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Templeton and Metanexus Darwinists Decide to Attack the Messenger

Some Darwinists have a tendency to assume that anything coming from the ID camp must be a mistaken attack on them. This can lead to a Darwinist choosing not to read the pro-ID article, then responding to the (still unread) article by misconstruing basic facts, like the name of the website hosting the article, pro-ID books discussed in the article, or even the central argument of the article. Joseph Campana of ResearchID.org exposes these errors in the responses from Pamela Thompson of the John Templeton Foundation and William Grassie of Metanexus to his article, which demonstrated that the New York Times invented claims that Templeton asked for research proposals which “never came in.”

Thompson and Grassie are on the defensive. They’re circling the wagons with embarrassingly mistaken responses, misconstruing Campana’s central points with apparent disregard for the fact that they were not the objects of attack. As Campana writes in response, “Pamela Thompson is trying to spin this and seeks to ‘blame the ID guy,’ but the fact remains that, according to Charles Harper [Templeton’s VP], the NYT created a ‘media narrative manufacture.'” Indeed, the Templeton Foundation has confirmed Campana’s central argument, as they agree, “The John Templeton Foundation has never made a call-for-proposals to the ID Community.” For all of Grassie’s and Thompson’s talk about eschewing politics, it is curious that they’ve chosen to go after Campana’s report. It would be more reasonable to blast the New York Times for manufacturing the story. Instead, Grassie and Thompson have directed their attention at the one who blew the story open. They twist and misstate the facts in order to attack the ID guy, whose only crime is searching for the truth behind the story.

Read Campana’s response to Thompson and Grassie here.