An interesting note: the PBSW used to publish an annual list of everybody who had reviewed for the journal, as a way of thanking them. They don’t seem to do this any more, in part because Sternberg refused to release the names of the reviewers of Meyer.

Observe that we already know that the article passed “proper peer review” by “renowned scholars.”

We also know that RvS was subjected to a savaging in the Smithsonian and in the wider scientific community that even had he blundered — which he did not — they had no right to treat him that way.

Proper conclusion: Witch hunt, QED.

GEM of TKI

We should try a little experiment: select a hundred undergraduate biology majors who know nothing about the Sternberg case and have them look at the titles I listed plus the titles listed by Sternberg. Hey, include the abstracts for all I care! Ask them to select the one that’s out of place. I predict that a significant number will pick the Meyer paper. I also predict that the titles listed by Sternberg will be picked at the same freuqency as the other non-Meyer papers. In other words, the Meyer paper will still be out of place.

One man’s witch hunt is another man’s conspiracy theory.

On the contrary, it is plain to an unprejudiced mind, that the paper was within the reach of the journal’s focus. The real problem here is selective hyper-skepticism, and that, unfortunately and sadly, in service to excusing a witch hunt.

GEM of TKI

Also, you’ve made a good case that the Journal of Theoretical Biology would have been a much better journal to submit the work to.

Again, kindly cf. here and here on peer-reviewed research. NB: peer reviewed [and peer-edited] books address subjects that are too long for journal articles. Third, when there is the sort of censorship that the RvS case demonstrates, addressing and mobilising the public is the only real remedy — thus, too, the denial we see.

4] The problem is not with pointing to evidence. The problem is in presenting “Proof”

Science works by the logic of explanation across competing hypotheses. But, when a worldview level question-begging assumption — so-called methodological naturalism — is injected into the process, and is backed up by censorship and witch hunting, the whole process is corrupted.

Why not you take up the challenge in 43 [and in the always linked] on the merits? [Then we can see for ourselves whose explanation is better, why.]

GEM of TKI

“Thus, to constrain a set of possible material states is to generate information in Shannon’s sense. It follows that the constraints that produce biological form also imparted information. Or conversely, one might say that producing organismal form by definition requires the generation of information.”

-Meyer (Intelligent Design: The Origin of Biological Information and the Higher Taxonomic Categories)

As it has been demonstrated time and time again DNA is the most complex language in the world. There is only one place that we can go and find a “presently acting cause” that can assemble it’s complity and novel form and that is intelligence.

Or to put things in a more visual and entertaining perspective -

“Newton’s atheist-scientist friend came by for a visit. Seeing the model, he was naturally intrigued, and proceeded to examine it with undisguised admiration for the high quality of the workmanship. ‘My! What an exquisite thing this is!’ he exclaimed. ‘Who made it?’ Paying little attention to him, Sir Isaac answered, ‘Nobody.’

Stopping his inspection, the visitor turned and said: ‘Evidently you did not understand my question. I asked who made this. Newton, enjoying himself immensely no doubt, replied in a still more serious tone. ‘Nobody. What you see just happened to assume the form it now has.’ ‘You must think I am a fool!’ the visitor retorted heatedly, ‘Of course somebody made it, and he is a genius, and I would like to know who he is.’

Newton then spoke to his friend in a polite yet firm way: ‘This thing is but a puny imitation of a much grander system whose laws you know, and I am not able to convince you that this mere toy is without a designer and maker; yet you profess to believe that the great original from which the design is taken has come into being without either designer or maker! Now tell me by what sort of reasoning do you reach such an incongruous conclusion?

-Isaac Newton’s solar system story from “The Truth: God or evolution”