Posted on 02/15/2007 6:28:31 PM PST by dbehsman
In late December 2006, the U.S. House Committee on Government Reform issued an unflattering report on the state of affairs at one of the nation's more cherished institutions.
One day students might study this report – damningly titled "Intolerance and the Politicization of Science at the Smithsonian" – as a turning point in the history of science. For the time being, however, the report and the scandal at the heart of it attract very close to no attention in the media, let alone in the nation's schools.
Says Dr. Richard Sternberg, the Galileo of the Smithsonian scandal, "The press has not wanted to touch [the report]. Things like this aren't supposed to happen."
What did happen to Dr. Sternberg is shocking even by Washington standards. The damage done to his career is real, irreversible and symptomatic of the lengths the science establishment will go to suppress challenges to the most vulnerable of its paradigms, namely Darwinism and its derivatives.
(Excerpt) Read more at worldnetdaily.com ...
Although not himself an intelligent design (ID) theorist or an advocate of the same, Sternberg thought the subject worthy of discussion. He identified three fellow scientists who shared his open-mindedness, though none of them was an ID advocate, either. These scientists offered some useful revisions. Meyer incorporated them, and the paper was published in August 2004.
Given what has happened since, these scientists have chosen to remain anonymous to preserve their careers. After considerable review of the files, however, no one questions the legitimacy of the process.
In publishing Meyer's paper, Sternberg had merely hoped to provoke a good discussion. He was "absolutely not expecting" the hell that rained down upon him with the paper's publication.
Today, almost inevitably, the road to such hell is paved with e-mail. But even by the standards of the contemporary academy, the e-mail campaign to punish Sternberg was an impressively swift and catty one.
One zoologist colleague, for instance, asked their common department head, Dr. Jonathan Coddington, why the heretical Sternberg should be allowed to keep an office, especially one with "a name on it." Prejudiced to the point of paranoia, the zoologist demanded that his own office "be re-keyed."
Coddington handled the affair with all the courage and conviction of a Pontius Pilate. "At present I am not tossing him out," he told his colleagues. "Do you want anything done?"
Appalling. Disgraceful. These aren't scientists. These are irrational shrieking hyenas demonstrating a close-mindedness that rivals the close-mindedness of the most devout Wahabbist.
Bump
Amen!
It looks like IRAN may inDEED have a bunch of nukes!!!
NIV Revelation 9:14-15
14. It said to the sixth angel who had the trumpet, "Release the four angels who are bound at the great river Euphrates."
15. And the four angels who had been kept ready for this very hour and day and month and year were released to kill a third of mankind.
(That sure is a cute pooch on your homepage!)
Ah, the Hollywood biology rebuttal. Unpersuasive. First, Dr. Sterberg was the publisher/editor...Steyn wrote the paper, sourced it with scores of peer-reviewed papers, and had it peer-reviewed and published.
The Pappas Theorem itself falls to Nobel Prize Winner Ilya Prigone's Order Out of Chaos dissertation...which shows that you gain increased order in a chaotic system only when you *remove* usable energy or inject intelligence to/from a system.
Your example would fail, for instance, if random lines were drawn that went to the same point too frequently in one iteration. Mathematically, the possibility exists that only a single line would be drawn at all (i.e. to the same two points over and over).
"Also, who is in charge of hiring all those simple scumbags at the stinking Smithsonian?"
Our museums are filled with people who couldn't make the grade as professors and researchers. One of my friends is in charge of a department full of them and he refers to them as his "broken toys".
Still pushing this lie. How about some facts:
Sternberg is a Fellow of the International Society for Complexity, Information, and Design, a Discovery Institute affiliated group dedicated to promoting intelligent design.
Sternberg is also a signatory of the Discovery Institute's A Scientific Dissent From Darwinism statement which says "We are skeptical of claims for the ability of random mutation and natural selection to account for the complexity of life. Careful examination of the evidence for Darwinian theory should be encouraged."
He's certainly free to hold these views if he chooses. But then why lie about it?
One, I believe, as many do, that a supreme being created the universe 13.7B+/- years ago. The crucifiction of Jesus, a cosmic PETA missionary, was an echo of HIS crucifiction by the 24 elders PRIOR to the BB. Where I draw the line is in the idea that GOD/ALLAH is involved with every little thing that happens everywhere all the time, ie, a cosmic busybody.
Yes, HE COULD have done the adam and eve number at the cambrian explosion/window as Steyn suggests, but where did seth and cain's WIVES come from? As to Pappas, it is well within probability that organisms found the right software, using excess energy, to use it to self-order. Again, life finds a way to survive anything nature throws at it.
And too, you don't address black smokers on sea floors, underground biota, as being relavent to the discussion; especially when the atmosphere was reducing-chemistry before the cambrian oxidizing-chemistry switch was thrown.
Basically though, we see the 6,000 year figure that some cling to...was just a half***ed SCIENTIFIC study by an irish bishop named Ussher...and essentially a cop-out by those too lazy to look at ALL the evidence. Steyn takes the same route. He can't figure out how life got so complex so quickly.
He's welcome to his viewpoint, as we all are. It is WRONG to slander him in any way, that's injurious to the scientific method. It is equally WRONG of him to imply that I'm right and everyone else is wrong(little johnnie has all the anwers).
And so the debate goes on. The movie is Jurrasic Park : Life always finds a way...
David Berlinski, a secular Jew, also signed the Dissent From Darwinism Statement. I mention this only because I’m curious what ‘you think’ makes one an id theorist.
No. Absolutely not. Probability is one area of contention where we can actually calculate the correct answer.
Can you link me to any peer reviewed article supporting this statement?
"In raw numbers, but most probably not percentage wise."
Not even counting those killed in wars, the twentieth century was the bloodiest century in history, both in raw numbers and percentage wise, even if only those killed by governments are counted.
I'm sure that was rhetorical ;-)
LOL!
Kind of.
Sternberg told the Smithsonian he was not an intelligent design theorist or an advocate of the same, yet he was.
That's the source of the backlash against him. Not only did he lie on his resume, he used his connections to push his agenda.
And he's still lying about what he did to get sympathy.
I suppose that all seems very normal to the usual creationist suspects.
Does worldnetdaily ever publish anything that's actually true?
This sure as hell wasn't.
You should have begun your post with that so I would know when to stop reading.
Lets try this again... David Berlinski, a secular Jew, also signed the Dissent From Darwinism Statement. I mention this only because I’m curious what ‘you think’ makes one an id theorist.
Sternberg is a Fellow of the International Society for Complexity, Information, and Design, a Discovery Institute affiliated group dedicated to promoting intelligent design.
This makes him an ID theorist.
David Berlinski is a Fellow of the Discovery Institute's Center for the Renewal of Science and Culture, which according to it's own website, "supports research by scientists and other scholars developing the scientific theory known as intelligent design".
He is also an ID theorist.
But you already knew that, didn't you.
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