CID has decided to launch through a lecture tour of the UK by Discovery Institute senior fellow Professor Michael Behe with Professor Steve Fuller also involved on one of the venues. The tour takes place in November 2010 (see ttp://www.darwinordesign.org.uk for details). It's an odd combination; Fuller isn't even remotely a scientist and Behe's views on Intelligent Design are odd even by the standards of the movement.
The venues are in Oxford (not Oxford University but Oxford Brookes University, the former Oxford Polytechnic), Cambridge University (presumably not ai the request of the university), Glasgow Caledonian University (basically a former polytechnic), Leamington Spa (at a school), Bournemouth (at what looks to be a college of further education), Kensington Temple (a fundamentalist Elim Pentecostal church), Westminster Chapel (a very fundamentalist and creationist church) and Nevin's Brethren Church in Belfast. Fuller and the creationist and Truth in Science activist Dr Geoff Barnard will be backing Behe in a couple or so of the events.
However one looks at the list of venues for Behe's tour, they are basically not those of high status organisations and institutions in the scientific or intellectual arenas. That three of them are fundamentalist religious churches seems again to mock CID's claim that Intelligent Design is not about religion.
“Well it’s a very peculiar thing when scientific judgements are subcontracted to courts, and you will know that in Britain and in Northern Ireland courts get things wrong. These are not decisions that are settle by courts, you have decide on the basis of the evidence that you have. I suppose that what courts can do is rule on the consensus, but that is not the same thing as ruling on the evidence.” Alastair Noble talking to Everyday Ethics BBC Radio Ulster 10th October 2010
Which, of course, is a rather ingenious way of skirting round the serious problem that the case for Intelligent Design was totally discredited in the US courts; the British courts have nothing to do with the matter and “consensus” doesn't enter into it. There was no “consensus” in the Dover trial. It was a bench trial (no jury amongst which to have a consensus). There was no “subcontracting” of science decisions to courts, Dover was a civil initiated by private citizens and about education in a high school. This was not about scientific research in academia or discussions between intellectuals about the forefront of knowledge..
No matter what Noble or others claim about the Dover trial, the Intelligent Designers lost, spectacularly and decisively under a judge (John Jones) of whom there isn't the slightest evidence to suggest was either “biased” or incompetent. The creationists and Intelligent Designers have been trying to smear him (and the judicial process) since they lost (indeed, Jones received death threats).
If, of course, the issue was one of a biased or incompetent judge, the Intelligent Designers/creationists could either have gone to appeal (they didn't) or forced a similar trial elsewhere (they didn't do that either). Instead they have avoided going to the courts like a dose of syphilis; coming up instead with a new scam called “teach the controversy”. That hasn't worked either as there is no controversy.
Of course, Messrs Behe and Fuller know all about the Dover fiasco as they were expert witnesses for the side that spectacularly lost. Indeed, Behe's credibility was so shot to pieces by Ken Miller, a fellow Catholic acting for the plaintiffs (winning side), that his university (Lehigh) has publicly disowned him. It should not come as a surprise then that Behe has not written any books or papers on Intelligent Design for the last five years. There's no longer any money in it because it lost all credibility, not least through Behe's pisspoor performance at Dover.
But then, when one is desperate to justify one's cause, Professor Behe has some advantages. He's not a foaming at the mouth Calvinist; he is a deeply conservative Catholic representing a tiny, obscure, wing of Catholicism that has a creationist bent. Behe does accept evolutionary biology and the old age of the earth, which provide a suitable smokescreen to hide the real beliefs of many a person in his movement. Still, by Norman Nevin's definition, he is not a real Christian.
Professor Steve Fuller provides another smokescreen for the real beliefs of the Intelligent Design movement. He's a full tenured professor of sociology at Warwick University in the UK (although he's American by origin). Fuller claims to be a religious agnostic. He was educated by Jesuits in his childhood.
However, Fuller's credibility was also shot to pieces as a result of the Dover trial. Because he is a sociologist with no background in science and (possibly wrongly) is seen as a post-modernist), no scientist takes a blind bit of notice of his opinions on Intelligent Design. His position isn't helped by his justification of his testimony to the Dover trial.
"Dissent Over Descent: Intelligent Design's Challenge to Darwinism" was uttrly panned in the Guardian where Steven Poole wrote: "The book is an epoch-hopping parade of straw men, incompetent reasoning and outright gibberish, as when evolution is argued to share with astrology a commitment to "action at a distance", except that the distance is in time rather than space. It's intellectual quackery like this that gives philosophy of science a bad name."
The book is unreadable. I've tried to read it twice and it's all over the place. It jumps about all over the place so there is no consistency in thought or argument. It's impossible to follow what Fuller is saying.
However, there is one telling comment in it which suggests that Fuller realised how badly wrong he had got it at Dover. He openly accuses the judge of being incapable of running a fair trial, stating that the trial was doomed from the start because Jones is a Lutheran who doesn't go to church every Sunday. Fuller, though, simply avoided justifying this libelous smear on the judge's competence. I must admit I found that cowardly.
As part of the Behe tour, those attending will get a copy of the DVD "Unlocking the Mystery of Life” produced by Illustra Media. This was the same DVD used in the launch campaign of Truth in Science and, of course, makes no mention of young earth creationist despite all the people in Truth in Science being YECers. One wonders just who CID thinks it is trying to fool. One also wonders whether CID is clearing surplus TiS stock. The video is hardly an objective look at the issues. Virtually all of the “scientists” and other people that appear in it are fellows of the Discovery Institute. Despite the DVDs slick presentation, none of the participants has since gone on to produce one iota of “Intelligent Design” science. Not a single, peer reviewed, paper..
Dr Geoff Barnard is openly a young earth creationist. He's been publicly pushing young earth creationism for years through an organisation called Genesis Agendum (http://www.genesisagendum.org.uk) and, more recently, as an activist in Truth in Science. If anyone had any doubts that Intelligent Design is the same as creationism, Barnard's participation in the Behe tour should immediately dispel them. Barnard is a biochemist who has now, it appears, retired and lives in Israel. As far as the BCSE is aware, Barnard has never publicly said that he accepts Intelligent Design (as in “creation in a cheap tuxedo”). He's an out and out YECer (see http://www.answersingenesis.org/home/area/bios/g_barnard.asp).
If anyone is in any doubts about Geoff Barnard's ambitions about undermining mainstream science for religious reasons, the Genesis Agendum web site makes matters very, very clear: It intends to provide a “Virtual Museum as a resource for science teachers and students. Know as The World Around Us, its objective is to encourage discussion of evolutionary theory in the light of recent [totally unspecified] discoveries. He museum presents evidence from science and history, suggesting that there is a paradigm crisis [only in the imagination of creationists] in an evolutionary world-view [worldview is a hard right wing American term such that either one is a fundamentalist r one has the wrong worldview]. This is the first phase of the museum...”
Barnard is, of course, one of the contributing authors to Norman Nevin's book Should Christians Embrace Evolution? However, it isn't clear to us what sect or denomination Barnard belongs to. He has a master's degree in theology. It is believed that he now lives in Israel. His involvement in Biblical Creation Ministries almost certain means he's not a practising Jew. Barnard has also been involved in Truth in Science.
Navigate your way round this report usng the following links:
First Page: Centre for Intelligent Design Executive Summary
Introduction to the Centre for Intelligent Design
How Many People are Behind the Centre for Intelligent Design?
Timing of the Centre for Intelligent Design
Who Runs and Organises the Centre for Intelligent Design?
Professor Norman Nevin OBE
Dr Alastair Noble
Dr David Galloway
John Langlois OBE, Centre for ID Guernsey
Peter Loose
Centre for Intelligent Design Strategy
The Channel Islands Connection
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