Intelligent Design

What should public schools teach about the origin and development of life? Should science educators teach only Darwinian theory? Should school boards mandate that students learn about alternative theories? If so, which ones? Or should schools forbid discussion of all theories except neo-Darwinism? The Kansas State Board of Education is holding hearings to determine what Kansas students should learn about Read More ›

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If you’re going to resort to evidence on one side, you can resort to it on the other. And, for me, that’s all intelligent design does. It says the evidence we see points to design.UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The bias that they’re referring to is the fact that science seeks natural explanations. This is — that is what has been Read More ›

Science is typically praised as open-ended and free, pursuing the evidence wherever it leads. Scientific conclusions are falsifiable, open to further inquiry, and revised as new data emerge. Science is free of dogma, intolerance, censorship, and persecution.

By these standards, Darwinists have become the dogmatists. Scientists at the Smithsonian Institute, supported by American taxpayers, are punishing one of their own simply for publishing an article about Intelligent Design.

Stephen Meyer, who holds a Ph.D. from Cambridge and is a research fellow at the Discovery Institute, wrote an article titled “The Origin of Biological Information and the Higher Taxonomic Categories.” As Mr. Meyer explained it to WORLD, his article deals with the so-called Cambrian explosion, that point in the fossil record in which dozens of distinct animal body forms suddenly spring into existence. Darwinists themselves, he showed through a survey of the literature, admit that they cannot explain this sudden diversity of form in so little time.

Mr. Meyer argued that the need for new proteins, new genetic codes, new cell structures, new organs, and new species requires specific “biological information.” And “information invariably arises from conscious rational activity.” That flies in the face of the Darwinist assumption that biological origins are random.

Mr. Meyer submitted his paper to the Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington, a scientific journal affiliated with the Smithsonian Institute’s National Museum of Natural History. The editor, Rick Sternberg, a researcher at the museum with two Ph.D.s in biology, forwarded the article to a panel of three peer reviewers. In scientific and other academic scholarship, submitting research to the judgment of other experts in the field ensures that published articles have genuine merit. Each of the reviewers recommended that, with revisions, the article should be published. Mr. Meyer made the revisions and the article was published last August.

Whereupon major academic publications —Science, Nature, Chronicles of Higher Education — expressed outrage. The anger was focused not on the substance of the article, but on the mere fact that a peer-reviewed scientific journal would print such an article.

The recent reviews in your columns of books by Dennett, Dawkins, and Behe are testimony to the unflagging interest in controversies about evolution. Although such purists as Dennett and Dawkins repeatedly assert that the scientific issues surrounding evolution are basically solved by conventional neo-Darwinism, the ongoing public fascination reveals a deeper wisdom. There are far more unresolved questions than answers Read More ›

Starting today, the Kansas Board of Education will begin a six-day debate on the state’s science standards, specifically the teaching of Darwinian evolution. On one side there will be about two dozen skeptics of Darwinism and proponents of an alternative theory of evolution known as intelligent design. And on the other side there will be a trial lawyer, Pedro Irigonegaray, who has volunteered to defend Darwin.

If this seems one-sided, that’s because the Darwinian scientists have chosen to boycott the debate, which is surprising since Darwinian theory is still the accepted standard within the scientific community. Their reason for doing so, at least according to Mr. Irigonegaray, is that “[t]o debate evolution is similar to debating whether the earth is round. It is an absurd proposition.” But that’s not entirely fair. Nearly 400 scientists have signed a statement of dissent from Darwin’s theory. Moreover, Darwinian skeptics and ID theorists don’t question evolution, at least as it’s understood as species changing over time.

This article, published by The Washington Times, is about Discovery Institute Center for Science & Culture Senior Fellow Richard Sternberg:

A former editor of a scientific journal has filed a complaint against the Smithsonian Institution, charging that he was discriminated against on the basis of perceived religious and political beliefs because of an article he published that challenged the Darwinian theory of evolution.

“I was singled out for harassment and threats on the basis that they think I’m a creationist,” said Richard Sternberg, who filed the complaint with the federal Office of Special Counsel.

A guest commentary by Center for Science and Culture Senior Fellow Michael Behe appears on today’s New York Times op-ed page. Behe, also a professor of biology at Lehigh University in Pennsylvania, advocates and explains the theory of “Intelligent Design” in a piece titled The Basis for a Design Theory of Origins. “Darwinists assert that their theory can explain the Read More ›

This article, published by WorldNetDaily, is about Discovery Institute’s Center for Science and Culture Senior Fellow Richard Sternberg:

The career of a prominent researcher at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History in Washington is in jeopardy after he published a peer-reviewed article by a leading proponent of intelligent design, an alternative to evolutionary theory dismissed by the science and education establishment as a tool of religious conservatives.

Richard Sternberg says that although he continues to work in the museum’s Department of Zoology, he has been kicked out of his office and shunned by colleagues, prompting him to file a complaint with the U.S. Office of Special Counsel.

Sternberg charges he was subjected to discrimination on the basis of perceived religious beliefs.

“I’m spending my time trying to figure out how to salvage a scientific career,” Sternberg told David Klinghoffer, a columnist for the Jewish Forward, who reported the story in the Wall Street Journal.