Posted on 04/17/2008 11:36:19 AM PDT by ZGuy
Scientific American has a long history of opposing intelligent design (ID), so it comes as no surprise that they have tasked their columnist Michael Shermer with the job of attacking Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed. Michael Shermer is the founder of Skeptic Magazine, who loves to boast about how evolution liberated him from belief in God. In fact, he does just that in his article attacking Expelled, opening it by saying: In 1974 I matriculated at Pepperdine University as a born-again Christian who rejected Darwinism and evolutionary theory, but when he finally took a course in evolutionary theory in graduate school I realized that I had been hoodwinked. In his book, Why Darwin Matters: The Case Against Intelligent Design, Shermer tries to convince the reader that he believes that evolution and religion are compatible, but ultimately concedes that, were we to take a strictly scientific approach to the God question, we would have to reject the God hypothesis.[1] Its tough to take Shermers calls for peace between religion and Darwin seriously when he has elsewhere declared his view that [t]here is no God, intelligent designer, or anything resembling the divinity as proffered by the worlds religions.[2]
Shermer is interviewed in the documentary Expelled, and he basically denies that there is any persecution of ID proponents. Since the film provides extensive documentation of the discrimination faced by ID proponents in the academy, Expelled disproves Shermers one-sided skepticism.
Shermers day job is literally being a professional skeptic. He makes a living telling people that they should be skeptical of religion. But Shermer virtually never applies his skepticism to modern Darwinian theory. This film shows that sometimes his skepticism against ID goes too far. Shermer certainly has a huge stake in the debate over this filmin fact, it seems that his entire worldview, livelihood, and de-conversion experience depend heavily upon the veracity of Darwinian evolution. It therefore comes as no surprise that in his review of Expelled, he paints evolutionists as the saints, and Darwinism as a pure and unadulterated religion.
Shermers General Approach to Handling Persecution of ID Proponents: One-Sided Skepticism, Denial, and Blaming the Victim Having seen Expelled, Shermer now knows that his denial that ID proponents get persecuted serves as a foil for the impressive documentation of such persecution presented throughout the film. His response is not to amend his answer in light of the facts presented in the movie, but rather to issue even more forceful denials that there is any persecution of ID proponents taking place. Shermers method of dealing with these persecution instances is as follows:
(1) Ignore all the facts showing there was persecution;
(2) E-mail the persecutor and ask them if there was any anti-ID discrimination;
(3) Withhold all skepticism from the statements of the persecutors, and then trumpet their response as evidence that there is no persecution against ID proponents, blaming the victim for losing their job and then claiming those who feel there is persecution are just promoting a conspiracy.
Shermers record of consistently taking the side of the persecutors shows that he is part of the problem and is in no way an objective source to analyze this subject. For example, Shermer implies that Richard Sternbergs credibility is diminished because hes a fellow of the International Society for Complexity Information, and Design or because he is a signatory of the Discovery Institute's 100 Scientists who Doubt Darwinism statement. (By the way, its over 700 scientists now, Dr. Shermer.) This shows that Shermer himself could be a potential persecutor of Darwin skeptics, for he isnt interested in giving Darwin-skeptics equal treatment.
If only Shermer would turn some of his skepticism against the perpetrators instead of waging all of his skepticism against the victims. This is typical behavior of persecutors: Deny and blame the victim, telling them they are conspiracy theorists. This unwillingness to believe the facts fits perfectly with Shermers modus operandi: unyielding and eternal skepticism unless it supports Darwinism.
In the next two installments I will provide a closer analysis of Shermers claims, one by one, with dose of a healthy skepticism that Shermer studiously leaves out of his analysis of the film.
References Cited: [1]: Michael Shermer, Why Darwin Matters: The Case Against Intelligent Design, page 122 (Times Books 2006). [2]: Michael Shermer in What We Believe but Cannot Prove: Todays Leading Thinkers on Science in the Age of Certainty, page 38 (John Bockman ed., Harper-Perennial 2006).
(1) Ignore all the facts showing there was persecution;
(2) E-mail the persecutor and ask them if there was any anti-ID discrimination;
(3) Withhold all skepticism from the statements of the persecutors, and then trumpet their response as evidence that there is no persecution against ID proponents, blaming the victim for losing their job and then claiming those who feel there is persecution are just promoting a conspiracy.
Shermer Blames-the-Victim Case #1: Richard Sternberg The conversation with Michael Shermer in the Expelled film revolves around the publication of Stephen C. Meyers pro-ID peer-reviewed scientific paper in the journal Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington. The editor who oversaw the publication of that article was Dr. Richard Sternberg, who, according to investigations by both the U.S. Office of Special Counsel and also by subcommittee staff of the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Government Reform, was subsequently was harassed, intimidated, and demoted because he broke ranks with the unwritten (or sometimes written) rule among Darwinists that you must keep ID out of science journals.
Here's the truth of the matter: Before Meyer's paper was published, the pro-Darwin lobby had long-claimed that ID was not science because it wasnt in peer-reviewed journals. But once ID was undeniably and explicitly supported in a peer-reviewed scientific journal article, Darwinists panicked, and the National Center for Science Education (NCSE) prompted the journals publishing society, the Biological Society of Washington (BSW) to attack the paper. The BSW gladly obeyed the NCSE, issuing a statement that Meyer's paper should not have been because ID allegedly is not science. If that doesnt sound like circular logic, consider the proof that the NCSE orchestrated the whole thing, according to the findings of an investigation by subcommittee staff of the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Government Reform (Report):
Early on in the controversy, the NCSE circulated a set of talking points to the BSW Council and NMNH officials on how to discredit both Sternberg and the Meyer article. The OSC investigation found that the NCSE recommendations were circulated within the SI and eventually became part of the official public response of the SI to the Meyer article. (Report, pg. 22)
To attack Meyer's article, Shermer cites the NCSE-inspired statement from the BSW stating that, "Contrary to typical editorial practices, the paper was published without review by any associate editor; Sternberg handled the entire review process. The council, which includes officers, elected councilors and past presidents, and the associate editors would have deemed the paper inappropriate for the pages of the Proceedings." Shermer should have applied some of his famous skepticism here, because that statement is in fact a falsehood: Eugenie Scott herself admitted that other editors have not always referred all articles to the Associate Editors, and because editors justifiably have discretion, that therefore the BSW should not come down too hard on Dr. Sternberg for errors in the procedure followed in accepting this article. (See Report, pages 25-26.) Shermer conveniently spares the BSW from skepticism over Eugenie Scotts behind-closed-doors concession, which contradicts the BSW's public statement.
Moreover, Shermer and the BSW ignore that in less-politicized statements, Dr. Roy McDiarmid, the President of the BSW and a scientist at the Smithsonian, admitted that there was no wrongdoing regarding the peer-review process of Meyers paper:
I have seen the review file and comments from 3 reviewers on the Meyer paper. All three with some differences among the comments recommended or suggested publication. I was surprised but concluded that there was not inappropriate behavior vs a vis [sic] the review process. (See Report, e-mail from Roy McDiarmid, Re: Request for information, January 28, 2005, 2:25 PM to Hans Sues, emphasis added.)
So the truth is that Meyers paper WAS peer-reviewed, and that Darwinists have invented the claim that it was not peer-reviewed or that there was wrongdoing regarding the publication of the article. Shermer, the famous skeptic, seems unwilling to apply his skepticism to anything the Darwinists say about this situation, blindly accepting the denials from Darwinists that any discrimination against ID took place, instead blaming the victim.
Shermer should just drop his attempts to defend the Smithsonian, but he doesnt, calling the attacks upon Sternberg part of Ben Steins case for conspiracy. So lets review the findings of a congressional staff investigation to see if there really was any discrimination against Dr. Sternberg (who holds two Ph.D.s in evolution), or if Shermer is right and this is all just a conspiracy inside the heads of Dr. Richard Sternberg, Ben Stein, the U.S. Office of Special Counsel, and a bunch of people working at Congress. The Congressional Staff Report found the following:
Congressional Staff Report: Officials at the Smithsonians National Museum of Natural History created a hostile work environment intended to force Dr. Sternberg to resign his position as a Research Associate in violation of his free speech and civil rights. As NMNH officials wrote in e-mails: I suppose we could call [Sternberg] on the phone and verbally ask him to do the right thing and resign? (Dr. Jonathan Coddington)
a face to face meeting or at least a you are welcome to leave or resign call with this individual, is in order. (Dr. Rafael Lemaitre)
if [Sternberg] had any class he would either entirely desist or resign his appointment. (Dr. Jonathan Coddington)
Congressional Staff Report: In emails exchanged during August and September 2004, NMNH officials revealed their intent to use their government jobs to discriminate against scientists based on their outside activities regarding evolution. As NMNH officials wrote in e-mails: Sternberg is a well-established figure in anti-evolution circles, and a simple Google search would have exposed these connections. (Dr. Hans Sues)
In a memo prepared on February 8, 2005, NMNH scientist Marilyn Schotte admitted that after publication of the Meyer paper, Dr. Coddington wanted to know if Dr. Sternberg was religious. Dr. Schotte further admitted telling Coddington that Sternberg was a Republican. Schotte even conceded that Coddington may have asked her whether Sternberg was a fundamentalist and whether he was a conservative. (Description of a memo in discussed in the Report)
Congressional Staff Report: NMNH officials conspired with a special interest group on government time and using government emails to publicly smear Dr. Sternberg; the group was also enlisted to monitor Sternbergs outside activities in order to find a way to dismiss him. As one NMNH official wrote in an e-mail: From now on, I will keep an eye on Dr. (von) Sternberg, and Id greatly appreciate it if you or other NCSE specialists could let me [know] about further activities by this gentleman in areas poutside [sic] crustacean systematics. (Dr. Hans Sues)
(For more details, see National Center for Science Education Asked to Spy for the Government According to Congressional Report.)
Michael Shermer apparently has unlimited skepticism when it comes to the claims of Darwin-skeptics--he's unwilling to believe any of their statements that they have experienced persecution. But Dr. Sternberg summarized the discrimination taken against him as follows: I was transferred from the supervision of a friendly sponsor (supervisor) at the Museum to a hostile one 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. I was subjected to an array of new reporting requirements not imposed on other Research Associates 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.) Rather than admit that any of this evidence exists, Shermer happily applies infinite skepticism to the persecuted, and withholds all skepticism from the statements of the persecutors: Shermer even e-mailed Jonathan Coddington, the chief persecutor of Richard Sternberg, asking him about the situation. It comes as no surprise that Coddington personally wrote back to Shermer claiming there was nothing to see here. In Coddington's words: Sternberg was not discriminated against, was never dismissed, and in fact was not even a paid employee, but just an unpaid research associate who had completed his three-year term! This is consistent with Coddingtons prior behavior, as the congressional staff investigation's report concluded, Given the factual record, the Smithsonians pro-forma denials of discrimination are unbelievable. So are Shermers denials.
And how did Eugenie Scott handle this situation? Unlike Coddington, Scott didn't deny that Sternberg was ousted when she spoke to the Washington Post, but rather she admitted that there was an ousting of Sternberg, and tried to justify it:
[S]aid Eugenie Scott, the group's executive director[:] "If this was a corporation, and an employee did something that really embarrassed the administration, really blew it, how long do you think that person would be employed?" ... Scott, of the NCSE, insisted that Smithsonian scientists had no choice but to explore Sternberg's religious beliefs. "They don't care if you are religious, but they do care a lot if you are a creationist," Scott said. "Sternberg denies it, but if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it argues for zealotry."
(Michael Powell, "Editor Explains Reasons for 'Intelligent Design' Article," Washington Post, August 19, 2005, emphases added)
So there you have it: Everything that Jonathan Coddington denies, Eugenie Scott essentially admits--and justifies--because she thinks it's permissible to persecute and investigate someone if they sympathize with the "creationists." If Michael Shermer should be skeptical of anything, it is the contradictory claims of the Smithsonian and leading Darwinists like Eugenie Scott which expose the attempts to cover-up the unfair treatment of Dr. Sternberg.
Thus, we see Shermer's method of dismissing the discrimination of Darwin-skeptics is as follows:
(1) Ignore all the facts showing there was persecution;
(2) E-mail the persecutor and ask them if there was any anti-ID discrimination;
(3) Withhold all skepticism from the statements of the persecutors, and then trumpet their response as evidence that there is no persecution against ID proponents, blaming the victim for losing their job and then claiming those who feel there is persecution are just promoting a conspiracy.
Exploding Shermers Cambrian Argument While attacking Stephen Meyers article in Proceedings for the Biological Society of Washington, Shermer briefly discusses the Cambrian Explosion, a major topic in Meyer's paper. Shermer states that the explosion is just an illusion because according to paleontologist Donald Prothero, in his 2007 magisterial book Evolution: What the Fossils Say and Why it Matters (Columbia University Press): The major groups of invertebrate fossils do not all appear suddenly at the base of the Cambrian but are spaced out over strata spanning 80 million yearshardly an instantaneous 'explosion'! Some groups appear tens of millions of years earlier than others. And preceding the Cambrian explosion was a long slow buildup to the first appearance of typical Cambrian shelled invertebrates." Is that correct? Protheros book is hard to take seriously because, as we shall see, it reads more like a polemic than a serious academic treatment. Consider these statements from Prothero's book:
[T]he creationist political pressure, propaganda, and lies are not restricted to public schools. In many smaller colleges the professors are just as intimidated by creationist bullies who are eager to disrupt class. (Prothero, pg. 354; Note that Prothero provides zero documentation here of this anecdotal evidence.)
If the fundamentalists continue to expand their political power, are we in for another Inquisition, with the religious fanatics suppressing and destroying books and evidence, and harassing anyone who doesnt agree with them? (Prothero, pg. 355)
Many scientists and authors have written how uplifting and liberating the scientific worldview can be for humankind, especially in comparison to the vengeful God of the Old Testament. (Prothero, pg. 358)
Protheros book is one with an agenda that clearly falls short of a calm, collected, objective scientific analysis. Incidentally, directly following the last quote from Prothero, he goes on to praise none other than Michael Shermerthe unreligious skepticfor purportedly showing how religious people can accept evolution. You know, the same Shermer who wrote that, [t]here is no God, intelligent designer, or anything resembling the divinity as proffered by the worlds religions.
Regardless, if we want to understand the Cambrian explosion, we have to turn to serious scientific treatments, not Protheros polemic. So what do textbooks say? A 2001 invertebrate zoology textbook (that is a serious science textbook) states:
Most of the animal phyla that are represented in the fossil record first appear, fully formed, in the Cambrian some 550 million years ago...The fossil record is therefore of no help with respect to the origin and early diversification of the various animal phyla.
(R.S.K. Barnes, P. Calow & P.J.W. Olive, The Invertebrates: A New Synthesis, pages 910 (3rd ed., Blackwell Sci. Publications, 2001).)
In fact, Richard Dawkins conceded in 1986 regarding the Cambrian fauna that, It is as though they were just planted there, without any evolutionary history. (The Blind Watchmaker, 1986, pg. 229-230.) In another very serious treatment of the subject, John Maynard Smith and Eörs Szathmáry, leaders in evolutionary biology, wrote in 1995 that the Cambrian explosion remains a puzzle for Darwinian theorists despite the discovery of a some Pre-Cambrian fossils: Some 540 million years ago, at the beginning of the Cambrian, there appeared an array of multicellular marine animals, including the major phyla that exist todaycoelenterates, platyhelminths, annelids, arthropods, molluscs, echinoderms and others. Chordates are also present in the Cambrian: they are not known from the earliest deposits, in which only hard parts are preserved, but are present in the slightly later Burgess Shale, in which soft-bodied forms are preserved. Forty years ago, this sudden appearance of metazoan fossils was not only a puzzle but something of an embarrassment: the absence of any known fossils from earlier rocks was a weapon widely used by creationists. Today, the fossil evidence for prokaryotes goes back 3000 million years, and for protists some 1000 million years. The Cambrian explosion remains a puzzle, however, which has been only fitfully illuminated by the discovery of the enigmatic soft-bodied Ediacaran fauna, which had a worldwide distribution between 580 and 560 million years ago. There are still doubts about how these fossils should be interpreted (Simon Conway Morris, 1993).
(John Maynard Smith and Eörs Szathmáry, The Major Transitions in Evolution, page 203 (Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1995).)
It seems that Prothero has glossed over the real problems with evolutionary explanations of the Cambrian fauna in a book that hardly looks like a serious treatment of this subject. In the end, Shermer needs to apply some of his famous skepticism to his own sources. Moreover, Meyers peer-reviewer-approved argument still carries great weight. As Meyer explains, the explosion of new biological information in the Cambrian period is best explained by an intelligent cause: Analysis of the problem of the origin of biological information, therefore, exposes a deficiency in the causal powers of natural selection that corresponds precisely to powers that agents are uniquely known to possess. Intelligent agents have foresight. Such agents can select functional goals before they exist. They can devise or select material means to accomplish those ends from among an array of possibilities and then actualize those goals in accord with a preconceived design plan or set of functional requirements. Rational agents can constrain combinatorial space with distant outcomes in mind. The causal powers that natural selection lacks--almost by definition--are associated with the attributes of consciousness and rationality--with purposive intelligence. Thus, by invoking design to explain the origin of new biological information, contemporary design theorists are not positing an arbitrary explanatory element unmotivated by a consideration of the evidence. Instead, they are positing an entity possessing precisely the attributes and causal powers that the phenomenon in question requires as a condition of its production and explanation.
(Stephen C. Meyer, "The Origin of Biological Information and the Higher Taxonomic Categories, Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington, 117(2):213-239 (2004).)
In the final installment, I will assess Shermers lack of skepticism concerning the claims of Eugenie Scott regarding the discrimination against pro-ID astronomer Guillermo Gonzalez.
I wasn't going to post this, but since the Scientific American article has been referenced several times now, it seemed fair to post this too.
If ever you see Michael Shermer on a TV show, you can easily spot what an A-hole he is. The only thing he believes in is his Godless self.
Shermer is basically a propagandist and a liar.
ME; AS ARE MOST EVIL-UTIONISTS....
Shermer is basically a propagandist and a liar.
The term Intelligent Design was coined by the Discovery Institute, a non-profit company that was incorporated specifically to get the story of Genesis taught in public schools (as specifically stated in the incorporation documents). To that end a Creationist textbook was published called Of Pandas and People.
In 1987, The Supreme Court of the United States ruled that teaching creationism in public schools violated the separation of church and state in Edwards vs. Aquilard.
In a similar later case, Kitzmiller vs. The Dover Area School District involving the schools acquisition of Of Pandas and People, it was proven in court that the publishers and the people who financed the purchase lied in depositions when they stated that Intelligent Design wasnt just another term for Creationism. They did this by showing that dozens of passages in the pre-1987 Edwards vs. Aquilard copies used Creation, while later versions substituted Intelligent Design in its place.
The entire Intelligent Design movement is a dishonest, legalistic Trojan horse specifically intended to teach creationism in public school even though it is against the law.
The IDers are liars, lawbreakers, and hypocrites.
Complete transcripts of Kitzmiller vs. Dover can be found here:
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/dover/kitzmiller_v_dover.html
!reference mark...
It’s funny that the homos at SA defend evolution.
INTREP
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