of your decision [to publish the article]."
	Following my resignation in October 2003, a new managing editor for the Proceedings was selected in May of 2004, and the transition from my editorship to the new editor has taken place over the past few months. By the time that the controversy emerged I was finishing up my last editorial responsibilities. Thus, my stepping down had nothing to do with the publication of the Meyer paper.

A full discussion of the publication issues is available here.

http://www.rsternberg.net/">http://www.rsternberg.net/

Cordially

He wasn't driven out of the Smithsonian on a rail at all.

Precisely speaking, you're right, and he diplomatically says as much himself, but I was thinking more of the "office politics".

To summarize what occurred after the Meyer paper was published:

Efforts to remove me from the Museum. After Smithsonian officials determined that there was no wrong-doing in the publication process for the Meyer paper and that they therefore had no grounds to remove me from my position directly, they tried to create an intolerable working environment so that I would be forced to resign. As the OSC investigation concluded, “[i]t is... clear that a hostile work environment was created with the ultimate goal of forcing you out of the SI.” In addition, it was made clear to me that my current position at the Smithsonian will not be renewed despite my excellent record of research and publication.

Efforts to get NIH to fire me. Pressure was put on the NIH to fire me.

Perceived political and religous beliefs investigated. Smithsonian officials attempted to investigate my personal religious and political beliefs in gross violation of my privacy and my First Amendment rights.

Smeared with false allegations. My professional reputation, private life, and ethics were repeatedly impugned and publicly smeared with false allegations by government employees working in tandem with a non-governmental political advocacy group, the National Center for Science Education (NCSE).

Pressured to reveal peer reviewers and to engage in improper peer review. I was repeatedly pressured to reveal the names of the peer-reviewers of the Meyer article, contrary to professional ethics. I was also told repeatedly that I should have found peer reviewers who would reject the article out-of-hand, in direct violation of professional ethics which require editors to find peer reviewers who are not prejudiced or hostile to a particular author or his/her ideas.

Creation of hostile work environment.

	Supervisor replaced. I was transferred from the supervision of a friendly sponsor (supervisor) at the Museum to a hostile one.
	Office space. I was twice forced to move specimens from my office space on short notice for no good reason, my name plate was removed from my office door, and eventually I was deprived of all official office space and forced to use a shared work area as my work location in the Museum.
	Unprecedented work requirements. I was subjected to an array of new reporting requirements not imposed on other Research Associates.
	Access to specimens limited. My access to the specimens needed for my research at the Museum was restricted. (My access to the Museum was also restricted. I was forced to give up my master key.)

In sum, it is clear that I was targeted for retaliation and harassment explicitly because I failed in an unstated requirement in my role as editor of a scientific journal: I was supposed to be a gatekeeper turning away unpopular, controversial, or conceptually challenging explanations of puzzling natural phenomena. Instead, I allowed a scientific article to be published critical of neo-Darwinism, and that was considered an unpardonable heresy.

Cordially,

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