From: Stephen E. Jones <sejones@iinet.net.au>
>Now for Wells' report. I particularly like this bit:
>
> "My debate partner objected that design is not scientific because it
> is not published in peer-reviewed literature. I pointed out that Mike
> Behe and others have attempted to publish articles on the subject,
> but they have been rebuffed on the grounds that design is not
> scientific. Catch-22: Design is not scientific because it's not
> published in peer-reviewed journals, but it's not published in peer-
> reviewed journals because it's not scientific."
If Wells' debate partner really made this objection (and one should take
anything an ID proponent says with a big pinch of salt), then I would
strongly disagree with him/her. I'm sure that valid scientific papers have
sometimes been rejected by peer-reviewed journals.
Nevertheless, I would say that, for the average scientist, who doesn't want
to waste time reading every piece of pseudoscientific nonsense, and who
trusts the peer-review process, it's reasonable to assume that, if a paper
has consistently been rejected by peer-reviewed journals, it is probably
lacking in scientific merit.
The ID work that I've read is unscientific because its arguments are not
logically sound. Of course, I haven't seen the papers that Behe submitted to
journals. But, on the basis of the ID literature that I have seen, I would
assume that they were rejected for lack of scientific merit.
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.
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