Revelation 4:11Intelligent Design
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Posted on 10/06/2005 12:32:21 PM PDT by NYer
A fellow Catholic is now being persecuted, in no small part, because of his religion.
You haven’t heard about it — nor are you likely to — precisely because it is just the kind of story the reigning media assiduously ignore. The powers-that-be are trying to round up scientist Richard Sternberg and hound him out of town (the town, in this instance being Washington, D.C.). All in the name of secularist ideology posing as science.
Before we turn to Sternberg’s interesting case, we should recall the recent clarifying words about evolutionary theory by Cardinal Archbishop of Vienna Christoph Schonborn in his now-famous New York Times op-ed, “Finding Design in Nature.”
“The Catholic Church, while leaving to science many details about the history of life on earth, proclaims that by the light of reason the human intellect can readily and clearly discern purpose and design in the natural world, including the world of living things. Evolution in the sense of common ancestry might be true, but evolution in the neo-Darwinian sense — an unguided, unplanned process of random variation and natural selection — is not. Any system of thought that denies or seeks to explain away the overwhelming evidence for design in biology is ideology, not science.” (emphasis added)
Sternberg is being driven out of his job as a Research Associate at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of Natural History by ideologues.
A little background: Rick Sternberg is extremely well qualified for his position. He has two Ph.D.s in evolutionary biology — one in molecular evolution and the other in systems theory and theoretical biology. He has published more than 30 very technical articles in respected biological journals.
Everyone was quite happy with his work, both as staff scientist with the National Center for Biotechnology Information and as a research associate at the Smithsonian.
All was well until Sternberg, as managing editor of the Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington, allowed a technical paper critical of neo-Darwinism to be published: “The Origin of Biological Information and the Higher Taxonomic Categories,” written by Steven Meyer.
Meyer’s Ph.D. is in the history and philosophy of science from Cambridge University. He is an advocate of Intelligent Design.
Instead of engaging Meyer’s paper through argument, the powers-that-be simply dismissed it as religious tripe, and began attacking Sternberg with startlingly underhanded animus, doing anything they could to make his life miserable to indelibly soil his reputation and to drive him out the Smithsonian.
First, Smithsonian officials tried to remove him directly, charging that as managing editor he had violated the publication process. But Sternberg followed the procedure perfectly. He discussed publication with a fellow scientist at the Smithsonian, and before publication he had the article peer-reviewed by three molecular and evolutionary biologists — all with doctoral degrees.
Unable to trump up any legitimate charges, Smithsonian officials went after him indirectly, creating an intolerable work environment, smearing him with false allegations, pressuring the National Center for Biotechnology Information to fire him, and worst of all, investigating his personal religious and political beliefs behind the scenes.
The interesting thing in regard to this last skullduggery of prying into his religion is that Sternberg is not an advocate of Intelligent Design, but of the structuralist approach to biology. But the assumption of those “digging for dirt” was that, if he believed in God, then his skull was obviously soft enough to admit Meyer’s paper rather than reject it outright.
The U.S. Office of Special Counsel was called in to investigate. Its officials decided unambiguously in Sternberg’s favor, although officials at the Smithsonian have now stoutly refused to cooperate with the investigation. Small wonder, given their less-than-admirable methods of trying to destroy Sternberg.
Reading the Special Council’s report is an eye-opener. Before the Smithsonian stopped cooperating with the investigation, behind-the-scenes e-mail correspondence was gathered by investigators. It is clear from reading them that Smithsonian officials had little but contempt for religious believers:
“After spending 4.5 years in the Bible Belt,” said one,” I have learned how to carefully phrase things in order to avoid the least amount of negative repercussions for the kids. … The most fun we had by far was when my son refused to say the Pledge of Allegiance because of the ‘under dog’ part.”
Charming. The e-mails reveal what is truly behind the “careful phrasing” of these scientist-administrators. They are secularist ideologues with a barely suppressed disdain for believers.
“It is clear that I was targeted for retaliation and harassment explicitly because I failed in an unstated requirement in my role as editor of a scientific journal,” Sternberg contends. “I was supposed to be a gatekeeper turning away unpopular, controversial, or conceptually challenging explanations of puzzling natural phenomena. Instead I allowed a scientific article to be published critical of neo-Darwinism, and that was considered an unpardonable heresy.”
Interesting, isn’t it? Can you imagine a scientist of Sternberg’s stature being persecuted because he allowed a paper to be published that concluded evolution occurs as “an unguided, unplanned process of random variation and natural selection” and that consequently all notions of a Creator God are entirely groundless? Of course not. That’s orthodoxy. Or is it ideology masquerading as science?
One thing is for certain. Sternberg is still being persecuted behind the scenes for daring to allow science to question science.
So catholicism placated the aligator by agreeing with it and is now shocked the aligator isn't waiting till last to eat them... When one compromises God's word, one has little excuse for complaint in the matter of living with the consequence of having so done. Just something to ponder..
Heh, kinda telling ain't it..
Hmmm.. could one say the same thing about religion lol.
Darwin's underlying philosophical thesis is that men are just clever beasts.
Therefore there is no transcendent basis for morality.
dream on...
Erm... You can read, right? "Law" and "Custom" in Darwin's time included anti-fornication laws, anti-adultery laws, and social penalties for sexual misbehavior. Darwin can be easily enlisted in support of polygamy and concubinage.
And I'm no crevo, Mr. Heresy Hunter.
...and they are not rare. I cannot believe how closed-minded "true believers" can be -- and how nasty. I don't know how one can claim to be a scientist if one's mind is hermetically sealed to "disfavored" or "prohibited" lines of inquiry.
***Any system of thought that denies or seeks to explain away the overwhelming evidence for design in biology is ideology, not science.” ***
I wonder if the Smithsonian has a posting in its personnel office that reads "no discrimination on race, religion, etc." per the government requirement of every other employer.
Some post those things, but don't really mean them.
Revelation 4:11Intelligent Design
See my profile for info
First, I am not a chr*stian.
Second, if you believe that simple people who instinctively recoil at evolution or other uniformitarian denials of Biblical events are embarrassments to chr*stianity (since they provide scandal to intellectuals and sophisticates), why don't your churches simply excommunicate all of them? We Noachides will take them gladly, since (unlike you Notzerim) we worship the Biblical G-d.
I don't understand process structuralism. I googled it up and came up with this, "the view that there are deep laws of change that determine some or all of the features of organisms". I can see how this would be ahistorical in the sense that any scientific law would be ahistorical. What his evidence for this is, perhaps someone else can answer.
Personally I don't see why any Catholic would follow these various anti-Darwinians. The Church has repeated over and over that it has no problem with the biological sciences, it only has a problem with those who misuse its findings. It has specifically asked us not to engage in these battles,"we cannot but deplore certain habits of mind, which are sometimes found too among Christians, which do not sufficiently attend to the rightful independence of science and which, from the arguments and controversies they spark, lead many minds to conclude that faith and science are mutually opposed. (7)” (GAUDIUM ET SPES, 36)
Darwinism itself is neutral but for those who can't tear themselves away from a nominalistic worldview, the finding of chance in a string of particular causes is a direct challenge to God. I believe Darwin held that view but evidently so do many anti-Darwinians.
"I am not a chr*stian"
Well then we really have no dispute in science only one in theology and we choose differently. I accept the teaching authority of my church and that authority has looked into the issue of whether the biological sciences are in conflict with scripture and doctrine (recently in the document"Communion and Stewardship:Human Persons Created in the Image of God*"). The say no and I accept that.
You ignored my point. Since you (and your Church) regard simple people who cannot except evolution (or the notion that the Bible is a collection of fables and parables), why don't you just throw them all out? They embarrass you, right?
Were all those illiterate peasants in the Middle Ages evolutionists, or were they Southern Baptists?
I didn't disregard your question. Societal status has nothing to do with whether one accepts a magisterium. The fact is that authority to decide Biblical interpretation is not invested in individuals of whatever rank. Private interpretation of scripture is in conflict with Catholic doctrine.
Okay. So evolution and higher criticism are magisterial teachings of the Catholic Church and every Catholic bumpkin believes in them. Furthermore, anyone who will not accept these things will not be accepted as a convert to the Catholic Church (no wonder you people didn't want my mother--a Southern country girl who grew up during the Depression with only a sixth grade education; your loss).
Will the bishops be denying communion to creationists and literalists? The Catholic Church seems much more embarrassed by them than by abortionist politicians.
IMHO, there should be no ideological presupposition in a scientific investigation Nor should the gatekeepers force ideology on the evaluation of the results. If science would use Bohr's bar for an epistemic cut, we wouldn't be having this never-ending battle concerning intelligent design.
Both practices are also an affront to the First Amendment as xzins suggests - on the one hand establishing a religion - and on the other hand, preventing the free exercise of religion. Based on the current application of Lemon in public venues and the 7th ruling on atheism being religion, the Supreme Court is effectively establishing atheism as the state religion while preventing theism to be spoken in public.
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