Booz: I can see we're going around in circles. All I can suggest is you go actually read Meyer's article. As for the Biological Society of Washington's declaration, it is correct in that Sternberg did not pass it to an associate editor. It was his perogative to handle the paper himself, which he and other managing editors had done numerous times in the past. This was his purogative, and there was nothing in the review standards of the Proceedings that forbids this. They are flat wrong to infer the paper was not peer reviewed, for it was. He also discussed the paper with another member of the Council. Here is a link to the US Office of Special Investigation report on the matter...
http://www.rsternberg.net/OSC_ltr.htm If you want to hear more of Sternberg's side of the story, look here...
http://www.rsternberg.net/The bottom line is, Sternberg choose to handle this himself because it was a field he was very familiar with (two degrees in evolutionary biology), and because he knew it would be controversial (though just how controversial he probably never imagined).
Regarding Meyers and the Ohio State Board of Education, are you refering to the "Critical Analysis of Evolution" lesson plan adopted last year for use in schools statewide by the Ohio State Board of Education? This is not teaching ID, however much you would equate the two. I know that Meyers has commented publicly on the issue, but how is that "suckering" the OSBE?
As for "Project Steve", well, even the NCSE admits it's tongue in cheek. Nonetheless, the NCSE is a political organization on the forefront of supressing any dissent from Darwinism. You can hardly hold them up as an unbiased critic. And as for the "5000 Christians" petition, so what? If you won't believe a christian scientist when he/she says they don't believe the fullness of evolutionary theory, why would you believe christian non-scientist who happen to say Evolution is scientific truth? Seems to be just a case of believing those who believe as you do.
Sternberg is not the first to suffer this kind of backlash from the mainstream science establishment. A science education grad student at Ohio State named Leonard has undergone a kind of academic ex-communication for submitting a thesis. What was the topic? Leonard's dissertation research analyzed how teaching students evidence for and against macroevolution impacted student beliefs.
And Raider, you didn't point out holes in ID theory; you pointed out what you believe are holes in creationism.
5)In YOUR exact words, what would you want the teacher to tell kids at school. Do not link me to someone else, I want to know what you want them to teach our CHILDREN!
Fair enough. It's simple. Teach evolution as a theory, including what has actually been proven (microevolution, for instance), and where is is supposition (origins of life, origins of higher forms). Teach the points for and against. Tell them the stuff that has not been explained as yet, i.e. where the holes in the theory are. Remove the patently false evolutionary examples that persist in the textbooks to this day. Insure students know that the varying size of a finch's beak does not prove that a lizard becomes a bird, or a duckbilled playtypus, or an ape. And if a student asks if there are any other theories being investigated by scientists to explain the origins of life and development of the species, give the educator the freedom to say, "yes." If a student says, "Hey, what about 'intelligent design?" give students and the teacher the academic freedom to discuss it. I do not believe ID should be taught in the classroom at this time, as there is yet insufficient content and it is still only in the beginning stages of scientifiic exploration.
In any event, this has been a spirited, if sometimes mean-spirited debate, and I've enjoyed it (for all that it feels at times like I've been talking to myself
). I only hope someone's gotten something useful out of it.
