Re: News from Baylor U.

From: Richard Wein (rwein@lineone.net)
Date: Wed Oct 18 2000 - 14:02:54 EDT

  • Next message: Huxter4441@aol.com: "Re: Jonathan Wells' new book Icons of Evolution: The Cambrian Explosion"

    From: Hofmann, Jim <jhofmann@Exchange.FULLERTON.EDU>

    >Looks like Dembski has a different take on things:

    Thanks for posting this. It clearly demonstrates the way that Dembski
    intends to abuse his position at Baylor for the purpose of ID propaganda.

    >From: William A. Dembski (by way of William Grassie)
    >Reply To: William A. Dembski (by way of William Grassie)
    >Sent: Tuesday, October 17, 2000 5:03 PM
    >To: metanews@META-LIST.ORG
    >Subject: [METANEWS] Polanyi Center Press Release
    >Importance: High
    >
    >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.

    This is an absolutely disgraceful misrepresentation of the review
    committee's report, and I hope that members of the committee (or its
    chairman) will object in the strongest possible terms. The report said only
    that "...the Committee wishes to make it clear that it considers research on
    the logical structure of mathematical arguments for intelligent design to
    have a legitimate claim to a place in current discussions of the relations
    of religion and the sciences." It gave no affirmation to Dembski's
    particular mathematical argument.

    Dembski might reasonably have claimed that the Committee affirmed that
    Dembski should have the right to pursue his work within Baylor University.
    But Dembski's comment gives the distinct impression that the Committee has
    validated his arguments. That is quite contrary to the spirit of the
    following passage, where the Committee makes it clear that it believes it is
    too soon to draw a conclusion about the validity of the work:

    "...Although this work, involving as it does technical issues in the theory
    of probability, is relatively recent in origin and has thus only just begun
    to receive response in professional journals (see, for example, the essay by
    Elliot Sober in Philosophy of Science, 66, 1999, pp. 472-488), the Institute
    should be free, if it chooses, to include in its coverage this line of work,
    when carried out professionally."

    >and I hope that 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.

    Dembski seems to read the report as meaning that the Center should continue
    in existence, only another under name. I suspect that, if the university
    administration chooses to interpret it in that way, there will be big
    trouble on campus!

    >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.

    Blah, blah, blah. Usual ID disinformation.

    Richard Wein (Tich)
    --------------------------------
    "Do the calculation. Take the numbers seriously. See if the underlying
    probabilities really are small enough to yield design."
      -- W. A. Dembski, who has never presented any calculation to back up his
    claim to have detected Intelligent Design in life.



    This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Wed Oct 18 2000 - 14:00:51 EDT