Stephen Meyer of the Discovery Institute is a philosopher of science who has published a paper on Intelligent Design in the Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington. According to The Scientist this provoked Eugenie Scott, the director of the National Center for Science Education, to lament that: "It's too bad the Proceedings published it. The article doesn't fit the type of content of the journal. The bottom line is that this article is substandard science."
The article was peer-reviewed, however, by three reviewers who each hold faculty positions in biological disciplines at prominent universities and research institutions, one at an Ivy League university, one at a major U.S. public university, and another at a major overseas research institute. All found the paper meritorious, warranting publication, according to Richard Sternberg an editor of the Proceedings.
Reaction to the publication of the paper is interesting. Opponents of ID have always been quick to point out that ID theorists have never been able to publish their work in peer-reviewed journals, implying that their work is of poor quality. ID theorists have responded to this charge by arguing that it's very hard to overcome the bias that editors have against any work that challenges the neo-Darwinian orthodoxy. Now a paper has passed muster and rather than welcome the opportunity to engage ideas which may help us move closer to the truth, the Darwinians are in a snit because the journal didn't reject the paper out of hand.
So much for the unfettered pursuit of truth that scientists are supposed to be engaged in.
John Stuart Mill wrote in his masterful work On Liberty, perhaps the finest statement of the advantages of free speech and free inquiry ever written, that when a belief system is protected from criticism and challenge "the creed remains, as it were, outside the mind, incrusting and petrifying it against all other influences addressed to the higher parts of our nature; manifesting its power by not suffering any fresh or living conviction to get in, but itself doing nothing for the mind or heart, except standing sentinel to keep them vacant." Those who are outraged that the Proceedings published Meyer's paper could do worse than spend a couple of hours with On Liberty.
Reflecting on the reaction to his paper, Meyer notes that: "I have received a number of private communications from scientists expressing their agreement or intrigue with the arguments that I develop in my article. Public reaction to the article, however, has been mainly characterized by hysteria, name-calling and personal attack."
Viewpoint wonders if the three peer reviewers have changed their phone numbers yet and if they still even have their jobs. If you're interested in reading Meyer's paper itself go here, but the reader should be aware that it's a technical work.
