Sternberg peer review controversy
Encyclopedia
The Sternberg peer review controversy concerns the conflict arising from the publication of an article supporting the controversial
concept of intelligent design
in a scientific journal, and the subsequent questions of whether proper editorial procedures had been followed and whether it was properly peer review
ed. One of the primary criticisms of the intelligent design movement
is that there are no research papers supporting their positions in peer reviewed scientific journal
s.
On 4 August 2004, an article by Stephen C. Meyer
(Director of Discovery Institute
's Center for Science and Culture
) titled "The origin of biological information and the higher taxonomic categories", appeared in the peer-reviewed journal, Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington
. The journal's publisher claims the editor, Richard Sternberg
, went outside the usual review procedures to allow Meyer's article to be published in his last issue as editor. Sternberg disputes the claims. Meyer's article was a literature review
article, and contained no new primary scholarship itself on the topic of intelligent design.
On 7 September 2004, the publisher of the journal, the Council of the Biological Society of Washington, released a statement repudiating the article:
The same statement vowed that proper review procedures would be followed in the future and endorsed a resolution published by the American Association for the Advancement of Science
, which states that there is no credible scientific evidence supporting intelligent design. On September 18, the Discovery Institute issued a statement exulting the publication of Meyer's paper in a peer-reviewed journal, and chastising the National Center for Science Education
for stating that the paper should not have been published. The Biological Society of Washington's president, Roy McDiarmid called Sternberg's decision to publish Meyer's article "a really bad judgment call on the editor's part" and it was doubtful whether the three scientists who peer reviewed the article and recommended it for publication were evolutionary biologists.
A series of articles in Skeptic
criticized the decision to publish the article. Michael Shermer
disputed Sternberg's qualifications as a peer reviewer, stating that it dealt less with the areas Sternberg was qualified to review (systematics
and taxonomy
) than it did paleontology
, for which many members of the society would have been better qualified to peer review the paper; at that time the Society had three members who were experts on Cambrian invertebrates
, the subject discussed in Meyer's paper. A follow-up article by Ed Brayton criticized Sternberg's decision to review the paper, given his ties to a known movement that opposes the theory of evolution:
Doubts were raised whether the reviewers were evolutionary biologists. According to an article by the Society of Academic Authors Meyer said the article grew out of a presentation he made at a conference attended by Richard Sternberg where they discussed the possibility of a paper for society's journal. Observers have pointed to affiliations that in most circumstances would have disqualified Sternberg from reviewing an article on intelligent design. They note that Sternberg is a Fellow of the International Society for Complexity, Information and Design
, a Discovery Institute-affiliated group dedicated to promoting intelligent design. Sternberg is also a signatory of the Discovery Institute's A Scientific Dissent From Darwinism
statement "We are skeptical of claims for the ability of random mutation and natural selection to account for the complexity of life. Careful examination of the evidence for Darwinian theory should be encouraged."
Sternberg claims to have also checked with a Council member and to have followed the standard practice for peer review:
Of the four "well-qualified biologists with five PhDs" Sternberg identifies, one was Sternberg himself, contributing his double doctorate to the total he cited. Sternberg's claim of following proper peer review procedures directly contradicts the published public statement of his former employer, the publisher of the journal, that the proper procedures were not followed resulting in the article's retraction. In previous years the Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington had published yearly lists of all the people who had served as peer reviewers. That list is absent for 2004, the year of the incident. Sternberg has repeatedly refused to identify the three "well-qualified biologists," citing personal concerns over professional repercussions for them.
, and Wesley R. Elsberry
claimed it contained poor scholarship, that it failed to cite and specifically rebut the actual data supporting evolution, and "constructed a rhetorical edifice out of omission of relevant facts, selective quoting, bad analogies, knocking down straw men, and tendentious interpretations." Further examination of the article revealed that it was substantially similar to previously published articles co-authored by Meyer.
Critics of Sternberg believe that he was biased in the matter, arguing that Sternberg's close personal and ideological connections to the paper's author suggest at least the appearance of conflict of interest. They cite as evidence Sternberg's presentation in 2002 of a lecture on intelligent design at the Research And Progress in Intelligent Design (RAPID) conference where Stephen C. Meyer, the author of the paper Sternberg published, also presented a lecture. The explicit purpose of the RAPID conference was to "form new collaborations among scientists seeking to do research on the interface between science and faith, particularly within the context of ID". Only intelligent design advocates spoke at it, and at least one intelligent design critic was expressly forbidden to attend it. It was organized and hosted by the International Society for Complexity, Information and Design
(ISCID), a group dedicated to promoting intelligent design, of which Sternberg is a Fellow. ISCID is affiliated with the Discovery Institute, hub of the intelligent design movement, where Meyer serves as the Program Director of the Center for Science and Culture
. Critics also note that Sternberg also sat on the editorial board of the Baraminology Study Group, which studies "creation biology" and whose website is hosted by Bryan College
, a conservative Christian school named after anti-Darwin lawyer William Jennings Bryan
made famous by the Scopes Trial
.
The American Association for the Advancement of Science, in a position statement describing the events around the controversy, said "Given these associations, Dr. Sternberg would appear to be, at very least, an advocate for 'intelligent design' and critical of standard peer review processes as they bear on the scientific assessment of the 'intelligent design' hypothesis." Critics describe Sternberg's explanation of events, that a pro-intelligent design paper just happened to find its way to a publication with a sympathetic editor ultimately responsible for ensuring proper peer review and editing of his last issue, and that he decided it was appropriate to deal with the review process in person on a subject in which he has a personal interest, as improbable and that "people who want us to believe that the publication process outlined [by Sternberg and his defenders] was transparent and only had to do with science" are "disingenuous."
Journalist Chris Mooney has compared the Sternberg controversy to that of a paper published by climate change skeptic
s Willie Soon
and Sallie Baliunas
in Climate Change, where a sympathetic editor Chris de Freitas
allowed it to be published, despite its lack of scientific merit.
's National Museum of Natural History
, where he had an unpaid appointment as a research associate, while employed by the National Institutes of Health
.
Sternberg claims that he was "targeted for retaliation and harassment" and subject to efforts to remove him from the museum in retaliation for his views in support of creationism. He continues to cite a letter by the United States Office of Special Counsel
as supporting his version of events, despite the fact that the Office of Special Counsel did not proceed beyond its initial investigation. Pim Van Meurs and other critics observed that the Office of Special Counsel lacked jurisdiction over the matter and so his claim was unlikely to proceed, and that even though it made no official findings or conclusions, the response from the Office of Special Counsel provided Sternberg and the Discovery Institute putative evidence and talking points supporting their claim that the scientific community discriminates against intelligent design proponents. In a Wall Street Journal op-ed article, Discovery Institute Senior Fellow David Klinghoffer
portrayed Sternberg as a martyr and victim of discrimination, a tactic used often by design proponents.
In response, Sternberg's supervisor at the Smithsonian, Jonathan Coddington, responded publicly disputing Sternberg's and Klinghoffer's depiction of events. Coddington states that Sternberg was never dismissed, nor was he a paid employee, and that he was never the target of discrimination, and remained serving at the museum up to that time.
In August, 2005 the Office of Special Counsel dropped Sternberg's religious discrimination complaint against the Smithsonian Institution. It was determined that as an unpaid research associate at the Smithsonian, Sternberg was not actually an employee, and thus the Office of Special Counsel had no jurisdiction. Nick Matzke
, Jason Rosenhouse and other critics have commented that the Office of Special Counsel itself appears biased in its initial handling of the matter, given the links between the religious right
and the Republican Party, with George W. Bush
appointee James McVay authoring its opinion.
In a November, 2005 National Public Radio report on the affair Sternberg stated "I'm not an evangelical, I'm not a fundamentalist, I'm not a young earth creationist, I'm not a theistic evolutionist". Sternberg said McVay "related to me, 'the Smithsonian Institution's reaction to your publishing the Meyer article was far worse than you imagined'." Barbara Bradley Hagerty, NPR's religion reporter, said Sternberg himself believes intelligent design is "fatally flawed."
In December 2006 a partisan report was issued by Mark Souder
, on the basis of information he and fellow Republican representative and intelligent design advocate Rick Santorum
(author of the pro-ID Santorum Amendment
) had requested, calling into question the Smithsonian's treatment of Sternberg and repeating many of Sternberg's claims. The report was commissioned by Souder in his capacity as subcommittee chairman of the House of Representatives
Committee on Government Reform, written by his subcommittee staff, but published by Souder as an individual representative without it being officially accepted into the Congressional Record. This is contrary to oft-repeated claims by the Discovery Institute and other design proponents that the report represents an official position by the Committee supporting Sternberg's claims of discrimination.
Observers have said that facts of the case simply do not support the conclusions of the report nor is the report an official report of the committee. They say that the Discovery Institute is using the report to portray Sternberg specifically, and design proponents in general, as victims of persecution. They also say the Souder report is a repackaging of the Office of Special Council's previous findings from August 2005 and contains nothing new, consisting of "the OSC findings restated and used as a form of evidence in and of themselves" and attacks the Smithsonian for "not accepting the OSC's findings at face value." They cite as evidence of a biased motive behind the report the longstanding connections of the report's instigators, Congressmen Souder and Santorum, to the Discovery Institute, whose Program Director is Stephen C. Meyer, author of the paper Sternberg published. In 2000 Souder co-hosted a congressional briefing on behalf of the Discovery Institute intended to drum up political support for intelligent design and read a defense of intelligent design prepared by the Discovery Institute into the congressional record. Santorum worked with the Discovery Institute's program director Phillip E. Johnson
in 2000 and 2001 drafting the pro-intelligent design Santorum Amendment and in March 2006 wrote the foreword for the book, Darwin's Nemesis: Phillip Johnson And the Intelligent Design Movement a collection of essays largely by Discovery Institute fellows honoring Johnson as "father" of the intelligent design movement. Contained in the appendix to the Souder report is a letter from the director of the Smithsonian where it is revealed that Sternberg demanded that they give him a $300,000 grant to make up for his allegedly lost research time; he was turned down. Sternberg's appointment as a Smithsonian Institution research associate was from January 2004 through January 2007. Research associates are not employees of the Museum and appointments are typically awarded for up to three years.
As one of the Discovery Institute intelligent design campaigns
, the Institute conducted extensive lobbying and public relations efforts on Sternberg's behalf, including arranging for articles by Institute Fellows to be published in the mainstream press. A film released in April 2008 featuring Ben Stein
, Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed
, discusses the Sternberg controversy, but, according to Scientific American
, misrepresents several key facts.
Controversy
Controversy is a state of prolonged public dispute or debate, usually concerning a matter of opinion. The word was coined from the Latin controversia, as a composite of controversus – "turned in an opposite direction," from contra – "against" – and vertere – to turn, or versus , hence, "to turn...
concept of intelligent design
Intelligent design
Intelligent design is the proposition that "certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, not an undirected process such as natural selection." It is a form of creationism and a contemporary adaptation of the traditional teleological argument for...
in a scientific journal, and the subsequent questions of whether proper editorial procedures had been followed and whether it was properly peer review
Peer review
Peer review is a process of self-regulation by a profession or a process of evaluation involving qualified individuals within the relevant field. Peer review methods are employed to maintain standards, improve performance and provide credibility...
ed. One of the primary criticisms of the intelligent design movement
Intelligent design movement
The intelligent design movement is a neo-creationist religious campaign for broad social, academic and political change to promote and support the idea of "intelligent design," which asserts that "certain features of the universe and of living things are...
is that there are no research papers supporting their positions in peer reviewed scientific journal
Scientific journal
In academic publishing, a scientific journal is a periodical publication intended to further the progress of science, usually by reporting new research. There are thousands of scientific journals in publication, and many more have been published at various points in the past...
s.
On 4 August 2004, an article by Stephen C. Meyer
Stephen C. Meyer
Stephen C. Meyer is an American scholar, philosopher and advocate for intelligent design. He helped found the Center for Science and Culture of the Discovery Institute , which is the main organisation behind the intelligent design movement. Before joining the DI, Meyer was a professor at...
(Director of Discovery Institute
Discovery Institute
The Discovery Institute is a non-profit public policy think tank based in Seattle, Washington, best known for its advocacy of intelligent design...
's Center for Science and Culture
Center for Science and Culture
The Center for Science and Culture , formerly known as the Center for the Renewal of Science and Culture , is part of the Discovery Institute, a conservative Christian think tank in the United States...
) titled "The origin of biological information and the higher taxonomic categories", appeared in the peer-reviewed journal, Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington
Biological Society of Washington
The Biological Society of Washington is a world wide acting scientific organisation established on 3 December 1880 in Washington, D.C.. The original purpose was "to encourage the study of the Biological Sciences and to hold meetings at which papers shall be read and discussed." The current primary...
. The journal's publisher claims the editor, Richard Sternberg
Richard Sternberg
Richard M. Sternberg is an American scientist. Sternberg believes intelligent design should be part of the discussion about evolution and the origin of life on Earth. Although he is not a proponent of intelligent design, Dr. Sternberg has been critical of the mainstream in evolutionary biology for...
, went outside the usual review procedures to allow Meyer's article to be published in his last issue as editor. Sternberg disputes the claims. Meyer's article was a literature review
Literature review
A literature review is a body of text that aims to review the critical points of current knowledge including substantive findings as well as theoretical and methodological contributions to a particular topic...
article, and contained no new primary scholarship itself on the topic of intelligent design.
On 7 September 2004, the publisher of the journal, the Council of the Biological Society of Washington, released a statement repudiating the article:
The same statement vowed that proper review procedures would be followed in the future and endorsed a resolution published by the American Association for the Advancement of Science
American Association for the Advancement of Science
The American Association for the Advancement of Science is an international non-profit organization with the stated goals of promoting cooperation among scientists, defending scientific freedom, encouraging scientific responsibility, and supporting scientific education and science outreach for the...
, which states that there is no credible scientific evidence supporting intelligent design. On September 18, the Discovery Institute issued a statement exulting the publication of Meyer's paper in a peer-reviewed journal, and chastising the National Center for Science Education
National Center for Science Education
The National Center for Science Education is a non-profit organization based in Oakland, California affiliated with the American Association for the Advancement of Science. It is the United States' leading anti-creationist organization, and defends the teaching of evolutionary biology and opposes...
for stating that the paper should not have been published. The Biological Society of Washington's president, Roy McDiarmid called Sternberg's decision to publish Meyer's article "a really bad judgment call on the editor's part" and it was doubtful whether the three scientists who peer reviewed the article and recommended it for publication were evolutionary biologists.
The peer review process
Sternberg insists the paper was properly peer reviewed, and rejects the reason given by the journal for disavowing the article, saying:A series of articles in Skeptic
Skeptic (U.S. magazine)
Skeptic is a quarterly science education and science advocacy magazine published internationally by The Skeptics Society, a nonprofit organization devoted to promoting scientific skepticism and resisting the spread of pseudoscience, superstition, and irrational beliefs...
criticized the decision to publish the article. Michael Shermer
Michael Shermer
Michael Brant Shermer is an American science writer, historian of science, founder of The Skeptics Society, and Editor in Chief of its magazine Skeptic, which is largely devoted to investigating pseudoscientific and supernatural claims. The Skeptics Society currently has over 55,000 members...
disputed Sternberg's qualifications as a peer reviewer, stating that it dealt less with the areas Sternberg was qualified to review (systematics
Systematics
Biological systematics is the study of the diversification of terrestrial life, both past and present, and the relationships among living things through time. Relationships are visualized as evolutionary trees...
and taxonomy
Taxonomy
Taxonomy is the science of identifying and naming species, and arranging them into a classification. The field of taxonomy, sometimes referred to as "biological taxonomy", revolves around the description and use of taxonomic units, known as taxa...
) than it did paleontology
Paleontology
Paleontology "old, ancient", ὄν, ὀντ- "being, creature", and λόγος "speech, thought") is the study of prehistoric life. It includes the study of fossils to determine organisms' evolution and interactions with each other and their environments...
, for which many members of the society would have been better qualified to peer review the paper; at that time the Society had three members who were experts on Cambrian invertebrates
Cambrian explosion
The Cambrian explosion or Cambrian radiation was the relatively rapid appearance, around , of most major phyla, as demonstrated in the fossil record, accompanied by major diversification of other organisms, including animals, phytoplankton, and calcimicrobes...
, the subject discussed in Meyer's paper. A follow-up article by Ed Brayton criticized Sternberg's decision to review the paper, given his ties to a known movement that opposes the theory of evolution:
Doubts were raised whether the reviewers were evolutionary biologists. According to an article by the Society of Academic Authors Meyer said the article grew out of a presentation he made at a conference attended by Richard Sternberg where they discussed the possibility of a paper for society's journal. Observers have pointed to affiliations that in most circumstances would have disqualified Sternberg from reviewing an article on intelligent design. They note that Sternberg is a Fellow of the International Society for Complexity, Information and Design
International Society for Complexity, Information and Design
The International Society for Complexity, Information, and Design was a non-profit professional society that promoted intelligent design...
, a Discovery Institute-affiliated group dedicated to promoting intelligent design. Sternberg is also a signatory of the Discovery Institute's A Scientific Dissent From Darwinism
A Scientific Dissent From Darwinism
A Scientific Dissent from Darwinism is a statement issued in 2001 by the Discovery Institute, a conservative non-profit public policy think tank based in Seattle, Washington, USA, best known for its advocacy of intelligent design.The statement expresses skepticism about the ability of random...
statement "We are skeptical of claims for the ability of random mutation and natural selection to account for the complexity of life. Careful examination of the evidence for Darwinian theory should be encouraged."
Sternberg claims to have also checked with a Council member and to have followed the standard practice for peer review:
Of the four "well-qualified biologists with five PhDs" Sternberg identifies, one was Sternberg himself, contributing his double doctorate to the total he cited. Sternberg's claim of following proper peer review procedures directly contradicts the published public statement of his former employer, the publisher of the journal, that the proper procedures were not followed resulting in the article's retraction. In previous years the Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington had published yearly lists of all the people who had served as peer reviewers. That list is absent for 2004, the year of the incident. Sternberg has repeatedly refused to identify the three "well-qualified biologists," citing personal concerns over professional repercussions for them.
Criticism
In a review of Meyer's article The origin of biological information and the higher taxonomic categories, Alan Gishlick, Nick MatzkeNick Matzke
Nicholas J. Matzke is the former Public Information Project Director at the National Center for Science Education and served an instrumental role in NCSE's preparation for the 2005 Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District trial...
, and Wesley R. Elsberry
Wesley R. Elsberry
Dr. Wesley Royce Elsberry is a marine biologist with an interdisciplinary background in zoology, computer science, and wildlife and fisheries sciences. He has become involved in the creation-evolution controversy.- Biography :...
claimed it contained poor scholarship, that it failed to cite and specifically rebut the actual data supporting evolution, and "constructed a rhetorical edifice out of omission of relevant facts, selective quoting, bad analogies, knocking down straw men, and tendentious interpretations." Further examination of the article revealed that it was substantially similar to previously published articles co-authored by Meyer.
Critics of Sternberg believe that he was biased in the matter, arguing that Sternberg's close personal and ideological connections to the paper's author suggest at least the appearance of conflict of interest. They cite as evidence Sternberg's presentation in 2002 of a lecture on intelligent design at the Research And Progress in Intelligent Design (RAPID) conference where Stephen C. Meyer, the author of the paper Sternberg published, also presented a lecture. The explicit purpose of the RAPID conference was to "form new collaborations among scientists seeking to do research on the interface between science and faith, particularly within the context of ID". Only intelligent design advocates spoke at it, and at least one intelligent design critic was expressly forbidden to attend it. It was organized and hosted by the International Society for Complexity, Information and Design
International Society for Complexity, Information and Design
The International Society for Complexity, Information, and Design was a non-profit professional society that promoted intelligent design...
(ISCID), a group dedicated to promoting intelligent design, of which Sternberg is a Fellow. ISCID is affiliated with the Discovery Institute, hub of the intelligent design movement, where Meyer serves as the Program Director of the Center for Science and Culture
Center for Science and Culture
The Center for Science and Culture , formerly known as the Center for the Renewal of Science and Culture , is part of the Discovery Institute, a conservative Christian think tank in the United States...
. Critics also note that Sternberg also sat on the editorial board of the Baraminology Study Group, which studies "creation biology" and whose website is hosted by Bryan College
Bryan College
Bryan College is a Christian liberal arts college in Dayton, Tennessee. It was founded in the aftermath of the 1925 Scopes Trial to establish an institution of higher education that would teach from a Christian worldview.-History:...
, a conservative Christian school named after anti-Darwin lawyer William Jennings Bryan
William Jennings Bryan
William Jennings Bryan was an American politician in the late-19th and early-20th centuries. He was a dominant force in the liberal wing of the Democratic Party, standing three times as its candidate for President of the United States...
made famous by the Scopes Trial
Scopes Trial
The Scopes Trial—formally known as The State of Tennessee v. John Thomas Scopes and informally known as the Scopes Monkey Trial—was a landmark American legal case in 1925 in which high school science teacher, John Scopes, was accused of violating Tennessee's Butler Act which made it unlawful to...
.
The American Association for the Advancement of Science, in a position statement describing the events around the controversy, said "Given these associations, Dr. Sternberg would appear to be, at very least, an advocate for 'intelligent design' and critical of standard peer review processes as they bear on the scientific assessment of the 'intelligent design' hypothesis." Critics describe Sternberg's explanation of events, that a pro-intelligent design paper just happened to find its way to a publication with a sympathetic editor ultimately responsible for ensuring proper peer review and editing of his last issue, and that he decided it was appropriate to deal with the review process in person on a subject in which he has a personal interest, as improbable and that "people who want us to believe that the publication process outlined [by Sternberg and his defenders] was transparent and only had to do with science" are "disingenuous."
Journalist Chris Mooney has compared the Sternberg controversy to that of a paper published by climate change skeptic
Climate change denial
Climate change denial is a term used to describe organized attempts to downplay, deny or dismiss the scientific consensus on the extent of global warming, its significance, and its connection to human behavior, especially for commercial or ideological reasons...
s Willie Soon
Willie Soon
Willie Wei-Hock Soon is an astrophysicist at the Solar and Stellar Physics Division of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. Soon has testified before Congress on the issue of climate change He is known for his views that most global warming is caused by solar variation...
and Sallie Baliunas
Sallie Baliunas
Sallie Baliunas is an astrophysicist at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in the Solar, Stellar, and Planetary Sciences Division and formerly Deputy Director of the Mount Wilson Observatory. She serves as Senior Scientist at the George C. Marshall Institute in Washington, DC, and...
in Climate Change, where a sympathetic editor Chris de Freitas
Chris de Freitas
Chris de Freitas is an Associate Professor in the School of Environment at the University of Auckland in New Zealand.-Education and professional career:...
allowed it to be published, despite its lack of scientific merit.
Smithsonian controversy
After the peer review controversy became public, Sternberg filed a religious discrimination complaint against the Smithsonian InstitutionSmithsonian Institution
The Smithsonian Institution is an educational and research institute and associated museum complex, administered and funded by the government of the United States and by funds from its endowment, contributions, and profits from its retail operations, concessions, licensing activities, and magazines...
's National Museum of Natural History
National Museum of Natural History
The National Museum of Natural History is a natural history museum administered by the Smithsonian Institution, located on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., United States. Admission is free and the museum is open 364 days a year....
, where he had an unpaid appointment as a research associate, while employed by the National Institutes of Health
National Institutes of Health
The National Institutes of Health are an agency of the United States Department of Health and Human Services and are the primary agency of the United States government responsible for biomedical and health-related research. Its science and engineering counterpart is the National Science Foundation...
.
Sternberg claims that he was "targeted for retaliation and harassment" and subject to efforts to remove him from the museum in retaliation for his views in support of creationism. He continues to cite a letter by the United States Office of Special Counsel
United States Office of Special Counsel
The United States Office of Special Counsel is a permanent independent federal investigative and prosecutorial agency whose basic legislative authority comes from three federal statutes, the Civil Service Reform Act, the Whistleblower Protection Act and the Hatch Act...
as supporting his version of events, despite the fact that the Office of Special Counsel did not proceed beyond its initial investigation. Pim Van Meurs and other critics observed that the Office of Special Counsel lacked jurisdiction over the matter and so his claim was unlikely to proceed, and that even though it made no official findings or conclusions, the response from the Office of Special Counsel provided Sternberg and the Discovery Institute putative evidence and talking points supporting their claim that the scientific community discriminates against intelligent design proponents. In a Wall Street Journal op-ed article, Discovery Institute Senior Fellow David Klinghoffer
David Klinghoffer
David Klinghoffer is an author and essayist, and a proponent of intelligent design. He is a Senior Fellow of the Discovery Institute, the organization that is the driving force behind the intelligent design movement...
portrayed Sternberg as a martyr and victim of discrimination, a tactic used often by design proponents.
In response, Sternberg's supervisor at the Smithsonian, Jonathan Coddington, responded publicly disputing Sternberg's and Klinghoffer's depiction of events. Coddington states that Sternberg was never dismissed, nor was he a paid employee, and that he was never the target of discrimination, and remained serving at the museum up to that time.
In August, 2005 the Office of Special Counsel dropped Sternberg's religious discrimination complaint against the Smithsonian Institution. It was determined that as an unpaid research associate at the Smithsonian, Sternberg was not actually an employee, and thus the Office of Special Counsel had no jurisdiction. Nick Matzke
Nick Matzke
Nicholas J. Matzke is the former Public Information Project Director at the National Center for Science Education and served an instrumental role in NCSE's preparation for the 2005 Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District trial...
, Jason Rosenhouse and other critics have commented that the Office of Special Counsel itself appears biased in its initial handling of the matter, given the links between the religious right
Christian right
Christian right is a term used predominantly in the United States to describe "right-wing" Christian political groups that are characterized by their strong support of socially conservative policies...
and the Republican Party, with George W. Bush
George W. Bush
George Walker Bush is an American politician who served as the 43rd President of the United States, from 2001 to 2009. Before that, he was the 46th Governor of Texas, having served from 1995 to 2000....
appointee James McVay authoring its opinion.
In a November, 2005 National Public Radio report on the affair Sternberg stated "I'm not an evangelical, I'm not a fundamentalist, I'm not a young earth creationist, I'm not a theistic evolutionist". Sternberg said McVay "related to me, 'the Smithsonian Institution's reaction to your publishing the Meyer article was far worse than you imagined'." Barbara Bradley Hagerty, NPR's religion reporter, said Sternberg himself believes intelligent design is "fatally flawed."
In December 2006 a partisan report was issued by Mark Souder
Mark Souder
Mark Edward Souder is an American Republican politician who was a U.S. Representative from Indiana from 1995 to 2010.During the 1980s and early 1990s, he worked as a congressional aide to Dan Coats and committee staff director. He was elected to his congressional seat in 1994...
, on the basis of information he and fellow Republican representative and intelligent design advocate Rick Santorum
Rick Santorum
Richard John "Rick" Santorum is a lawyer and a former United States Senator from the commonwealth of Pennsylvania. Santorum was the chairman of the Senate Republican Conference -making him the third-ranking Senate Republican from 2001 until his leave in 2007. Santorum is considered both a social...
(author of the pro-ID Santorum Amendment
Santorum Amendment
The Santorum Amendment was an amendment to the 2001 education funding bill which became known as the No Child Left Behind Act, proposed by former Republican United States Senator Rick Santorum from Pennsylvania, which promotes the teaching of intelligent design while questioning the academic...
) had requested, calling into question the Smithsonian's treatment of Sternberg and repeating many of Sternberg's claims. The report was commissioned by Souder in his capacity as subcommittee chairman of the House of Representatives
United States House of Representatives
The United States House of Representatives is one of the two Houses of the United States Congress, the bicameral legislature which also includes the Senate.The composition and powers of the House are established in Article One of the Constitution...
Committee on Government Reform, written by his subcommittee staff, but published by Souder as an individual representative without it being officially accepted into the Congressional Record. This is contrary to oft-repeated claims by the Discovery Institute and other design proponents that the report represents an official position by the Committee supporting Sternberg's claims of discrimination.
Observers have said that facts of the case simply do not support the conclusions of the report nor is the report an official report of the committee. They say that the Discovery Institute is using the report to portray Sternberg specifically, and design proponents in general, as victims of persecution. They also say the Souder report is a repackaging of the Office of Special Council's previous findings from August 2005 and contains nothing new, consisting of "the OSC findings restated and used as a form of evidence in and of themselves" and attacks the Smithsonian for "not accepting the OSC's findings at face value." They cite as evidence of a biased motive behind the report the longstanding connections of the report's instigators, Congressmen Souder and Santorum, to the Discovery Institute, whose Program Director is Stephen C. Meyer, author of the paper Sternberg published. In 2000 Souder co-hosted a congressional briefing on behalf of the Discovery Institute intended to drum up political support for intelligent design and read a defense of intelligent design prepared by the Discovery Institute into the congressional record. Santorum worked with the Discovery Institute's program director Phillip E. Johnson
Phillip E. Johnson
Phillip E. Johnson is a retired UC Berkeley law professor and author. He became a born-again Christian while a tenured professor and is considered the father of the intelligent design movement...
in 2000 and 2001 drafting the pro-intelligent design Santorum Amendment and in March 2006 wrote the foreword for the book, Darwin's Nemesis: Phillip Johnson And the Intelligent Design Movement a collection of essays largely by Discovery Institute fellows honoring Johnson as "father" of the intelligent design movement. Contained in the appendix to the Souder report is a letter from the director of the Smithsonian where it is revealed that Sternberg demanded that they give him a $300,000 grant to make up for his allegedly lost research time; he was turned down. Sternberg's appointment as a Smithsonian Institution research associate was from January 2004 through January 2007. Research associates are not employees of the Museum and appointments are typically awarded for up to three years.
As one of the Discovery Institute intelligent design campaigns
Discovery Institute intelligent design campaigns
Discovery Institute intelligent design campaigns are a series of related public relations campaigns conducted by the Discovery Institute which seek to promote intelligent design while attempting to discredit evolutionary biology, which the Institute terms "Darwinism." The Discovery Institute is the...
, the Institute conducted extensive lobbying and public relations efforts on Sternberg's behalf, including arranging for articles by Institute Fellows to be published in the mainstream press. A film released in April 2008 featuring Ben Stein
Ben Stein
Benjamin Jeremy "Ben" Stein is an American actor, writer, lawyer, and commentator on political and economic issues. He attained early success as a speechwriter for American presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford...
, Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed
Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed
Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed is a 2008 documentary film, directed by Nathan Frankowski and hosted by Ben Stein. The film contends that the mainstream science establishment suppresses academics who believe they see evidence of intelligent design in nature and who criticize evidence supporting...
, discusses the Sternberg controversy, but, according to Scientific American
Scientific American
Scientific American is a popular science magazine. It is notable for its long history of presenting science monthly to an educated but not necessarily scientific public, through its careful attention to the clarity of its text as well as the quality of its specially commissioned color graphics...
, misrepresents several key facts.
External links
- The origin of biological information and the higher taxonomic categories, Meyer's paper that started the controversy
- Sternberg's home page presenting his allegations concerning the controversy
- Comments from Sternberg's Smithsonian supervisor, Jonathan Coddington in response to the Wall Street Journal editorial, from Panda's Thumb