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NPR story:"Intelligent Design and Academic Freedom"

Mercutio

Penultimate Amazing
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NPR just ran a story on "Intelligent Design and Academic Freedom". Mostly centered around Sternberg publication of an intelligent design article...http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5007508
Sternberg was the editor of an obscure scientific journal loosely affiliated with the Smithsonian Institution, where he is also a research associate. Last year, he published in the journal a peer-reviewed article by Stephen Meyer, a proponent of intelligent design, an idea which Sternberg himself believes is fatally flawed.

"Why publish it?" Sternberg says. "Because evolutionary biologists are thinking about this. So I thought that by putting this on the table, there could be some reasoned discourse. That's what I thought, and I was dead wrong."

At first he heard rumblings of discontent but thought it would blow over. Sternberg says his colleagues and supervisors at the Smithsonian were furious. He says -- and an independent report backs him up -- that colleagues accused him of fraud, saying they did not believe the Meyer article was really peer reviewed. It was.
 
I would like to see their evidence accusing the Smithsonian of essentially blackballing him.

If they did indeed do that, it's very disturbing. If they were venting frustration and not actually taking action, then he should get over it.

That being said, he should have known better than to publish that crap.
 
I've been trying to put this in terms of an appropriate analogy, but am falling short. (it's been a long day.)

So, what job do you know of that you could go into work, say that the foundation that your company is based on is total horse manure, and expect to not catch some flack for it?

"Hey, boss. I like working here at Subway, but maybe McDonald's is right. Maybe their hambergers are good for you. We should at least let our customers know there is some question about it."
 
From my readings at "The Panda's Thumb", it seems that

-no one actually lifted a finger towards Sternberg; people talked about enforcing current rules that applied to everyone.

-the paper was inapproapriate for the journal and he bypassed typical procedure by not running it by the Assistant Editor,

-he was not an employee of SI, thus the OSC did not have jurisdiction to investigate

-James McVay has no experience with employment law, and his letter not only does not contain much gotten by 'investigation' (since the SI refused to talk to him about a non-employee), but mostly seems just a summery of Sternberg's complaints and paranoia, along with the friendly McVay's own spin.

-Sternberg claims that others said the paper was not peer-reviewed, when it actually seems that others claim that it wasn't properly peer-reviewed. A paper such as this, appearing in a taxonomy journal that normally wouldn't publish such a paper outside it's pervue, would demand special peer-review by many experts in many differant fields relating to the evolution, including genetics, biology, chemistry, paleontology, etc. Who did he get to review it? 3 taxonomists? We don't know, nor do we know what insertions or deletions that they suggested be added to the paper. All we know is that he said he sent 3 anonymous reviewers the paper, he claims that they said "print it", and he did.

-The journal has since retracted the paper.

-Sternberg continues to work where he does, no actions have been taken against him. Had he been working in the private sector, his ass would have been fired.

-I thus have no idea what he's whining about, considering what he was able to get away with and suffer no real penalties (save for the scorn and distrust of his colleagues. Will such scorn and distrust be made illegal in the future?).
 
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I didn't think that original article had actually been peer-reviewed, rather it got published in the journal by some backdoor method?


The representative of the Smithsonian was a real snot head, she was very unscientific and basicaly just defended her orthodoxy. She was definitly more interested in preserving her POLITICAL POWER than her SCIENTIFIC STANCE!

Other than that the posts here would seem to indicate that Sternberg was not playing by the rules.

The worst part of the interview was Behe tyalking about retribution against biologists who discuss thier religous beliefs while teaching.
 
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Other than that the posts here would seem to indicate that Sternberg was not playing by the rules.

He most definitely wasn't, and his motivations were not pure. He's a fellow of an intelligent design group:

http://www.iscid.org/fellows.php

But, sure. He can go on and play the innocent angel when interviewed by a real journalist like Hagerty. She just goes after the truth. She's not biased at all, I can assure you.

Journalism informed by a Christian worldview will glorify Christ and make an eternal impact...
http://www.evangelicalnews.org/bp121.html

Oh. Maybe she is.
 
Wow. So, by attempting to slide a biased mole in under the fence and bypass true peer review, then have a biased journalist there to cover the self-sacrifice, that's how science is done?

Wow.

Time to write a letter to NPR.
 
A much different approach just finished, on Weekend Edition Sunday. No written version (yet), and a few hours before the audio will be posted, but a nice piece. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5010951
Weekend Edition - Sunday, November 13, 2005 · Host Liane Hansen speaks with David Leeming, author of the just-published "Oxford Companion to World Mythology." (Oxford University Press; ISBN: 0195156692). He discusses the role of myths in culture and the staggering variety of creation myths around the globe. In relation to the intelligent design debate, Leeming says that the importance of myths is metaphorical, and they were not meant to be taken literally. (6:48)
 
Nope, just that it appears there is a conspiracy the likes of which "evolutionists" are oft accused of perpetrating.

And it's oddly confined to a Christian Weltanschauung in an endeavor that has scrupulously claimed to be agenda-free and absolutely not creationism repackaged.
 

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