Forwarded for interest of ASA thread on Polanyi Institute.
Keith
>STATEMENT OF THE CRANACH INSTITUTE
>PROTESTING THE REMOVAL OF WILLIAM DEMBSKI
>AS DIRECTOR OF THE MICHAEL POLANYI CENTER
>AT BAYLOR UNIVERSITY
>
>
>The Cranach Institute wishes to express its dismay at the decision to remove
>William Dembski as Director of the Michael Polanyi Center (Metanews,
>10/19/2000). Shortly before this announcement, we learned that the
>committee appointed to evaluate the status of the Center upheld the
>importance and legitimacy of Dr. Dembski's work, while calling on the Center
>to be redefined in its scope (http://pr.baylor.edu/pdf/001017polanyi.pdf).
>In his press release (Metanews 10/17/2000 and attached), Dr. Dembski clearly
>agreed to these terms, stating that "[t]he scope of the Center will be
>expanded to embrace a broader set of conceptual issues at the intersection
>of science and religion and the Center will therefore receive a new name to
>reflect this expanded vision." We appreciate that Dr. Dembski has not
>actually been fired as Associate Professor, but his removal as Center
>Director does not seem to have been made on legitimate academic grounds.
>
>It is quite true that Dr. Dembski goes on to say that the dogmatists who had
>wanted to close the center "have met their Waterloo." This may be
>"offensive" to some of Baylor's faculty but (a) it is unquestionably
>true-the center will live on, albeit with a new name and wider vision; (b)
>it is inappropriate for a school with a strong Christian tradition such as
>Baylor University to acquiesce to the demands of political correctness. The
>compartmentalized approach to faith and academic work has become prevalent
>in American Universities, even Christian ones, and it would appear that what
>many oppose in Dr. Dembski's work (at Baylor and elsewhere) is his explicit
>and rigorous integration of the two. How popular would Leibniz or Newton be
>at such universities if they expressed all their views, including an
>overarching religious understanding of their scientific work?
>
>There is nothing in what Dr. Dembski says in his press release that is not
>protected by normal academic freedom, and further, while he may be called to
>be "collegial" with other faculty, this can hardly be construed to mean that
>he should be "nice" to those who have misrepresented his work or who have
>engaged in caricature.
>
>I would like to clarify the Cranach Institute's perspective on this matter.
>The Cranach Institute is a Lutheran research institute "devoted to
>continuing the Reformation tradition...and applying its insights today."
>Here is a relevant insight from the life of Martin Luther. When Rome called
>Luther to recant his teaching on justification, Luther asked Rome to agree
>to a neutral forum of academic debate in the great universities of Europe,
>so that the matter could be settled by reasoned argument and not force.
>Rome refused and paid a long-term price for doing so.
>
>Many universities are now in an analogous position to Rome during the
>Reformation. There is considerable entrenched power of secular humanism and
>an almost indistinguishable liberal Protestantism, both of which are calling
>for dissenting (and especially robust Christian) views to be squashed by
>force not debate. To its great credit, Baylor did not initially follow this
>path, and instead appointed an independent peer review committee. However,
>since the committee has upheld the academic integrity of Dr. Dembski's work,
>it would be a retreat from the "great universities of Europe" model to the
>dogmatism of Rome model if Baylor now relies on force to overrule the
>committee. Is Baylor content to count itself among those universities in
>which political power can stifle academic dissent? I hope and pray not, not
>only for the sake of the religious mission of Baylor, but also for its
>academic reputation as an institution which is not willing to be
>ideologically captive.
>
>It is worth noting that Concordia University Wisconsin, the home of the
>Cranach Institute, hosted the Design and its Critics conference (June 22-24,
>2000), featuring both proponents and opponents of Intelligent Design. The
>conference was much like the excellent "Nature of Nature" conference held at
>Baylor during the Spring of this year. At both of these conferences, a much
>higher degree of academic civility was attained than is usual. At many
>conferences, such ideological dogmatism has taken hold that there is only
>debate about the details within a system of unquestioned first principles.
>At both the Nature of Nature and the Design and its Critics conferences,
>there was real dialogue between proponents of different first principles.
>Naturalism itself, the very foundation of the modern academy, was on the
>table for review. Nor was either conference a straw-man side show. The
>conferences recruited the very best defenders of naturalism and critics of
>intelligent design to meet their opposite numbers so that there was a real
>risk of each side being shown to have weaknesses. Surely these conferences,
>both of which Dr. Dembski helped to organize, are the academy at its very
>best, and anyone who has the knowledge and courage to facilitate them should
>be rewarded, not punished. Certainly they were vastly superior to the
>sycophantic gatherings of the like-minded that have made many conferences in
>the Humanities and Social Sciences venues for the self-perpetuation of
>unexamined prejudice. The very premise of the university is the pursuit of
>truth, not cultural power, and when power becomes the overriding objective,
>truth, and those who believe in it, are always the first victims. It is a
>sorry day when universities make sacrifices of those who epitomize what a
>university should be all about.
>
>For all of these reasons, the Cranach Institute urges Baylor University to
>reconsider its decision to remove William Dembski as Director of the Michael
>Polanyi Center.
>
>Yours faithfully,
>
>The Board of Directors of the Cranach Institute:
>Bruce Gee, Ilona Kuchta, Dr. Angus Menuge, Rev. Todd Peperkorn,
>George Strieter, Dr. Gene Edward Veith (chair).
>Additional Signatories:
>Prof. Gary H. Locklair, Rev. Michael Roberts, Don W. Korte, Jr., Pd.D.,
>D.A.B.T, Chair Dept. Of Natural Sciences, Prof. Mary Korte.
>
>Dr. Dembski's Press Release of October 17, 2000------
>
> The Michael Polanyi Center Peer Review Committee has now released its
> official report (http://pr.baylor.edu/pdf/001017polanyi.pdf) and the Baylor
>
> University administration has responded to the report
> (http://pr.baylor.edu/feat.fcgi?2000.10.17.polanyi). As director of the
> Center, I wish to offer the following comment:
>
> The report marks the triumph of intelligent design as a legitimate form of
> academic inquiry. This is a great day for academic freedom. I'm deeply
> grateful to President Sloan and Baylor University for making this possible,
>
> as well as to the peer review committee for its unqualified affirmation of
> my own work on intelligent design. The scope of the Center will be expanded
>
> to embrace a broader set of conceptual issues at the intersection of
>science
> and religion, and the Center will therefore receive a new name to reflect
> this expanded vision. My work on intelligent design will continue unabated.
>
> Dogmatic opponents of design who demanded the Center be shut down have met
> their Waterloo. Baylor University is to be commended for remaining strong
>in
> the face of intolerant assaults on freedom of thought and expression.
>
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Keith B. Miller
Department of Geology
Kansas State University
Manhattan, KS 66506
kbmill@ksu.edu
http://www-personal.ksu.edu/~kbmill/
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