The below press release that Richard Wein just posted is strange.
Either Dembski is being incredible stupid or he is
deliberately trying to get himself fired from his Baylor
position by insulting and provoking the people that hired
him. Once fired, he can portray himself as the "Velikovsky"
of Intelligent Design being persecuted for his ideas.
Personally, I am beginning wonder that Dembski, faced with
having to submit his ideas to peer review, which he knows
they will not survive, is now looking for a way out of the
his Baylor position. I have to wonder he if wants to be fired,
so he can use his failed attempt to use Baylor University
for political, rather than scientific purposes, for a book
detailing how badly persecuted the proponents of intelligent
design are and how the lack of published papers is do to
prejudice on the part of nasty evilutionists who will stoop
to nothing to prevent proponents of ID from publishing
stuff. I see someone turning himself into a martyr to
the cause of ID.
For background go to:
http://www.calvin.edu/archive/evolution/200010/0500.html
Yours,
Keith Littleton
littlejo@vnet.net
New Orleans, LA
> October 19, 2000: FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
>
>STATEMENT BY WILLIAM DEMBSKI ON HIS REMOVAL AS
>DIRECTOR OF THE MICHAEL POLANYI CENTER AT BAYLOR
>UNIVERSITY
>
>
> Baylor University President Robert Sloan has
>removed me as director of the Michael Polanyi Center
>despite his having personally solicited me to come
>to Baylor and establish the Center as a means of
>furthering work on intelligent design. Some Baylor
>faculty have exerted enormous pressure on Baylor to
>disassociate the university from me and my research.
>Earlier President Sloan had properly characterized
>these efforts as "intellectual McCarthyism."
>
>Because I released a press statement (see below)
>applauding the results of the peer review committee
>that passed upon and approved the academic
>soundness of my work, I am now being labeled as
>not "collegial" and the statement is said to have
>fatally compromised my ability to serve as Director.
>My press release allowed me publicly to state my
>full support for the results of the peer review
>committee report. Having made that statement,
>I then expected to proceed full steam ahead to
>implement the committee's recommendations by
>expanding the scope of the center while still
>focusing my own research on intelligent design --
>just as the peer review committee recommended and
>President Sloan agreed.
>
> Instead, I was informed that my press release
>created a "firestorm" on campus. Shockingly, the
>administration formally asked me to retract my
>press release. I explained that the press release
>accurately conveyed how I perceived the outcome of
>the peer review committee and that for me to retract
>it would be tantamount to giving in to the censorship
>and vilification against me that had been a constant
>feature since I arrived oncampus. I could not and
>would not betray all that I have worked for in my
>professional career.
>
>In the utmost of bad faith, the administration claimed
>my refusal to retract my press release constituted a
>lack of collegiality on my part and charged that this
>compromised my ability to serve as director, thereby
>providing thefig leaf of justification for my removal.
>Intellectual McCarthyism has, for the moment, prevailed
>at Baylor. The announcement of my removal from the
>Polanyi Center directorship states that I am to be
>kept on in my capacity as an Associate Professor in
>Baylor's Institute for Faith and Learning. I look
>forward in that capacity to continuing to work on
>intelligent design and its implications.
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Fri Oct 20 2000 - 10:08:17 EDT