Should scientific journals be allowed to publish 'creation science'?

Great Debates
1

According to theWashington Post (see also the Worldnetdaily and Opinionjournal articles), the editor of the Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington, which decided to publish an article that cast doubt on evolutionary theory, has actual credentials - 2 PhDs in biology. Nevertheless, its publication set off a whole brew-ha-ha, with scientists attacking it for all sorts of reasons. The U.S. Office of Special Council (which the Post notes is headed by a Bush political appointee) concluded that he had been unfairly discriminated against, since there were all sorts of rumors flying around - like that the peer reveiw was a sham, or that Sternberg (the editor) had no credentials - that turned out not to be true.

I have yet to hear actual criticisms of the paper. According to the Post, it argued that the precambrian explosion of species can’t be explained by present scientific theories. My criticism of it would probably be that it doesn’t propose any explanation that it can claim is better - following the 1989 (?) supreme court ruling, creationists learned to satisfy themselves with poking holes in evolution rather than proposing things themselves. That’s only an objection to intelligent design, though, not creationism, which of course is the real nut of the problem.

My basic objection to creationism hinges on the fact that the vast, (vast) majority scientists who study the subject for a living don’t believe in it. That assumes though that it would get proper airtime if some of them did. I don’t think one, probably flawed, article is going to be the death knell for evolution - as far as I can tell, there has been a whole lot of overreaction on the part of evolutionist colleages. Really this kind of thing just ends up giving credence to creationist conspiracy theories.

2

Journals should be able to publish whatever bullshit they want to publish.

3

I think you are right (OP). Evolution is coming under attack more than ever, due to teaching it in public schools while excluding any other theory of creation. My opinion why the scientists over react is they realize it is not a perfect theory, it is not really fact. They are afraid of “losing ground” as the ultimate authority on such things. But, you might say, they are destined to lose. History tells us nothing in the way of theories is forever. A “faster gun” will shoot it down in the not too distant future. Anyway, science is supposed to welcome new ways of looking at old problems.

4

Mythologizing is a very old way of looking at problems.

5

I just realized I should have linked to this about my comment on ID.

6

Yes, science journals should be forced by law to only publish government-approved theories.

:rolleyes:

7

The thing that upsets those who are scared of teaching intelligent design is that it will be treated as evolution is, as fact demurely dressing up as theory. If it is taught the way it SHOULD be, not as Adam and Eve, REAL PEOPLE, but as one possible explanation of what caused something to come out of nothing, it actually doesn’t conflict at all with evolution since all it is doing is saying evolution, if true, was laid out by choice and not chance. The intelligent designer has NOTHING to with religion but was simply hijacked by those who either wanted to make money or from those who need a face and rules to go with their mysticism.

8

According to the Washington Post article, the peer review for the article provided 50 specific objections to Meyer’s paper and then said it should be published. I would think that the appropriate action for an editor would be to publish the paper along with the 50 objections (even if they were simply bullet points).

The scientific community is as human as any other and is as subject to human passions as any other. Faced with the constant bombardment of such nonsense as the Kansas and Ohio debacles regarding anti-science in the classrooms and as the third post in this thread, many of them over-react in very human ways. When they step over the line, (as it appears that some members of the Smithsonian and the NCSE seem to have done), they should be held to account for their unprofessional behavior.

Nevertheless, given that the review process provided a green flag to the paper, I think it was right to publish it (along with some indication that the reviewers did not actually endorse its conclusions and actually objected to a large number of points raised in it). Given that the reviewers found fifty problems with the paper by Meyers, it would not have been responsible journalism to publish the article while ignoring the issues raised. It is not clear from the news articles whether the peer objections were noted in the edition where the original article was published. If the article was published while the objections were not, that would seem to be a matter to raise the hackles of the rest of the scientific community. (I do not know whether peer objections are routinely published with papers–but I do not know whether most published papers have that many issues raised against them.)

9

Creation – as most people use it – is the idea that God created all the species as they are now. It DOES conflict with Creation. While it may not conflict with theistic ideas that there is some sort of Godly entity that created the heavens and earth, the word “Creationist” tends to entail the creation of species. Intelligent Design proposes that organs and organism could NOT have evolved.

10

This does not appear to be accurate. All the promoters of Intelligent Design “just happen” to be conservative Christians who spend an awful lot of time on the lecture circuit addressing religious groups to promote their ideas. On the other hand, none of them have provided an actual scientific basis for their “god of the gaps” ideas.

I would say that ID is very much a child of religious people refusing to accept the evidence of scientific inquiry.

11

There is no other scientific theory (please, just for sheer entertainment value if nothing else, learn the actual meaning of the expression “scientific theory”) of creation.

Well, everyone’s entitled to an opinion. Now, if one wants that opinion to be respected, then one would be better served by basing one’s opinion on reality. As you have again demonstrated, you are not using the word theory in its scientific sense. No competent scientist would declare a theory perfect, but rather will say it is the best explanation for the evidence at hand.

Got any actual evidence for this assertion? Thought not.

As scientists don’t have a religious agenda, nor are they interested in “winning,” what, pray tell, would they be losing. Comptent scientists are in the business of providing the best explanation for the evidence at hand, not in furthering your religious agenda.

What faster gun would it be? At any rate, what seems to have escaped your notice, is the earlier explanation to you that Science is a method, not a religion.

12

What about the new theory of Intelligent Falling?

13

As a biologist, I believe in the peer review system. Anything that is properly peer reviewed should be published. I have not read the paper, nor am I an expert in the field and able to judge it on its merits or on its limitations. That said, this smells more of a publicity stunt by a obscure journal than a legitimate science issue. But it is like the few papers published by the HIV denial people – they aim low, they don’t make any sweeping claims in the paper, they send it to journals like the ones in the OP, and then they blow it all up in PR when it is rejected controversially or when it is accepted. So it is lose-lose for the science community.

Anyway, creation science, just like HIV denial, is a subject that is discussed widely in the scientific community. And both of these “theories” have been beaten into the ground repeatedly and are moot points for 99.99% of science. In the case of ID or creation science, they are not even science because I don’t believe they are falsifiable under their most popular definitions.

If what the editor claims is true, if he has been unfairly smeared, then that is repulsive because as scientists we do take our peermanship and intellectual honesty seriously. At least most of us in my experience. But OTOH, as a journal editor, as a arbiter of peer review, if this is all a cheap publicity stunt and he triaged the paper and sent it to knowingly favorable reviewers or published it despite glaring holes in methodology simply for a PR stunt, then he deserves to be removed from his position.

14

I would like to point out that, DESPITE his (her?) overuse of capitals[sup]1[/sup] and her (his?) Illinois location[sup]2[/sup], this poster is NOT me.[sup]3[/sup]
1 - Hey, it got to be a pain bolding everything like I did my first four years here.
2 - Pay your dues and slap some creationists around. Cheap fun!
3 - Kid, the real way to set yourself apart from me is to NOT footnote your posts. :wink:

15

lekatt, once again you’ve demonstrated to me that you appear to have little or no evidence of the way the minds of scientists and engineers work. Let me explain, since I’m the daughter, sister, and girlfriend of engineers, an engineer by nature myself and have spent most of my life in the company of engineers and scientists. The work of science and engineering rests on concrete, physical evidence. It consists of setting up experiments and watching the results. This has nothing to do with religious faith; one of the most devout couples I know, pillars of a former church of mine, are also good, skilled engineers.

While it is entirely possible to set up an experiment and say, “OK, if my beliefs about God are accurate, He should intervene right about . . . here,” the God I worship (I’m a Christian) doesn’t operate that way. In fact, in the Gospels, when the devil is encouraging Jesus to throw Himself off a cliff in Chapter 4 of Matthew , Jesus specifically says, “Do not put the Lord, your God, to the test,” quoting Deuteronomy 6:16. In John 20:24-29, Thomas, who I consider the patron saint of all engineers says he won’t believe in Christ’s resurrection “Unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put my finger where the nails were, and put my hand into his side.” Jesus does indeed let him do so, but goes on to say, “blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”

Now, while I’ve never directly set up an experiment intended to prove the existence of God, I admit I’ve come close. Among other things, I remember driving to an appointment to look at an apartment and praying, “OK, God, if you want me to have this apartment, it’ll have a bathroom which will match blue bath rugs.” That was 4 years ago, and I now own the apartment. Still, to me, the existence or non-existence of God is not something which it should be possible to prove empirically. Intelligent Design, however, comes across to me as an attempt to do just that. Frankly, a god whose existence can be empirically is rather too small and limited a god for me.

I think tomndebb had the right idea. Publish the paper, but also publish critiques of it. I admit I know more engineers than scientists, but even the most stubborn of them (and mind you, the ones I know best are extremely stubborn ones!) do change their minds when confronted with compelling evidence they’re wrong and given an alternate, emprically correct explanation, even when the one doing so is their teenage daughter. The problem with intelligent design is it simply says current theories are wrong without providing an empirically demonstrable alternative. Again, “at this point, God intervenes” or, “at this point a miracle happens” doesn’t lend itself to being empirically provable or repeatable over several identical experments, despite the prayers of those taking math, physics, and engineeering exams.

CJ

16

While I don’t read science journals, I don’t believe I’ve ever seen a journal in which peer objections were published (and the idea that reviewers do not necessarily endorse the conclusions contained within an article they’ve reviewed and passed does not need to be stated, as it’s a given.)

17

Well, I haven’t seen them state their endorsement one way or the other (and I do have to read my share of those journals).

They could include the 50 main point objections as a preface to that journal edition, or as usual, wait for other scientists to mail them and then print their responses in the “Letters to the Editor” section.

18

Just throwing this out there, but just because an article is peer reviewed, doesn’t mean that it is in any way accurate. Many journals, allow you to designate who peer reviews your article, which allows for quite a bit of abuse in the form of circles of people reviewing each other’s papers.

And the idea that scientists are keeping down the “theory” (god do I hate how that word got usurped) of intelligent design is inane. If real peer reviewed articles, making testable and replicable claims and demonstrating experiments that clearly show the presence of an intelligent designer were published, then I, speaking as a scientist and an agnostic, would think that was pretty freaking cool.
I will sit down and read this study, and see what I think.

What scientists are keeping down is that notion that anyone can just come up with a hypothesis (which is what ID is), call it a theory and demand equal consideration with things, such as evolution, which have demonstrated mountains of supportive evidence.

I’ve said it before, believe in a creator if you want to. That’s fine. But don’t believe that your hypothesis of his existance can ever be a theory. As such, it does NOT get equal consideration.

19

Scientific theories are premises, not conclusions. For example - Why do objects fall to earth? Premise - The earth and the objects attract each other with a force proportional to the inverse square of the distance between their centers of mass. Conclusion 1 - If that premise is true then the planets should circle the sun in ellipses. Observation - The planets do circle the sun in ellipses. Conclusion 2 - The moon is X miles from the center of the earth so it should circle the earth at Y mph. Observation - The moon does circle the earth at Y mph withing the limits of our measurement error.

Do you begin to grasp that a theory is not a fact but is a premise that is either supported by observation of facts that it predicts or is not so supported.

Maybe, but don’t bet the farm on it.

The idea of purposeful, intelligent design is not a new idea. All of the following references are taken from Man And His Gods by Homer W. Smith, Little-Brown & Co.

In 1691 John Ray in The Wisdom of God Manifest in The Works of Creation argued the beneficence of the Almighty based on the adaptation of animals to man’s requirements and their own environment.

In 1701 Nehmiah Grew in Cosmological Sacra, or a Discourse on the Universe as it is the Creature and Kingdom of God gave examples of design such as, ‘a crane, which is scurvy meat, lays but two eggs in the year, but a partridge and pheasant, both excellent meat, lay fifteen or twenty.’

Archdeacon Paley wrote Natural Theology in 1802. In it he stated that nature, particularly human anatomy, requires in each of many particulars ‘an intelligent and designing mind for the contriving and determing of the forms which organized bodies bear.’

Smith states (p 341) that, “The argument from design culminated in the Bridgewater Treatises … [which] purported to show, by a mighty array of pious science, that God the Creator had foreseen and taken care of all the requirements of man, down to the chemistry of the stomach and intestines.”

All such ideas were carefully considered and dismissed in the 19th century as faulty by such writers as David Hume and others…

In fact the idea of a designer in the form of God long predates natural evolution as a theory.

20

I’ve seen it done. Was it the remote viewing paper, or the Geller experiment? Whichever, it was as doubtful as this paper, with an equally large amount of objections to it as ‘good science’, such that it would normally be rejected. I believe it was in Nature.

I believe that, if the objections are as many, as severe, and as pointed to normally insist on the rejection of the paper, they should be published with it.