The Persecution of Richard
Sternberg
by Amnon Goldberg, February
2005 commenting on the article "Persecution in the name of
science" from the Orthodox Jewish newspaper "Yated
Ne'eman" (A text version is
appended for convenience.)
The handling of Richard
Sternberg by the scientific establishment has been mild compared to some of his
predecessors.
There exists an academic and
media mafiosi which attempts to discourage, suppress, ostracise, threaten, and
demote individuals who even start to show an interest in "heterodox ideas."
Organised pressure groups,
chicanery, sharp practice, and jealous histrionics abound in the "altruistic"
Scientific Establishment, all geared to prevent and discredit any research and
experimentation that threatens the establishment "status quo" or is against
"informed opinion", especially in the area of today's three "sacred cows" of
Evolution, Relativity and Heliocentricity.
Any doubters or nay-sayers are
lambasted with epithets like "dupe", "heresy", "shameful", "disgraceful",
"pseudo-scientific fanaticism", "fog of nonsense", "red herrings", "shallow",
"starry-eyed fundamentalism", "extreme", "lack of balance, "dogmatic",
"bigoted", "hysterical", "far fetched", "ignorant", "of no help to anyone",
"height of presumption."
When even President Reagan in
1984 dared to express his doubts in the theory of evolution, public questions
were raised as to his sanity!
Researchers like Immanuel
Velikovsky (catastrophist), Halton Arp (anti-Big Bang), Stefan Marinov
(anti-Relativist), Pons and Fleischmann (cold fusion), Robert Gentry (pleochroic
haloes), Richard Milton (anti-evolution), Barry Setterfield (decrease in speed
of light), Eric Braithwate (free energy), Walter van der Kamp (geocentrist)
etc., have been shown to have strong cases, or even to be substantially correct.
Yet they were all initially greeted with epithets like "stupid", "drivel",
"loony", "harmless fruitcake", "in need of psychiatric help" etc., and
conspiratorial attempts at the highest levels were made to silence them, ban
their publications, restrict their access to laboratories, deny them telescope
time etc. in blatant disrespect of the pursuit of novel human knowledge.
Persecution in the Name of
Science - Intelligent Design and Unreasoning Prejudice
by Yated Ne'eman Staff
The science establishment has
banned and blacklisted a respected scientist merely because he allowed an
article about Intelligent Design to be printed in a journal that he edited, and
even though the article was peer-reviewed.
Dr. Richard Sternberg, a
research associate at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History in
Washington, was until recently the managing editor of a nominally independent
journal that is published at the museum, Proceedings of the Biological
Society of Washington. The August issue included an article entitled, "The
Origin of Biological Information and the Higher Taxonomic Categories," which is
now the first peer- reviewed article to appear in a technical biology journal
laying out the scientific case for Intelligent Design (ID).
ID has been trying to set
itself up to be taught as a scientifically respectable alternative to evolution.
ID theory stresses that certain features of living organisms - such as the eye
which seems to require a large number of interlocking systems in order to be
useful and cannot easily be seen as possible to build up in any series of
incremental steps - are much better explained, even in scientific discourse, by
a designing intelligence than by an undirected process like random mutation and
natural selection.
One of the first popular works
that advocated ID was Darwin on Trial by Philip Johnson, a Berkeley law
professor who is an evangelical Christian. One of the main criticisms is of what
Johnson calls "methodological naturalism."
Stephen Meyer, director of the
Discovery Institute's Center for Science and Culture, explains, "Is it the
obligation of the scientist to come up with a materialist explanation of
phenomena, choosing among an artificially limited set of options, or to come up
with just the best explanation?"
ID argues that the simplest and
best explanation of several important phenomena is that the world reflects the
design of a conscious, rational intelligence. But ID has nothing to say about
the identity of the designer and how he does his work. Meyer's view is simply:
"We don't know."
Writing recently in the New
York Times, Michael J. Behe, a professor of biological sciences at Lehigh
University, a senior fellow with the Discovery Institute and one of the first to
write a book arguing for ID, wrote, "Intelligent design proponents do question
whether random mutation and natural selection completely explain the deep
structure of life. But they do not doubt that evolution occurred. And
intelligent design itself says nothing about the religious concept of a creator.
"The contemporary argument for
intelligent design is based on physical evidence and a straightforward
application of logic. The argument for it consists of four linked claims. The
first claim is uncontroversial: we can often recognize the effects of design in
nature. For example, unintelligent physical forces like plate tectonics and
erosion seem quite sufficient to account for the origin of the Rocky Mountains.
Yet they are not enough to explain Mount Rushmore.
." . . the second claim of the
intelligent design argument: the physical marks of design are visible in aspects
of biology. This is uncontroversial, too. The 18th-century clergyman William
Paley likened living things to a watch, arguing that the workings of both point
to intelligent design. Modern Darwinists disagree with Paley that the perceived
design is real, but they do agree that life overwhelms us with the appearance of
design.
"The next claim in the argument
for design is that we have no good explanation for the foundation of life that
doesn't involve intelligence. Here is where thoughtful people part company.
Darwinists assert that their theory can explain the appearance of design in life
as the result of random mutation and natural selection . . . Some scientists,
however, think the Darwinists' confidence is unjustified. They note that
although natural selection can explain some aspects of biology, there are no
research studies indicating that Darwinian processes can make molecular machines
of the complexity we find in the cell.
"The fourth claim in the design
argument is also controversial: in the absence of any convincing non-design
explanation, we are justified in thinking that real intelligent design was
involved in life. To evaluate this claim, it's important to keep in mind that it
is the profound appearance of design in life that everyone is laboring to
explain, not the appearance of natural selection or the appearance of
self-organization.
"The strong appearance of
design allows a disarmingly simple argument: if it looks, walks and quacks like
a duck, then, absent compelling evidence to the contrary, we have warrant to
conclude it's a duck. Design should not be overlooked simply because it's so
obvious."
The Discovery Institute has
published a statement entitled "Scientific Dissent From Darwinism," but so far
only about 350 scientists have signed on. The reason may be at least in part the
experience of Dr. Sternberg.
Dr. Sternberg's future as a
researcher is in doubt because of what was published under his watch, even
though the article passed peer review and even though he is not a proponent of
ID. According to a recent article by David Klinghoffer in the Wall Street
Journal, Dr. Sternberg has been penalized by the museum's Department of
Zoology, and his religious and political beliefs questioned.
The offending essay was written
by the same Stephen Meyer quoted above, who holds a Cambridge University
doctorate in the philosophy of biology. Meyer cites biologists and
paleontologists critical of certain aspects of Darwinism - mainstream scientists
at places like the University of Chicago, Yale, Cambridge and Oxford.
According to standard
evolutionary theory, at a certain time and in a very short period, between 19
and 34 animal phyla (body structures) sprang into existence. Meyer argues that
the Darwinian mechanism does not have enough time for it to generate the
necessary genetic "information" in the time frame in which this was supposed to
have happened. ID, he believes, offers a better explanation.
The article was submitted for
the normal peer review, and it passed. So Dr. Sternberg put it in.
Soon after the article
appeared, Hans Sues - the museum's number two senior scientist denounced it to
colleagues and then sent a widely forwarded email calling it "unscientific
garbage."
Other groups, including the
publisher, disassociated themselves from the article, saying that it should not
have appeared.
ID has struggled to achieve
respectability. Critics of ID have long argued that the theory was unscientific
because it had not been put forward in a peer-reviewed scientific journal. Now
that it has, they argue that it shouldn't have been put in because it's
unscientific.
The chairman of the Zoology
Department at the Museum, Jonathan Coddington, called Dr. Sternberg's supervisor
soon after the article appeared. According to a complaint that Dr. Sternberg
filed with the U.S. Office of Special Counsel (OSC): "First, he asked [the
supervisor] whether Sternberg was a religious fundamentalist. She told him no.
Coddington then asked if Sternberg was affiliated with or belonged to any
religious organization. . . . He then asked where Sternberg stood politically; .
. . he asked, `Is he a right- winger? What is his political affiliation?' " The
supervisor later told Dr. Sternberg about the conversation.
In October, Dr. Coddington told
Dr. Sternberg to give up his office and turn in his keys to the entire area,
thus denying him access to materials he needs for his research. Dr. Sternberg
was also assigned to the close oversight of a curator with whom he had
professional disagreements unrelated to evolution. "I'm going to be
straightforward with you," said Dr. Coddington, according to the complaint.
"Yes, you are being singled out."
Klinghoffer tried to contact
Dr. Coddington and Dr. Sues, but they did not return his repeated calls for
comment.
Dr. Sternberg begged a friendly
curator for alternative research space and he still works at the museum. But
many colleagues now ignore him when he greets them in the hall, and his old
office sits empty. Old colleagues at other institutions now refuse to work with
him on publication projects.
According to the OSC complaint,
one museum specialist chided Dr. Sternberg, saying: "I think you are a
religiously motivated person and you have dragged down the Proceedings because
of your religiously motivated agenda." Definitely not, Dr. Sternberg told
Klinghoffer. He is a Catholic who attends Mass but notes: "I would call myself a
believer with a lot of questions, about everything. I'm in the postmodern
predicament."
Dr. Sternberg now rests his
hope for vindication on a complaint he filed with the U.S. Office of Special
Counsel (OSC) of discrimination on the basis of perceived religious beliefs. A
museum spokesman confirmed that the OSC is investigating.
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