Principia

<a href="http://hpronline.org/news/251835.html" target="_blank">http://hpronline.org/news/251835.html</a>

The Harvard Political Review

Questioning the Orthodoxy By Richard Halvorson

Darwinian evolution's academic monopoly is being challenged by a new scientific theory that claims to better explain the evidence. [Comment: What theory? What explanation? What evidence?] Historically, most evolution critics have been scientifically illiterate religious zealots. But a growing number of serious scientists touting Ivy League credentials, multiple Ph.D.'s, and tenured professorships are challenging Darwin's previously incontrovertible academic standing. Many of these "evolution skeptics" adhere to what is known as Intelligent Design theory.

Intelligent Design (I.D.) argues that evolution can explain much about biology, but not everything. The immense complexity of DNA and the dizzying intricacy of the simplest cell were unknown prior to the 20th century. In light of these discoveries, current I.D. research assesses the limits of complexity that can originate through natural processes alone. Advocates of Intelligent Design conclude that life's origins must have required an intervening intelligence, because natural reactions cannot produce such intricate biochemical structures.

However, this conclusion's possible theological implications have drawn severe attack from dogmatically secular academics: if scientific evidence implies the intervention of an intentional designer, the most logical designer probably would be a deity. Orthodox Darwinists are using their control over academic institutions, research facilities, political figures, state school boards, and national media to oppose research on this new theory.

Atheism Impeding Science Challenges to Darwinism have been suppressed ever since Origin of Species' was published. Louis Agassiz, a 19th-century Harvard paleontologist and founding member of the National Academy of Sciences, was shunned by academia when he alleged that Darwinism gained prominence in spite of evidence. As he wrote in 1869, "Darwinism excludes nearly all the mass of acquired information," and "the explanation supplied by Darwin and his henchmen is not congruent with the facts."

However, within a decade of Origin of Species, only a handful of scientists retained their skepticism of the new theory. Darwinism's rapid success was, in part, religiously motivated. Oxford zoologist Richard Dawkins wrote, "Darwin made it possible to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist." Similarly, Michael Ruse, editor of the journal Biology and Philosophy, told the HPR, "Scientists have certainly introduced issues of atheism."

Yet their dogmatic adherence to a materialist explanation of the universe is itself unscientific and has impeded scientific progress in the past. Stephen Hawking writes in A Brief History of Time that despite mounting evidence in the mid-20th century, scientists made "a number of attempts to avoid the conclusion that there had been a Big Bang," because that explanation "smacks of divine intervention." Afraid that the Big Bang's theological implications would unseat their atheistic dogma, scientists ignored evidence and resisted the true theory of the universe's origin for decades. Darwinist ideologues are similarly impeding current progress on Intelligent Design.

Indeed, Darwinists have organized to counter I.D. research and education efforts. Skip Evans is Network Project Director at the National Center for Science Education (NCSE), a national political effort to suppress challenges to Darwinian orthodoxy. Evans said the NCSE opposes ideas and evidence that would "water down" Darwinism in the classroom. Critiques of evolution might "cast seeds of doubt in the students' minds," Evans told the HPR. Responding to I.D. theorists' allegations of institutional bias, Evans said they are "just whining" and "being crybabies."

Censorship and Discrimination Scientists and researchers who question Darwinism tell of intense censorship and job discrimination. A doctoral student had to leave Rice
University after he presented research casting doubt on Darwinism. Dr. Jed Macosko was denied a postdoctoral research position at Caltech because everyone the lab hired had to be "convinced of evolution," Macosko told the HPR.

At Baylor University, professor and I.D. theorist William Dembski experienced what he called "academic McCarthyism" from science faculty who withdrew funding from Dembski's research facility after discovering that his research challenged Darwinism. He compares doubting the Darwinian Orthodoxy to opposing the the party line of a Stalinist regime. "What would you do if you were in Stalin's Russia and wanted to argue that Lysenko was wrong? That's the sort of situation we're in. You have to play your cards very close to the vest, and you can't really say what you're about," Dembski told the HPR.

Michael Behe, a Lehigh University biochemist and I.D. theorist, told the HPR that questioning Darwinism endangers one's career. "There's good reason to be afraid. Even if you're not fired from your job, you will easily be passed over for promotions. I would strongly advise graduate students who are skeptical of Darwinian theory not to make their views known."

Because of this discrimination, some professors have adopted pseudonyms. "Mike Gene," who hosts <a href="http://www.idthink.net," target="_blank">www.idthink.net,</a> teaches cell biology at a secular private college; he is waiting for tenure before revealing his identity and publishing a book he has written on Intelligent Design.

Illogical and Misinformed Critics Opponents of Intelligent Design paint its supporters as religious fundamentalists promoting an incorrect theory. But this criticism stems from misinformation and poor logic. First, not all evolution critics are religious. For example, geneticist Michael Denton, an agnostic, wrote Evolution: A Theory in Crisis, which persuaded many scientists to support Intelligent Design. Second, even if a claim has a religious source, it is not automatically false, though the Darwinists imply otherwise. Third, few critics actually address I.D.'s scientific arguments. Indeed, while I.D. theorists simply want to talk about science, Darwinists often bring religion into the matter, accusing them of being "fundamentalists" and "creationists."

Darwinists also accuse the I.D. community of "quote mining" and "misrepresentation" of research questioning Darwinism. For example, Harvard's Stephen Jay Gould writes of failed Darwinist embryological theories and predicts a "new and general theory of evolution" to replace the common textbook orthodoxy. Intelligent Design theorists fully acknowledge that Gould is not rejecting Darwinism, but they believe that the issues he discusses reveal deeper dilemmas that are better resolved through the I.D. paradigm. Moreover, because I.D. theorists are shut out from publishing in established journals, they have created two peer-reviewed academic journals of their own, adding to the prodigious publications on I.D. theory.

Highlighting evolution's role as the golden calf of the academy, French scientist Pierre Teilhard de Chardin once called Darwinism "a general postulate to which all theories, all hypotheses, all systems must henceforth bow." But I.D. theorists hope to dismantle Darwin's shrine in the pursuit of scientific truth, to discover the bounds of evolution's explanatory power. Behe told the HPR how I.D. research could change the future of science: "Darwinism will be in the position of Newtonian physics today. It will be seen as a good explanation for a limited set of data. The more we discover about the cell and how life works, the more intricate and complicated we see things are, and the less plausible Darwinism becomes."

[ June 16, 2002: Message edited by: Scientiae[retired] ]</p>

tgamble

Not so, everyone of em is religions.

LOL! That's doubtful. In any case, he changed his mind later as his book was full of errors and distortions.

Who suggested otherwise?

People like Dembski and Behe have been answered. Their so called science has been addressed. The arguments have been addressed and the arguments are wrong.

S2Focus

Hmmmmm.... this the same Michael Behe who is now a FULL PROFESSOR at lehigh.edu?

S2Focus

LOL indeed! At the ICR's "Passing the Torch of Creation" conference (which I attended), the ICR flacks were hawking Denton's "Evolution: A Theory in Crisis" very aggressively. They had lots of copies in stock and were really pushing them.

Interestingly enough, however, there was no mention of Denton's more recent book, "Nature's Destiny...". This book, where Denton backs off on claims he made "Evolution: A Theory in Crisis" was not available for sale.

And to make things even more interestig, check out the offerings at <a href="http://www.amazon.com." target="_blank">www.amazon.com.</a> "Evolution: A Theory in Crisis" (published in 1985) is still in print and available for immediate delivery. The more recent book "Nature's Destiny..." (published in 1998) is now listed as "out of print".

The moral of the marketplace is clear. If you want to make money writing about evolution, be sure that you screw up and get your facts completely wrong. You'll then benefit from the combined marketing muscle of a nationwide network of fundamentalist organizations, ensuring maximum sales of your book!

hezekiah jones

Like Phillip Johnson, ghostwriter of the much ballyhooed "Santorum Amendment."

One or two are even biologists.

Most of the legitimate challenges to "Darwinism," such as that of James A. Shapiro at the University of Chicago, do not make appeals to supernatural interference. This is a secret that the ID theorists carefully avoid.

A reference to Dembski. It seems to me that the only people that take Dembski seriously are those that are already committed to the cause. From what I have read, Dembski's claims don't withstand much scrutiny, and even his adherents have a difficult time understanding or explaining what it is Dembski is saying, which of course doesn't prevent them from hailing him as the "Isaac Newton of information theory."

For that matter one has to wonder whether Dembski even knows what he is saying, since his various instruments of detection themselves mysteriously evolve over the course of their numerous retellings, dropping bits, adding bits, redefining bits, "salvaging" Behe's IC, etc.

Nor has Dembski bridged his various analogies to the satisfaction of many biologists, apparently. Dembski is more accurately the "William Paley of probability theory."

Bully for them. Show your work.

Possible theological implications?

Oh - so it's not a possible theological implication after all. Careful now; you don't want to give away the store.

Bullshit. The Discovery Institute gets millions from private, conservative Christian outfits to do research. But the DI Fellows use it to play politics instead. See the Wedge Document's unfulfilled "Phase I."

Please. They've been to court more times than they've deserved, and come up empty every time. You'd think a student at a university with one of the most prestigious law schools in the world would know this.

Famous last words.

Gee, I wonder why.

That is ridiculous.

Actually he said this to A.J. Ayer at a dinner party. Anyway, so what? Good for Dawkins. It's not like his views aren't supported by evidence or anything.

Scientists dogmatically adhering to science. Will wonders never cease!

Yes he does, in the course of describing the "abandoned" Steady State theory, and after mentioning that the Catholic Church officially pronounced the Big Bang as being in accordance with the Bible in 1951.

And it wasn't the Big Bang per se that some scientists considered as "smacking of divine intervention" but the idea that time had a beginning, according to Hawking. These ID people are no more sophisticated in their quote mining than the "guitar strumming hillbillies" they deride.

Hawking talks about various attempts to avoid the conclusion that there was a Big Bang in Chapter Three. He doesn't say a damn thing about those attempts being motivated by protecting "atheistic dogma."

Nobody is stopping them from doing anything aside from introducing an establishment of religion into the science curricula, and rightly so.

I wouldn't call it "countering I.D. research." It's more like "exposing their disingenuous political and religious activities."

This is such horseshit. What has the NCSE done to "suppress" researchers like James Shapiro?

Evans is right. Just read Dembski's responses to Richard Wein. Or the Discovery Institute's reply to the NCSE when it busted Jonathan Wells and Stephen Meyer for its extensive quote mining project presented to the Ohio BoE on March 11.

Yet Shapiro, doubter of "Darwinism," retains his post at the University of Chicago. Amazing. Obviously there is more to this little anecdote than meets the eye.

The Baylor faculty senate was completely unaware to what use the name of their institution was being put. Dembski can call it what he likes. He tried to do an end run around the science faculty, and he was spanked for gloating about it.

Even Dembski's colleague Bruce Gordon agrees that the status of "intelligent design theory" is nowhere near a position to deserve the comically grandiose claims made by Dembski and his cohorts.

Yes, these "intelligent design theorists" are regularly trucked off to the Gulag and treated to a bullet in the head. Dembski's martyr complex is truly something to behold.

What a joke! I suppose that's why Dembski didn't appear at the Association of Religious Broadcasters to declare undying fealty to his Saviour, Jesus Christ, and how Darwin personally has impeded the discovery by millions of Americans of Dembski's Saviour, Jesus Christ.

Nope, you just can't say those sorts of things in Stalinist America.

Or else you might wind up like James Shapiro, a respected biologist at the University of Chicago.

Many are. Behe's book, for example, is available for sale at both drdino and answersingenesis. Those particular supporters are textbook religious fundamentalists. And obviously the Discovery Institute courts the political influence of fundamentalists. Dembski even spoke at Carl Baugh's little sideshow a few months ago.

And Denton has since repudiated much of what he wrote. Don't you dare mention that, of course.

Someone's been reading Scalia's dissent in Edwards v Aguillard, the DI's alleged roadmap to overcoming an establishment clause challenge.

No, there's only several dozen point by point rebuttals of Wells, Behe, and Dembski on the internet alone, for which we are grateful, since most scientists have better things to do than argue against William Paley.

Meanwhile this very article refers to "atheistic dogma," "orthodox Darwinists, "dogmatic secularists," and "Darwin's shrine." Sorry, but you can't suck and blow at the same time.

Many ID supporters are indeed "fundamentalists," and they are all "creationists," since they are appealing to special creation, whether it's homo sapiens, certain biochemical cascades, or the e. coli flagellum. What's the difference?

They do it all the time! The author did it to Hawking in this very article! The DI does it bigtime in its "bibliography" and Stephen Meyer's Utah Law Review article. "Quote mining" and "misrepresentation" are very well founded and thoroughly documented accusations.

So what? How are they "better resolved" by appealing to a supernatural designer? That goes for anything. And I wish these apologists would cut it out with the "paradigm" business. They'd like to elevate ID vs. evolution to Copernicus vs. Ptolemy, or, even more ridiculous, and the DI has done this, wave vs. particle.

Bullshit. Behe, for one, has published several articles, none of which have to do with "I.D. theory."

Prodigious? Behe, for example, has written one book, which he has spent the last six years "defending" from his "critics"! Wells - one book. Dembski, a couple of books, the latest of which subsumes Behe's, and attempts to "salvage" IC.

Maybe to Behe and his "research." Why is it that the people that write these apologetics can find nothing better to appeal to than Behe and Dembski? They keep referring to this growing movement among Ivy League educated scientists and so forth, yet all they can do is appeal to Behe, Dembski, and a couple other Discovery Institute Fellows. They seek to overstate the case, and end up stating no case at all. It's sad.

tgamble

Good. Maybe they'll read carefully where Behe says he has no problem with common descent or an old earth.

[ June 16, 2002: Message edited by: tgamble ]</p>

MOJO-JOJO

Here is an excellent link tying together all the various misinformation spewed by Dembski.

<a href="http://www.antievolution.org/people/dembski_wa/" target="_blank">Dembski Watch</a>

I believe this is the one that contains various e-mail dialogues this person had with Dembski. As they progressed and Dembski's arguments began to fall apart, he of course be came elusive and non-responsive.

It's funny how even a University like BAYLOR...the college of choice for good little righteous, snot-nosed Southern Baptist holy-rollers (and the alma mater of some of my in-laws ), would even see fit to pull the plug on the only "scientific" theory that supports their entire belief system.

It's almost like they're saying, "Yes we believe in the Bible and Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior......but this ID crap is not supported by good evidence and will not get research dollars from this University!". Again, the irony is that all they hold to be true is supported by even less reliable evidence.....

Actually, this link has some good Dembski rebuttal links.

<a href="http://www.fred.net/tds/anti/william.dembski/" target="_blank">Rebuttals</a>

[ June 17, 2002: Message edited by: MOJO-JOJO ]</p>

hezekiah jones

You'd think he could afford a decent cardigan, eh?

Mo-Jo, have you seen this:

<a href="http://www.asa3.org/ASA/topics/Apologetics/ResearchNews1-01Gordon.html" target="_blank">Intelligent Design Movement Struggles with Identity Crisis</a>

... by Bruce Gordon. Pretty impressive little article. This guy is a Philosopher of Physics. That's what I want to be when I grow up.

lpetrich

Bruce Gordon seems fundamentally decent; as he says, research into how to recognize design need not carry the ideological baggage that the ID movement tries to load it down with.

Daydreamer

Idiodicy with a side of self-contradiction.

Someone flunked their Philosophy of Science class...

which parodies nicely into: