Why Can’t Intelligent Design Critics in Synthese Accurately Represent Their Opponents?

The most recent issue of Synthese contains a variety of condescending articles against intelligent design (ID). But a few articles do attempt to make actual critiques of ID. The problem is that they don’t accurately represent the actual arguments of ID proponents. Can’t these top-rate philosophers rebut ID without misrepresenting the arguments? The article by Niall Shanks and Keith Green repeatedly misrepresent intelligent design as appealing to “divine agency.” It’s all based on a commonly used misquote of Bill Dembski’s that many ID critics, especially Barbara Forrest, love to use. Speaking of Barbara Forrest, she has a condescendingly titled paper in the issue called, “The non-epistemology of intelligent design: its implications for public policy.” From the very first sentence, her Read More ›

Condescension, Sneers, and Outright Misrepresentations of Intelligent Design Pass For Scholarship in Synthese

As I wrote about recently, in mid-2010 the philosophy journal Synthese published an excellent critique of neo-Darwinian evolution and self-organization by Richard Johns. Johns’ article did not argue for intelligent design (ID), but it was critical of the sacred cow of biology. It seems that somebody may have asked the Synthese to offer penance that sin: The latest issue of Synthese is devoted to covering intelligent design, but they strangely they published not a single article by a proponent of intelligent design. Instead they published an issue where many (though not all) of the articles are full of demeaning and condescending sneers against ID, as well as many outright misrepresentations of ID. It feels like it was scripted by the Read More ›

University of Kentucky Pays $100,000+ to Settle Gaskell Discrimination Lawsuit

According to news articles, the University of Kentucky (UK) has settled the discrimination lawsuit filed against it by Martin Gaskell, an astronomer who was denied a job due to his perceived doubts about neo-Darwinian evolution. The case was scheduled to go to trial on February 8th, but today counsel for both sides filed a joint motion to dismiss the case pursuant to the settlement. According to the Associated Press: The university has agreed to pay $125,000 to Martin Gaskell in exchange for Gaskell dropping a federal religious discrimination suit. Gaskell claimed he was passed over to be director of UK’s MacAdam Student Observatory in 2007 because of his religion and statements that were perceived to be critical of evolution. Court Read More ›