Reflectorites
On Tue, 9 May 2000 12:14:26 -0500 (CDT), Wesley R. Elsberry wrote:
WE><http://www.usnewswire.com/topnews/Current_Releases/0508-102.html>
>
>It describes how "top scientists" from the Discovery Institute are
>going to brief legislators on "design theory". Among those listed
>as "top scientists" is William Dembski...
I thank Wesley for posting this. It shows the inroads the ID movement is
making. Once policy makers become aware that there are genuine scientific
objections to naturalistic evolution and rational arguments for and evidence
of design, the Darwinists' carefully crafted stereotype that the only
objections to evolution comes from a small minority of red-necked Bible
thumpers will collapse like a house of cards.
WE>....Another odd bit is how Dembski is described as an "Associate
>Research Professor" at Baylor, yet various statements from the
>Baylor adminstration had said that Dembski and Gordon were not
>considered Baylor faculty. How does that work out to a
>consistent stance?
[...]
On Tue, 09 May 2000 12:07:24 -0500, Susan Brassfield wrote:
[...]
SB>I think it works out to be quite dishonest. I'm also suprised that
>"usnewswire" could report the summit so uncritically. Not only was
>Dembski's title a factual error, but ...
This is the usual discredit-the-opponent-so-hopefully-no-one-will-
take-any-notice-of-what-he-says type of ad hominem that we have come
to expect from the evolution side.
Dembski's bio page on Baylor University's website, says he is
"associate research professor in the conceptual foundations of
science at Baylor University":
=========================================================
http://www.baylor.edu/~William_Dembski/biosketch.htm
WILLIAM A. DEMBSKI
Biographical Sketch
A mathematician and a philosopher, William A. Dembski is associate
research professor in the conceptual foundations of science at Baylor
University and a senior fellow with Discovery Institute's Center for the
Renewal of Science and Culture in Seattle. He is also director of Baylor's
Michael Polanyi Center, a research group that focuses on complexity and
information theory and their implications for science and religious belief.
Dr. Dembski previously taught at Northwestern University, the University
of Notre Dame, and the University of Dallas. He has done postdoctoral
work in mathematics at MIT, in physics at the University of Chicago, and
in computer science at Princeton University. A graduate of the University
of Illinois at Chicago where he earned a B.A. in psychology, an M.S. in
statistics, and a Ph.D. in philosophy, he also received a doctorate in
mathematics from the University of Chicago in 1988 and a master of
divinity degree from Princeton Theological Seminary in 1996. He has held
National Science Foundation graduate and postdoctoral fellowships. Dr.
Dembski has published articles in mathematics, philosophy, and theology
journals and is the author of three books. In The Design Inference:
Eliminating Chance Through Small Probabilities (Cambridge University
Press, 1998), he examines the design argument in a post-Darwinian context
and analyzes the connections linking chance, probability, and intelligent
causation. His most recent book is Intelligent Design: The Bridge Between
Science and Theology, which appeared November 1999 with InterVarsity
Press.
[...]
The Official Website of William A. Dembski sponsored by
Baylor University, the Institute for Faith and Learning, and the Michael
Polanyi Center.
Page last updated 12.18.1999.
=========================================================
Bruce Gordon's page says he is "Assistant Research Professor, Institute
for Faith and Learning, The Michael Polanyi Center, Baylor University":
=========================================================
http://www.baylor.edu/~Bruce_Gordon/vita.htm
CURRICULUM VITAE
Bruce L. Gordon
Associate Director, The Michael Polanyi Center
Assistant Research Professor, Institute for Faith and Learning
The Michael Polanyi Center
P.O. Box 97130
Baylor University
Waco, TX 76798-7130
(254) 710-4175 (Office)
(254) 710-3600 (Fax)
E-mail: Bruce_Gordon@baylor.edu
[...]
TEACHING EXPERIENCE:
Assistant Research Professor, Institute for Faith and Learning
Adjunct Faculty in Philosophy, Baylor University, since 1999
Philosophy 3345, 5320 - Symbolic Logic
Philosophy 4353 - Philosophy of Language
Theistic Belief and the Conceptual Foundations of Science
(Colloquium for Faculty and Graduate Students, co-led with Dr. William
Dembski)
[...]
The Official Website of Bruce L. Gordon is sponsored by
Baylor University, the Institute for Faith and Learning, and the Michael
Polanyi Center
Page Last Updated 01/15/00
=========================================================
In fact if you:
1. go to Baylor University's home page at http://www.baylor.edu/;
2. click on "Faculty & Staff" (http://www.baylor.edu/facstaff.html);
3. click on "Academics" (http://www.baylor.edu/acad.html);
4. click on "Michael Polanyi Center" (http://www.baylor.edu/~polanyi/);
5. click on "The Directors" and both Dembski and Gordon are listed
by the same above titles as follows:
=========================================================
http://www.baylor.edu/~polanyi/directors.htm
THE DIRECTORS
page last updated 03.15.2000
MICHAEL POLANYI CENTER
[...]
The Directors
[...]
A mathematician and a philosopher, William A. Dembski is associate
research professor in the conceptual foundations of science at Baylor
University and a senior fellow with Discovery Institute's Center for the
Renewal of Science and Culture in Seattle. He is also director of Baylor's
Michael Polanyi Center, a research group that focuses on complexity and
information theory and their implications for science and religious belief.
Dr. Dembski previously taught at Northwestern University, the University
of Notre Dame, and the University of Dallas. He has done postdoctoral
work in mathematics at MIT, in physics at the University of Chicago, and
in computer science at Princeton University. A graduate of the University
of Illinois at Chicago where he earned a B.A. in psychology, an M.S. in
statistics, and a Ph.D. in philosophy, he also received a doctorate in
mathematics from the University of Chicago in 1988 and a master of
divinity degree from Princeton Theological Seminary in 1996. He has held
National Science Foundation graduate and postdoctoral fellowships. Dr.
Dembski has published articles in mathematics, philosophy, and theology
journals and is the author of three books. In The Design Inference:
Eliminating Chance Through Small Probabilities (Cambridge University
Press, 1998), he examines the design argument in a post-Darwinian context
and analyzes the connections linking chance, probability, and intelligent
causation. His most recent book is Intelligent Design: The Bridge Between
Science and Theology, which appeared November 1999 with InterVarsity
Press.
***
Bruce L. Gordon is the Associate Director of the Michael Polanyi Center at
Baylor University, and an Assistant Research Professor in the Baylor
Institute for Faith and Learning. He completed his Ph.D. in the history and
philosophy of physics under Arthur Fine in the Northwestern University
Philosophy Department. Alvin Plantinga of the University of Notre Dame
Philosophy Department was an external advisor on his committee. Other
committee members were Laurie Brown of the Northwestern Physics
Department and Thomas Ryckman, now an Adjunct Professor of
Philosophy at UC, Berkeley. Dr. Gordon's academic background is varied.
In addition to the doctoral degree, he has earned masters degrees in
philosophy and systematic theology, and undergraduate degrees in applied
mathematics and piano performance. He was a postdoctoral fellow in the
Center for Philosophy of Religion at the University of Notre Dame before
moving to Baylor University in the fall of 1999. Dr. Gordon's work ranges
from an exploration of conceptual problems in quantum theory and
relativity, to foundational and interpretational issues in the philosophy of
science, the philosophical defense and technical articulation of design-
theoretic models in physics and biology, the interaction between science
and religion, the integration of faith and learning, philosophical theology,
metaphysics, epistemology, philosophy of language, and philosophical
critiques of postmodernity. At present he is working on a series of articles
that will lead to a book on the implications of quantum statistics and
quantum field theory for the metaphysics of identity, individuation, and
modality. This project will be extended into a critique of materialist
metaphysics, and have implications for understanding the role and function
of divine providence in nature. Dr. Gordon is also a Research Fellow in the
Discovery Institute's Center for the Renewal of Science and Culture.
=========================================================
Wesley could have checked this up if he wanted too (assuming he hadn't
already). And as for Susan's "dishonest" ad hominem, it is becoming
something of a badge of honour these days!
Steve
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"So, too, with Darwin's theory that evolution was the result of, among
other processes, the survival of the fittest, a belief qualified rather than
destroyed by the development of genetics and biochemistry. 'Only one
theory has been advanced to make an attempt to understand the
development of life, the Darwin-Wallace theory of evolution,' he said as
late as 1972, 'and a very feeble attempt it is, based on such flimsy
assumptions, mainly of morphological-anatomical nature that it can hardly
be called a theory.' And after dealing with certain evolutionary examples he
added, with a vigour that would do credit to a modern Creationist rather
than an accomplished scientist. 'I would rather believe in fairies than in such
wild speculation.'" (Clark R.W., "The Life of Ernst Chain [Nobel Prize for
Physiology & Medicine, 1945]: Penicillin and Beyond," Weidenfeld &
Nicolson: London, 1985, p.147)
Stephen E. Jones | sejones@iinet.net.au | http://www.iinet.net.au/~sejones
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