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The State of Scientific Research on Intelligent Design

I keep getting asked about the scientific research projects underway that relate to Darwinism and intelligent design. So why aren’t we talking more about them publicly? For several good reasons:

The most important is that the Darwinist establishment would like nothing better than to “out” research programs before they are finished. The idea is to shut down damaging evidence as early as possible. Strangle the infant in the crib. Demand answers now to questions still being explored.

Paranoia? Hardly. There are too many examples of ID scientists and other scholars who have been hassled and harassed by the Darwinist Inquisition. (I include in the Inquisition those supposed science writers who long ago became propaganda agents rather than serious reporters.) Even a non-scientist in academia who writes favorably of ID can be assailed. It appears that the distinguished Baylor University philosopher and legal scholar Frank Beckwith will get tenure after all, but that decision came only a few days ago and on appeal at the very end of a long, painful process where his adversaries were well organized, persistent and reckless of facts and decency. His real problems were that he was pro-life and that he had written that it is constitutional to teach about intelligent design. Against those PC liabilities, his long record of outstanding publication didn’t matter at all to his foes. On the contrary, it was his success that most alarmed them and excited their envy.

Friends of ID know the cases of a number of ID-friendly scientists who have lost their lab privileges or otherwise been discriminated against at universities here and in the UK. We are not trumpeting very many cases because the situations of several such scientists remain difficult. It is an appalling commentary on the state of academic freedom that ID-friendly scientists should have to work in an atmosphere of fear, but it’s true. We just want friends of ID who wonder why we don’t publicize work in progress more than we do to take a moment and reflect about that!

As for foes and critics who pester us for information about research now underway and who insinuate that, unless we oblige them, we must accept their opinion that such research is not happening, we owe them nothing. Since when does a scientist have to “report” on his work to the public before he is ready? The opposite is almost always the case.
And so it is with ID.

I’m reading of cases of stacked tenure committees and rigged peer-review processes on other subjects in science. It would make for an interesting study.

We know of a lot that is happening, and it’s exciting. As for the rest, we’ll report it when it’s ready, not before.

Bruce Chapman

Cofounder and Chairman of the Board of Discovery Institute
Bruce Chapman has had a long career in American politics and public policy at the city, state, national, and international levels. Elected to the Seattle City Council and as Washington State's Secretary of State, he also served in several leadership posts in the Reagan administration, including ambassador. In 1991, he founded the public policy think tank Discovery Institute, where he currently serves as Chairman of the Board and director of the Chapman Center on Citizen Leadership.

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