Progress Since the Sternberg Smithsonian Saga 20 Years Ago
In 2004, Smithsonian Institute scientist Dr. Richard Sternberg was cancelled for daring to publish a paper by Dr. Stephen Meyer supportive of intelligent design in a peer-reviewed journal. On this ID The Future, writer and teacher Daniel Witt joins us to reflect on the controversy. Witt explains the rhetorical strategies Darwinists have used to deride intelligent design. He also reports on an encouraging trend of scientists willing to stand up to the censors and bullies who get in the way of pursuing the evidence where it leads.
For decades, opponents of intelligent design derided the theory as unscientific because it hadn’t been published in peer-reviewed science journals. “What intelligent design advocates fail to realize is that the peer-review process could benefit them enormously,” sneered one such opponent, computer scientist Jeffrey Shallit, in 2001. But when a peer-reviewed journal published an ID-friendly paper in 2004, the response from Darwinists was simply more derision. And for Dr. Richard Sternberg, it was worse. Sternberg endured sustained hostility from his colleagues at the Smithsonian, including conspiracy theories and wild accusations, that damaged his reputation and resulted in his premature departure. And he’s not the only one. Other scientists have suffered a similar fate.
Instead of encouraging open dialogue about important scientific questions, the Darwin bullies have opted to prop up the Darwinian paradigm through brute force. But as Witt explains, gravity eventually wins out and the truth is revealed. Witt discusses some of the progress made in the debate in the last twenty years, noting that more and more scientists are willing to go against the grain: “People just aren’t willing to let the old guard of neo-Darwinism say you can’t question neo-Darwinism anymore.” One recent example of that bravery is Joana Xavier, a chemist at Imperial College London, who recently praised Dr. Meyer’s latest book Return of the God Hypothesis: “Let’s not put intelligent design on a spike and burn it,” she says. “Let’s understand what they’re saying and engage.”
Dig Deeper
- Want to read the paper that Dr. Sternberg had the audacity to publish?
- Read the results of the federal investigations into Sternberg’s mistreatment: U.S. Office of Special Counsel and U.S. House Committee on Government Reform
- Watch this brief clip of Dr. Sternberg from the documentary film Expelled. See the whole film here!