See The Design
Inference for a complete
source of the writings of William A. Dembski.
See The
Anti-Evolutionists: William A. Dembski for
the most complete source of writings by his many critics.
A single
comprehensive paper now exists that reviews William
Dembski's
mathematical and scientific errors and will enable you to understand
and
refute his concept of complex specified information (downloads as a
PDF file).
This page now contains every newspaper article, press
release,
and journal report I have about this controversy. I request that
readers
please send me additional written materials you have that are missing
here.
[From the original MPC website--removed in 2000.]
The Michael Polanyi Center derives its name from the physical chemist and philosopher Michael Polanyi (1891-1976). Polanyi was a world-class physical chemist who turned to philosophy at the height of his scientific career because he was dismayed at the abuses and restrictions that materialist philosophy, especially in its Marxist guise, was inflicting on scientific research. The influential approach to the philosophy of science he articulated in response to this crisis was thoroughly non-reductive in character. He illustrated how philosophical, religious, psychological, sociological, and scientific concerns interact to affect each other's development, arguing that each perspective is essential and that none can be reduced to any other. Polanyi extended this multi-leveled analysis into his discussion of complexity in nature, arguing, for example, that the sort of complexity exhibited in biology could never be reduced to the laws of physics and chemistry. The information content of a biological whole exceeds that of the sum of its parts. His concern for the unhealthy effects of philosophical naturalism in science, his recognition that reductionism as a universal strategy in the sciences must fail, and his emphasis on the need for multiple levels in the understanding of any phenomenon, make Michael Polanyi the ideal representative for the center that bears his name.
The Michael Polanyi Center (MPC) seeks to develop a scientifically responsible design-theoretic alternative to the non-telic approaches that currently dominate complex systems theory, thereby promoting awareness of the ways naturalism and reductionism constrain both theory and methodology in contemporary science. This goal is pursued through both research and education. The scientific research of the MPC focuses on the development and outworking of models in the physical, biological, and social sciences that recognize the irreducible character of various classes of information-theoretic structures. This research challenges the dominance of naturalism as the philosophical matrix for scientific practice, and raises important questions in the conceptual foundations of science. As a consequence, the MPC is concerned to study how science, philosophy, and religion interact and influence each other, and the effects this has on the culture at large. Knowledge of this research is disseminated to the academic community through the publication of books and articles in technical journals, as well as through the organization of a variety of academic meetings and seminars. Areas of special interest include the history and philosophy of science, information and complexity theory as a framework for scientific research, and the interactions among science, religion, and culture. The significance of the MPC's research and educational efforts are communicated more broadly through articles and books aimed at a popular audience, and through workshops for lay audiences and pre-college students.
An Interdisciplinary Conference on the Role of Naturalism in Science
Dates: April 12-15, 2000
Place: Baylor University
OVERVIEW: Is the universe self-contained or does it require something beyond itself to explain its existence and internal function? Philosophical naturalism takes the universe to be self-contained, and it is widely presupposed throughout science. Even so, the idea that nature points beyond itself has recently been reformulated with respect to a number of issues. Consciousness, the origin of life, the unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics at modeling the physical world, and the fine-tuning of universal constants are just a few of the problems that critics have claimed are incapable of purely naturalistic explanation. Do such assertions constitute arguments from incredulity -- an unwarranted appeal to ignorance? If not, is the explanation of such phenomena beyond the pale of science? Is it, perhaps, possible to offer cogent philosophical and even scientific arguments that nature does point beyond itself? The aim of this conference is to examine such questions.
President Robert B. Sloan Jr. speaks on Christian higher education and the university's place in it.
March 27, 2000
Baylor has long been the focus of criticism for its insistence on maintaining a strong Christian element in an academic environment. Most recently, controversy surrounding the Michael Polanyi Center, intended to study creationism or intelligent design theory, has left the administration stinging from charges that they are pursuing pseudo-science, based more on religious convictions than scientific reality.
President Robert B. Sloan Jr. has met his critics head-on, continuing to push his vision for a blending of faith and learning. The following is a transcript of a March 27 interview with Sloan about this vision and his response to critics. It has been edited for space.
As a private, Christian institution, does Baylor have a unique role in higher education? What is that role?
In the 20th century we have seen a decline in religiously oriented, church-related institutions of higher learning and I think, therefore, that Baylor has both an opportunity and responsibility to attempt to understand the implication for higher education of the Christian confession that Jesus Christ is Lord.
I think the Christian faith is a great historical, theological, moral, spiritual and intellectual tradition. It is complex and varied, but it is not anything you want to make it. There are core convictions and there is something that can be called Christian conviction. Baylor is an institution that grew up out of Christian conviction, particularly Baptist Christian conviction. While the world has changed enormously in the last 155 years in terms of industry, technology, world wars, nations, politics and teaching, and Baylor must stay attuned to all of those, nonetheless there is a Christian tradition and we must seek to provide the finest possible educational experience for our students within the world view, intellectual framework and nurturing environment of Christian faith.
You spoke both of a Christian tradition and a Baptist tradition. Is Baylor replacing its Baptist identification with a Christian identification?
We are not replacing our Baptist identification with a Christian identification. Being a Baptist is a subset of being a Christian. If you're not Christian you can't be a Baptist. Unfortunately I think there are some people who extract Baptist principles from the historic Christian faith or extract Baptist politics from the epic of the historic Christian faith. That of course is a social and spiritual tragedy, but that is not the way it should be.
First of all, to be a Baptist means to be a Christian. That doesn't mean that every student has to be a Baptist, or every professor or every staff member. Obviously not. But I do think it means we retain a vital connection to the particular voice and nuances of the Christian faith which Baptists have historically brought to the conversation.
I think it's important for us to maintain a critical mass of Baptist students and faculty and staff, but I think in fact it would be a mistake if everyone here were Baptist because I think we need the enriching experience of other faith traditions to keep Baylor vital and thoughtful. Generic Christianity is more easily described in the abstract, but I'm not sure it really exists. Every confession of faith occurs within a sociological and social context, and therefore every confession that Jesus Christ is Lord is going to be made within the framework of some sort of intellectual and ecclesiastical tradition.
I think it's important for Baylor to maintain its Baptist connectivity, but at the same time it's not either/or. It's very important for Baptists to understand they're located within the larger framework of the church. The Christian faith is larger than Baptists. The church is larger than the Baptist voice, but the Baptist voice is still important.
You've been accused of being too conservative and too liberal, too fundamentalist and too reformist. How do you see yourself?
I see myself as a Christian deeply committed to higher education and the importance of the Christian intellectual tradition as a force that shapes minds and shapes life. I see absolutely no contradiction between intellectual rigor and academic excellence on the one hand and a sincere, unapologetic Christian commitment on the other. I think higher education in America needs a distinctive Christian voice. There are Christian schools, I'm not saying we're the last one, but I think we are--on the Protestant side of Christiandom--we are the only major, comprehensive university that comes to mind that still pursues vigorously an agenda that seeks to integrate faith and learning. For the sake of diversity in American higher education, our voice is important.
What exactly do you mean when you talk about the integration of faith and learning?
It's a shorthand phrase. It can mean a lot of different things. First, when I say faith I am talking about a Christian faith, although I do think it is important for Christians to understand and appreciate the Jewish faith because the Jewish faith is the mother of the Christian faith.
I have an assumption that truth is one. I believe in the unity of truth. Not that we fully know the truth, of course not, but I believe while we have not yet in any measure filled in the gaps and never will, I believe in the unity of truth. So that whether one enters this great field of truth as a physicist or a theologian, a musician or an athlete, if you think about life, ultimately the great truths of the empirical world and the great truths of the philosophical world cohere and are consistent with one another. If the Christian faith is true, then the truths of the Christian faith are consistent with what can be learned about the world from any other vantage point.
When we talk about the integration of faith and learning we are simply saying that if, from that artificial discipline of Chemistry, (for example) we look into this great multidimensional thing called truth, and the artificial discipline of Theology does the same, I think ultimately, even though they may come at this great thing called the truth at different angles and from far apart, that in their deepest structures, if we knew all that we could know, we would say, "Ah, they really do cohere. They fit."
This integration between faith and learning, some critics have referred to it as dangerous in a university setting because it replaces objectivity in an unbiased pursuit of the truth with subjectivity in approaching truth from a pre-designated viewpoint.
Well, it's very naïve for anyone to say that he or she has an objective point of view. I challenge the assumption from the word go. Anyone who claims objectivity has assumed the stability of the environment and the stability of his or her senses. He or she has assumed something about an order to things. He or she has made assumptions about reasonableness and the nature of reality. He or she has made assumptions about the orderliness of reality and how when things are objectively observed this can be written up and replicated by others. There are many assumptions that are at work there, and so it's philosophically very naïve for anyone to say that if you've got a perspective, therefore your work is somehow tainted. Everyone has a perspective.
I think there is nothing more dangerous, frankly, than someone who would try to assume that he or she has no assumptions, that he or she has achieved objectivity because that's when, under the guise of objectivity, great harm is done. People under the guise of objectivity as well as under the guise of ideological perspective have done great harm in the world. We all have a perspective. Part of being human is this ability to reflect and to ask ourselves questions, to have this self-reflective capacity. So it's not do I have assumptions, but can I reflect upon these assumptions and can I seek to see that these assumptions do not blind me to all of reality and to what all is going on.
Polanyi Center's views may hurt department reputations, some fear
by Blair Martin
The Baylor Lariat
April 6, 2000
http://www3.baylor.edu/Lariat/Archives/2000/20000406/art-front01.html
Baylor's Michael Polanyi Center, a new center devoted to the study of science and religion, is hosting a conference, "The Nature of Nature," Wednesday at various campus buildings. Because of the center's controversial views, faculty will be watching closely.
"The purpose of the conference is for the scientists, philosophers, historians and theists to get together and talk about the complexity in nature in relation to scientific and philosophical religious concerns," said Dr. Bruce Gordon, associate director of the Michael Polanyi Center.
The Polanyi center sees itself as creating a dialogue connecting religion with the sciences.
"We see science and religion as complementary ways of looking at the earth because they have mutual relevance to each other," Gordon said. "I think they contribute to a more completely adequate understanding of the world and in order for us to derive to that state, we must take into account the relationship of science and religion and find harmony in between."
However, many professors in Baylor's arts and science departments are alarmed that the center's rhetoric will generate negative publicity that could harm the reputations of their departments.
"I am concerned as a science professor because something involving the sciences occurred without us [faculty] knowing about it," said Dr. Joe Yelderman, a geology professor.
Yelderman said he was not aware the center existed until after looking on Baylor's Web site and finding that the Polanyi Center stated that it was involved in the natural sciences.
"As a professor, I am concerned that people will make us guilty by association and assume that we are associated with or linked to this organization that is very well established as a pseudo-science rather than science," Yelderman said.
Dr. Charles Weaver, associate professor of psychology and neuroscience, agrees that the new center may jeopardize the integrity of Baylor science degrees.
"Historically, Baylor has been successful in attracting potential pre-med students and accomplished faculty," Weaver said. "But, if I'm a potential physician, I am not going to a school that has questions about scientific integrity."
In response, Gordon attributes much of the debate as a misunderstanding of the intended purpose of the center.
"I think the science faculty has been concerned that we might be infringing on their area of expertise," Gordon said. "What we are doing is merely asking the question of whether there are empirical means in nature. The significance of that, of course, is not a scientific question; it needs to be evaluated from the perspective of philosophy and theology."
Gordon said he thinks the conference will serve as evidence of the center's good faith and the legitimate nature of its research. He invited faculty to attend a session they find interesting.
Though Yelderman and Weaver agree that the conference will be a good test for the Polanyi center, they do not plan to attend because of time constraints and the belief that the conference's approach to science is unproductive.
"One of the many problems that many of us scientists have is that it is very time-consuming to discuss our views," Yelderman said. "That is not the productive end of science. I would rather experience science, through my students or in my own research, than just talk about it."
Weaver said he will not attend because his colleagues' input is not encouraged.
"We are asked to observe, but our input has never been asked for," he said.
The Michael Polanyi Center, established in October 1999, consists of two people, director William Dembski, mathematician and philosopher, and associate-director Gordon, philosopher of physics.
The concept for creating such a center was sparked after Dr. Michael Beatty, director of the Institute of Faith and Learning and philosophy professor, and Dr. Donald Schmeltekopf, provost and vice-president of academic affairs, read the articles of director William Dembski.
They approached Dembski with the idea of creating a research center that would be a component of the Institute of Faith and Learning.
Named after Michael Polanyi, a physical chemist who studied the interaction of science, philosophy and religion in the 1930s, the center is affiliated with Baylor's Institute of Faith and Learning. It was established as a research initiative, focused on advancing the understanding of science, and exploring the interaction between science and religion.
Speakers from many disciplines, such as philosophy, theology and biology, plan to attend the event, including two Nobel Laureates, theoretical physicist Steven Weinberg of University of Texas in Austin and biochemist Christian de Duve of the Universite Catholique de Louvian in Belgium.
Guest speakers will discuss topics such as the origins of life and consciousness, the fine-tuning of physical constants, the effectiveness of mathematics at modeling the physical world and the role of naturalism in the history of science.
A pre-conference lecture will begin 3:30 p.m. Wednesday in the Cashion Academic Center.
Opening remarks will begin the conference at 7p.m. in Cashion.
Outgoing prof says Sloan is discouraging comment on issue
by Blair Martin
The Baylor Lariat
April 12, 2000
http://www3.baylor.edu/Lariat/Archives/2000/20000412/art-front01.html
When the Michael Polanyi Center was quietly established on the Baylor campus last fall, few people knew of its existence or how much controversy it would foster.
A debate over the reputation of Baylor as a university has erupted among the teachers and administrators, concerning the establishment of the center as a campus institute.
That debate intensified Tuesday, when an outgoing Baylor professor said President Robert Sloan is intimidating faculty into not commenting on the controversy.
"Faculty are not speaking out because Sloan can make their lives miserable," Dr. Lewis Barker, psychology and neuroscience professor, said. "They don't speak out for fear of their salaries and of being singled out by administration.
"I know you can't get many faculty responses, but the ones you have represent the majority of the faculty. The others are just too scared to speak out and want to hold on to their jobs."
The Polanyi Center -- which studies creationism or the intelligent design of nature, depending on the point of view taken-- is drawing criticism and support as it opens its Nature of Nature conference today.
The Michael Polanyi Center consists of two people: director William Dembski and associate director Bruce Gordon.
A committee has been established to evaluate the center's influence on Baylor's reputation.
At an arts and science faculty meeting in March, Dean Wallace Daniel told faculty members that he had heard "many strong concerns" relating to the center and that he, Dr. Donald Schmeltekopf, provost and vice president for academic affairs, and Dr. Keith Hartberg, biology chairman, would work to put the committee together. Schmeltekopf was out of town Tuesday and could not be reached for comment, despite several messages left for him this week.
Barker said there has been "unanimous consent that the Polanyi Center is detrimental to Baylor's science department."
Barker, who has taught at Baylor since 1972, is leaving Baylor to take a position as chairman of the psychology department at Auburn University. Barker is concerned with the center's promotion of creationism as a legitimate science and how it could potentially taint the integrity of students' degrees from Baylor.
Barker said President Sloan refuses to listen to the science departments' concerns.
"My best guess is that as long as President Sloan wants the Polanyi Center here, it will stay here," Barker said. "And it will continue to do what it wants, no matter what concerns the faculty have.
"The major concern of faculty is not that the Polanyi Center can do anything, but that Baylor's entire realm of science can be brought under suspicion."
Sloan is returning from out of town today and could not be reached for comment Tuesday. Messages were left at Sloan's office and at his home.
Dr. Joe Yelderman, a geology professor, agrees that the Polanyi Center could generate negative publicity that could harm the reputation of his department.
"As a professor, I am concerned that people will make us guilty by association and assume that we are associated or linked to these organizations that have been established as psuedo-science," Yelderman said.
Barker's colleague in psychology and neuroscience, Dr. Charles Weaver, associate professor, also worries about Baylor's reputation.
"Those of us who work really hard at trying to keep our reputations as uncompromised as scientists, find this frustrating to deal with," Weaver said.
According to Barker, the major concern of the faculty is the attempt by the Polanyi Center to use science to prove religion.
He told the Waco Tribune Herald in a Monday article, "I really don't want someone to say, as Dembski does, that he can prove the existence of God using statistical formulas. The problem with that is that if you disprove his argument, you prove there's no God."
Dr. Michael Beatty, director of the Institute of Faith and Learning and philosophy professor, disagrees with Barker. He believes that the Polanyi Center will enhance the academic quality of Baylor's science degrees and serve as an aid to the sciences.
"The purpose of the center is to help foster reflection and conversation between religion and the historical and philosophical nature of science," Beatty said. "The science department should know that there is no real danger, because it is not a religious center, nor a science center."
Gordon regards the debate between the departments as a "misunderstanding."
"I think the worries that have been expressed about the Polanyi Center are a misunderstanding as to what we are actually trying to do," Gordon said. "We are not creationists, we are merely asking whether there are empirical means in nature."
Gordon said the center studies the intelligent design of nature through various techniques in mathematics, such as probability, complexity, and information theories, the center can develop a method to detect signs and see if they can be applied to other structures, such as cosmological or biological forms.
Dr. Charles Garner, chemistry associate professor, agrees that there is a misunderstanding.
"The Polanyi Center's not talking about explaining God, it is simply talking about explaining its observations," Garner said. "Maybe science professors should be a little more careful in finding out what the center stands for."
However, Barker said he understands fully the nature of the Polanyi Center.
"How many times do I have to listen to Gordon and others tell us how much we do not understand?" Barker asked. "I understand perfectly and am not in the minority. How is that we [science faculty] can be all wrong and he [Gordon] be right?"
At the heart of the debate is the true definition of science. Critics of the center believe that science should be able to pass the test of peer review and should follow established criteria on whether to accept or reject findings, regardless of the outcome.
Scientists must accept the possibility their research will not produce expected results. Critics said they don't believe the center is capable of accepting alternative explanations.
"One of the cornerstones of academic life is peer review, you have people who will engage in debates on a level playing field and whether we are right or wrong, the consensus of one's peers plays a great role," Weaver said. "This, in my opinion, is out of that context."
Yelderman is waiting for the center to produce scientific works.
"There may be science involved, but I have not seen any at this stage," Yelderman said. "Just because someone uses mathematics or statistics, does not necessarily mean that it is science."
Garner disagrees with his colleagues and respects what the Polanyi Center is trying to accomplish.
"I think the center is a good thing," Garner said. "They are seeking out to answer some important and much need questions and are going about it very professionally."
Garner thinks that the Polanyi Center will enhance Baylor's science department.
"Science could never explain God, therefore God and science are always excluded from each other," Garner said. "They [Polanyi Center's researchers] are not talking about explaining God, they are talking about explaining their observations."
According to Garner, the center is approaching the study of evolution from a perspective that counters that of most scientists. He said the center studies theistic evolution, which "uses the facts of evolution but also involves God in the crucial points along the way." The alternative, according to Garner, would be atheistic evolution that has "no dominance by God, it is strictly the properties of chemistry and physics that can account for all these things."
Baylor faculty are not the only ones troubled by administration's decision.
Dr. Sahotra Sarkar, director of the history and philosophy of science program at the University of Texas in Austin, agrees that Baylor's faculty have a legitimate concern.
"I, for one, am extremely distressed by the decision of the center not to involve scientists at Baylor in its activities," Sarkar wrote in an email. "It almost seems that the center's staff have a fear of genuine science."
Sarkar is a plenary lecturer at the Nature of Nature conference. However, Sarkar will not pocket her speaking fees.
"In order to emphasize even further our distance from the pseudo-creationist agenda of the Polanyi Center, some of us-including me-are donating all or part of our honoraria to organizations that will promote the study of evolution in our schools," Sarkar said. "We are committed to a rational and scientific understanding of the world and our role in it."
Another concern of the Baylor arts and science faculty are the alternative science links, such as the Creationism Connection and Discovery Institute, that now appear on or connect to the Polanyi web site.
"We now show up in a cohort of people that Baylor has worked very hard at disassociating themselves with," Weaver said. "So, my concern is partly how quickly word is going to get out and how compromised it will make us look?"
Weaver considers the links "damning publicity" and is fearful such implications could scare off potential faculty and promising medical students.
Beatty understands their concern.
"I understand the science faculty's point of view regarding the web sites," Beatty said. "It is understandable how the center's interest is presented, or in this case, misrepresented."
Beatty said it was "regrettable that the net could be used to misrepresent your work" but explains that "when you are on the net, you are vulnerable to a lot of outside links and are unable to control who links to you or how your work is perceived."
Gordon agrees with Beatty that such links are unfortunate.
In an interview with the Waco Tribune Herald, Gordon said, "We have no control over who decides to link to our site. We do not endorse a connection to those sites at all. They didn't ask our permission. It would be better if they removed it, but we can't spend our time policing the Internet."
Professors continue to clash in wake of recent conference
by Blair Martin
The Baylor Lariat
April 18, 2000
http://www.baylor.edu/~Lariat/Archives/2000/20000418/art-front01.html
Critics and supporters alike attended the Nature of Nature conference sponsored by the Michael Polanyi Center last week.
Nancy Pearcey, senior fellow of the Discovery Institute, who attended the conference, explained the Intelligent Design Theory the Polanyi Center is studying.
The Discovery Institute, where Polanyi director William Dembski is a senior fellow, studies the theory they call intelligent design.
"The basic question that these scientists are trying to solve is, 'Is there anything beyond nature?'" Pearcey said.
Pearcey offers the example of a watch to illustrate her point.
"You pick up a watch in a field and ask where it did this come from? Is this a product of natural causes or is it made by a human being?" Pearcey said.
"As you look at it, you see the type of structure in the watch and see that that kind of structure can only come from human manufacture. You conclude that this watch was designed by people. So, the design argument is to go out in nature and to find things that have the same structure as the things that are made by intelligent beings."
According to Pearcey, bringing up the intelligent design theory at Baylor could only enhance the university.
"It will enhance it for a variety of reasons," Pearcey said. "One is, it's good to have debate. These guys are coming up with a genuine scientific argument, and it can't help but be stimulating."
Dr. William Craig, professor at Talbot School of Theology in California, said he thought the conference was very well-balanced and gave an interesting diversity of perspective.
"I think it's great that Baylor is doing this. For these ideas to be brought to the surface like this is the only way learning can be advanced. This kind of discussion is tremendously healthy and Baylor University should be proud," Craig said.
Dr. Walter Bradley, science professor at Texas A&M University, said the conference was a good opportunity to express an alternative view to science.
"It is always good to have another view," Bradley said. "Instead of wrestling with the nuts and bolts of science, you have the opportunity to meet and interact with people who have other thoughts and different views."
However, Dr. Sahotra Sarkar, associate professor of philosophy at University of Texas, remains skeptical of the Polanyi Center and the conference it sponsored.
"I haven't read all the sessions yet, but all the design theorists' arguments that I've heard are all old arguments that nobody writes about anyway," Sarkar said. "Clearly there has not been a single case where either side has convinced the other of anything at all."
Last week, Sarkar, who attended as a speaker, said he and others were not accepting the honorarium given to them by the Polanyi Center.
Instead, they will donate the money to other organizations that will promote the study of evolution in their schools.
Sarkar's colleague, Dr. Ed Zalta, a professor at Stanford, said he was going to split his honorarium between the American's Association of the Advancement of Science and the National Center for Science Education.
"I can't in good conscience accept the honorarium that they are going to pay me from either the center or the Discovery Institute," Zalta said.
Sarkar also questioned Baylor's affiliation with such a center.
"If you got some real scientists involved it might be a useful role. But so far, it doesn't," Sarkar said.
Sarkar also doubts that a center such as the Polanyi Center could be established at his university.
"There's a chance it could happen," Sarkar said. "And if it did, it would be the laughing stock of campus."
Zalta also doubts that such a center would exist at Stanford.
"I don't think it would have been established at Stanford." Zalta said. "I don't think the administration could have established an academic type of institution without consulting the faculty."
Despite the critics, Pearcey said she thinks the controversy surrounding Baylor and the Polanyi Center can only help by shedding light on a subject that needs attention.
"Everyone wants to get in on this controversy." Pearcey said. "So, it's good pedagogically. Students are more interested in it. They learn to think critically and to weigh data. They ask questions like 'Where's the data? Where's the facts? Do we have the evidence to support the conclusion? And this is all great stuff. This is the kind of thing education should be about," she said.
"As long as you keep it to the scientific data so that it's valid science, I think it will enhance the education."
Faculty Senate chair suggests dissolving Polanyi
by Blair Martin
The Baylor Lariat
April 19, 2000
http://www.baylor.edu/~Lariat/Archives/2000/20000419/art-front01.html
In a newsletter to the faculty, Dr. Robert Baird, chairman of the Faculty Senate, suggests that the dissolving of the Michael Polanyi Center could enhance the administration and faculty relationship.
Baird referred to the creation of the center as "one of the most divisive issues to have risen on Baylor campus during my 32 years on faculty."
Baird said the lack of faculty involvement is at the root of the debate.
"The crucial issue in this whole matter is the collegial relationship between the administration and the faculty," Baird wrote in the April issue of the Faculty Senate newsletter.
In an attempt to improve the relationship, a peer review committee, mainly composed of scholars from other universities, is in the works.
"This will be a standard academic review process," said Dr. Donald Schmeltekopf, provost and vice president for academic affairs. "This will help us assure as much objectivity as possible."
The administration hopes to use the committee to better communicate its intentions and address faculty concerns, an administration spokesman said.
But Baird's basic question remains unanswered.
"This does not get at the basic issue of initiating a Center without faculty consent," Baird wrote.
Baird also wrote that although the Center's purpose is to observe the connections between science and religion, Baylor's religion, philosophy and science departments were not consulted about its creation.
"The directors of the Center claim to be doing science; that is, they argue for introducing intelligent design into science as an explanatory category," Baird wrote. "Yet the Center was created without consultation with colleagues in the sciences."
According to Baird's newsletter, since directors Dr. William Dembski and Dr. Bruce Gordon both have degrees in philosophy, the philosophy department would be the obvious place for peer review.
"How would my colleagues and I feel and respond if a Center committed to 'advancing the understanding of philosophy' were created without consulting those of us in the philosophy department?" Baird asked.
Baird also mentioned that the Polanyi Center had failed to consider the role of the Herbert H. Reynolds Lectureship of History and Philosophy of Science.
Initiated in 1994-1995, Dr. Herbert H. Reynolds' last year as Baylor president, the lectureship was designed to evolve ultimately into an institution.
"This all came into play the year before I retired as president," Reynolds said. "The Board of Regents started the Herbert H. and Joy C. Reynolds Endowment Fund for University Excellence. From the initial $2 million, one-fourth went to the Herbert H. Reynolds Lectureship fund in hope to promote a better understanding of science."
Dr. Herbert H. Reynolds explained the original intent of his lectureship.
"This Lectureship has already been established," Reynolds said. "As the fund grows over time, the positions will change. The lectureship will become a professorship to be held by a full-time faculty member and then in another three or four years, it will be established into an institute."
Reynolds said that his lectureship would involve representatives from six of the science departments in order to ensure balanced, yet eclectic research and study.
by President Robert B. Sloan, Jr.
April 20, 2000
http://pr.baylor.edu/feat.fcgi?2000.04.20.polanyi
The establishment of the Michael Polanyi Center at Baylor University has generated a great deal of campus discussion these past few weeks and also attracted statewide media coverage. In light of the attention this Center and its work have received and the Baylor Faculty Senate's April 18 resolution calling on the administration to dissolve the Polanyi Center, I feel it is important for me to respond.
It has been suggested by some that the focus of this controversy should be on the procedures by which the Center was established and that the administration's failure to consult with the faculty in the creation of the Polanyi Center is the heart of the matter. Certainly those issues are important, but I do not believe they are the heart of the matter for two reasons: One, there was indeed some consultation with faculty. I do not recall or know all the details and all the individuals involved in the conversations, but I do know that some faculty both in the humanities and in the sciences conversed with Drs. William Dembski and Bruce Gordon, director and associate director of the Center, before it was established and later were aware of the creation of the Polanyi Center and its program charge. Unfortunately, it is now being commonly said, and repeated in the newspapers as if unqualified fact, that the Center was established without faculty consultation. The fact is, and I have readily admitted as much at the recent open forum sponsored by the Faculty Senate and elsewhere, that, in retrospect, there are some things the administration could have done to manage this process more effectively. There were some conversations with faculty and there could no doubt have been more. One can always do a better job of processing issues, but hindsight is 20/20.
The second reason I do not believe procedural issues are at the heart of this matter is that throughout higher education, and here at Baylor as well, there is a legitimate place for administrative initiative in academic matters. Certainly, there are different patterns and formats for both administrative and faculty involvement. Much depends upon the nature of the issue and/or the tradition of involvement in question. Obviously, for example, there is great involvement on the part of the faculty in the hiring process. On the other hand, there is also a lengthy tradition at Baylor with respect to the creation of various institutes and centers whereby there is a wide spectrum of involvement and/or initiative between faculty and administration.
Administrative initiative is certainly one (though not the only) means whereby institutes and centers and other academic enterprises can be begun. The Center for Jewish and American Studies, established about the same time as the Polanyi Center, is an example. Creation of that Center involved significant administrative initiative and leadership, though not without some conversation with faculty and others. There was no objection in that regard, I note, though it was potentially very controversial. Though how the Polanyi Center was established is an important matter, I do not agree that it is "the heart of the matter." In my experience, people often object to "the way things were done" as a rhetorical substitute for what was done. I think the more substantive issue here is the philosophical/ideological objection of some to the work of the Center itself. Again, I do not dismiss the other issues. They are important. But I do not think they are the heart of the matter.
If that were the case, there would have been objections to the initiation of any number of other institutes, centers, and/or academic programs at the University. Such has simply not been the case. The real objection here is to the substance of the issues raised by the Polanyi Center. Indeed, in the end, a final decision about the Polanyi Center must also be dependent upon the academic and intellectual substance of the Centers work. By dissolving the Center, as the Faculty Senate has proposed, we would in effect be imposing a form of censorship on the work of the Center. I believe there are matters of intellectual and academic integrity at stake here. Drs. Dembski and Gordon, both highly capable scholars with the credentials to support their qualifications to study the subjects that the Center was established to pursue, should be allowed to do their work. If their conclusions do not stand up to peer review, then so be it. But to quash their research and to mute their point of view because of political pressure and without sound intellectual cause is antithetical to everything for which a true university ought to stand. We should not be afraid to ask questions, even if they are politically incorrect. Indeed, I am proud of Baylor's willingness to ask questions which some are apparently afraid to entertain.
Provost Don Schmeltekopf, Dean Wallace Daniel and I met with a number of individuals several weeks ago to deal with the concerns expressed in regard to the Centers presence at Baylor. Such concerns are precisely the reason for our initiating a process whereby the work of the Polanyi Center can be evaluated. Our concern over these issues is also reflected in my extensive and, I believe, very transparent answers to the faculty questions delivered both in writing and in person at the March 2 Presidential Forum sponsored by the Faculty Senate. On that occasion, and on others, I reiterated my own deep and abiding support for the work of the sciences at Baylor. No one at Baylor has ever been asked to quit teaching evolution. No one will be. That is not the way ideas are generated, corrected, flourish or even die. The various evolutionary paradigms have a respectable intellectual history as working models that continue to promote discovery and to produce research and new research hypotheses. These paradigms have also from time to time been subjected to critique, some valuable, some not, and have themselves undergone revision. So it is with intellectual work. Ideas should rise and fall, or be revised, on their own merit.
My administration and I have worked tirelessly to provide the much-needed facilities, equipment, and programming that the sciences need for the 21st century. Further, I have made it abundantly clear where I stand on the question of "creation science." I think it is not good theology, and I would be embarrassed for what I understand to be creation science to be taught at Baylor University.
Nonetheless, I obviously do believe in the Creator God and that this is His creation, accomplished, mysteriously, through the agency of Jesus Christ. Those are historic Christian beliefs. Whether or not there are patterns of design, information, and purpose in this universe that can be detected by scientific processes, I do not know. I do think, however, that it is an interesting question. Indeed many people regard it as an issue of significant intellectual import. Surely it is fair game in a place like Baylor to ask such questions. It is simply too easy to dismiss as "creation science" every attempt to relate belief in the Creator God to the human processes of understanding the created order.
There are other constituencies both internal and external to the University who have been very complimentary of the Center's recent conference, "The Nature of Nature," and very positive about the courage Baylor has shown in tackling such a significant set of academic issues. Nonetheless, I return once again to my point: that these matters will not be decided on emotional grounds. Nor will the way the Center was established be determinative for whether or not the Polanyi Center should be dissolved. Nor, indeed, will the unfortunate behavior of some count for any arguments that it should stay. We are a university. These are matters of serious intellectual value and debate. The process that we agreed to several weeks ago is the process we will follow. There will be an evaluation committee/panel established of largely external membership to consider the academic and intellectual legitimacy, from both scientific and extra-scientific grounds, of the work of the Center.
Baylor has received much attention because of the Polanyi Center and the recent conference. We have received attention of both a negative and positive character. The last thing we can do now is allow these matters to be decided upon political grounds. I call upon all faculty to let the peer review committee do its work and make its recommendations. I am committed to treating the committee's recommendations with the utmost seriousness. Let us all proceed in a collegial manner worthy of the quality of discussion characteristic of a civil and intellectually rich university environment -- the kind we all so deeply treasure here at Baylor.
President says a committee will review center first
by John Drake
The Baylor Lariat
April 20, 2000
http://www.baylor.edu/~Lariat/Archives/2000/20000420/art-front03.html
President Robert B. Sloan Jr. rejected a faculty senate resolution to dissolve the Polanyi Center in Wednesday's State of the University address.
"We will not dissolve the Polanyi Center without going through the process that has been set forth." Sloan told the audience of primarily faculty members gathered in Barfield Drawing Room for the annual address. "We have utterly no intention of doing so."
Dr. Robert Baird, chairman of the philosophy department and acting chair of the faculty senate, said he accepted the president's position.
"While he and I differ with regard to the best method of proceeding here, he is the one in the position to make the decision."
Faculty members said they were not surprised by the president's announcement.
"I didn't anticipate them reversing themselves and adopting the senate's recommendation," said Dr. David Longfellow, associate professor of history. "What the senate wanted was for the administration to back up and start over."
Instead, the president indicated he will go forward with allowing a committee, composed primarily of scholars from other universities, to review the work of the Polanyi Center.
"I think that for the administration to choose a committee to evaluate an institute that the administration itself created neglects the need for an open and extended discussion within the Baylor community itself," Longfellow said.
Dr. Jay Losey, associate professor of English and chair-elect of the faculty senate, said its main concern was the lack of consultation with faculty in creating the institute.
"We are puzzled by the fact that this center was created, and up and running, and no one knew anything about it," he said.
If the center involved academic pursuits, Losey said, then faculty should have been consulted.
"Although it's a non-academic center, it suggests academic standing," he said. "The ordinary process of selecting a committee was not followed in this case."
He said no one from Baylor's religion, science or philosophy departments was consulted in creating the center.
Sloan told the audience that he recognizes the process involved in creating the center could have been better.
"In retrospect, it [the process] was not as good as it should have been, but not as bad as characterized by some."
After his address, Sloan said that in many cases "a center is an interdisciplinary project just to see if you have a question that needs study."
Sloan said he does not believe the conflict stems from the process involved in creating the center, but instead is rooted in a conflict with the substantive issues the center is dealing with.
Part of the center's purpose is to reconcile religion and science into a single Truth.
"The sciences are rightly disturbed because the very basis of modern science involves verification," Losey said. "There can be no verification of results in the intelligent design approach. If you dismiss or belittle evolution as a process, then you call into question the whole endeavor of modern science."
Both Sloan and Losey said the controversy will not lead to increased division between the faculty and administration, but for very different reasons.
"We're pretty much as divided as we can be," Losey said. "Although we're embroiled in this controversy, it's my deep belief that the administration knows the importance of communication and will do everything in its power not to let something like this happen again."
But Sloan said he is not worried about a division between the faculty and administration.
"There has been more conversation with faculty members than [one] would think," he said. "In the long run, it will promote more discussion."
Baylor University's Polanyi Center comes under fire from the university's faculty.
By John Wilson
Christianity Today
April 24, 2000
http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2000/117/12.0.html
When The Chronicle of Higher Education reported last week that the faculty senate of Baylor University voted 26-2 to recommend that the administration dissolve the recently established Michael Polanyi Center for Complexity, Information, and Design, many readers must have assumed that the new hotspot in the Darwin Wars was Waco, Texas. Move over, Kansas. After all, despite much huffing and puffing about procedural matters&emdash;the center was established by administrative fiat, under the auspices of the university's Institute for Faith and Learning, rather than through traditional faculty channels&emdash;it is clear that opposition to the center has a great deal to do with the ongoing debate over the "intelligent design" movement, which one Baylor faculty member describes as "stealth creationism." But the controversy at Baylor is more complicated than simply a battle between defenders of the Darwinian establishment and champions of intelligent design, and those complications have much to tell us about the challenges facing Christians who are committed to excellence in scholarship&emdash;and who are convinced that their faith and their scholarship do not belong in separate compartments, sealed off from each other.
The Baylor story begins with Robert B. Sloan, Jr., who has been president of the university since 1995. Sloan, a New Testament scholar with a doctorate in theology from the University of Basel, has sought to increase Baylor's academic excellence while re-emphasizing the university's Christian tradition. As a result of his unapologetic statement that prospective Baylor faculty members should be "individuals who sincerely espouse and seek to express their academic and professional identities through the particularity of the Christian faith&emdash;i.e., commitment to the universal lordship of the crucified and risen Jesus Christ," Sloan has been pilloried by faculty critics at Baylor as a "fundamentalist" (see The Chronicle of Higher Education, July 23, 1999).
Here, as at many historically Protestant and Catholic colleges and universities today, we see the convolutions of faculty who dismiss, as somehow outrageous, the very raison d'etre of the institutions they serve. To do justice to this phenomenon would require the savage satiric genius of Jonathan Swift. But this fifth column is not the only threat to genuine integration of faith and learning at Christian institutions. The fundamentalist bogeyman is all too real, as countless faculty members and administrators at Christian colleges could attest, to their sorrow. Indeed, not long before Sloan became president, Baylor's science faculty came under fire from fundamentalist Baptists for teaching evolution.
Which brings us back to the Polanyi Center. William Dembski, the center's director&emdash;and a familiar figure to readers of Books & Culture&emdash;is one of the leading voices of the intelligent design movement. But Dembski and Bruce Gordon, the center's associate director, while they disagree strongly with the naturalistic assumptions that are at the foundation of mainstream Darwinism, do not want to shut down debate by quoting from Genesis (as many fundamentalist critics of evolution do), nor do they engage in the flimsy pseudo-scholarship that characterizes so-called creation science. Rather, they want to promote high-level debate on issues of "complexity, information, and design" in the universe, just as the center's full name promises.
To that end, just before the faculty senate vote reported in the Chronicle, the Polanyi Center hosted a conference on naturalism that brought together leading Christian thinkers with robust defenders of naturalism. The conference, which featured an extraordinary lineup of influential scientists, philosophers, and scholars from other fields, should serve as a model for first-rate Christian engagement with scholarship, showing that, contra Richard Rorty, religion is not a conversation-stopper in the national conversation.
A day after the Chronicle reported the faculty vote, President Sloan gave a "State of the University" address in which he reaffirmed the university's commitment to the center and noted that its work would be evaluated by a panel largely consisting of outside experts. That is good news. We need more centers like this, and more administrators with the vision and courage to make them a reality.
John Wilson is Editor of Books & Culture: A Christian Review.
October 16, 2000
http://pr.baylor.edu/pdf/001017polanyi.pdf
The External Review Committee was convened to review the status of the Michael Polanyi Center at Baylor University, which was established a year ago with the primary aim of advancing the understanding of the sciences. In the early summer, members of the Committee received copies of books and articles relevant to the work of the Center. On September 8 and 9, 2000, the Committee met to discuss what they had read, to hear from persons who addressed matters about which the Committee was concerned, and to formulate a response to the charge the Committee had been given. The vigorous discussions about the issues contained in the charge reflected the variety in the backgrounds and perspectives of the Committee members. The outcome of these discussions was a thorough and even-handed review of the concerns before the Committee.
It is important from the outset to emphasize that the sciences at Baylor University are the inheritors of a long and distinguished tradition. For many years, undergraduate instruction in the sciences at Baylor has been conducted in an exciting and effective manner. The graduate and research programs are solid and well respected throughout the scientific community. Not only have students and faculty been active in the mainstream of scientific disciplines, but they have also pursued initiatives in new areas and directions. Baylor's heritage, in this regard, is clearly one of which it can be proud.
The relationship of the sciences to other academic fields is a further responsibility that Baylor seeks to address. Relationships between the sciences and the humanities, as well as issues relating to the environment and public policy, are matters of real concern to the Baylor community. The Committee strongly endorses, therefore, the aim of enhancing the public understanding of science, particularly as this is expressed through serious work in the history and philosophy of science. This particular responsibility is one that has already been recognized by the institution of the Herbert H. Reynolds Lectureship in the History and Philosophy of Science. Efforts in this area could well receive an appropriate and timely emphasis on the part of the university.
Given the universitys tradition, there is a natural interest also in the relationship of science and religion. Research in this area ought to be strongly encouraged, at the same time recognizing that this goal is best served by promoting a variety of perspectives. The university should continue to foster a broad range of scholarship in this domain and in this way contribute to the active dialogue between science and religion now in progress. The Institute for Faith and Learning would seem to be an appropriate administrative structure for furthering this end.
Within the broad range of issues that bear on the relationship between the sciences and religion, those raised by recent work on the criteria appropriate to claims of intelligent design could well find a place. As research members in the Institute for Faith and Learning, Drs. William Dembski and Bruce Gordon would be enabled to pursue their interests in these areas. It is important to carry out this work in ways that encourage dialogue with faculty in a variety of fields.
An advisory committee composed of members of the Baylor faculty would be of strategic importance in clarifying policies and practices for the science and religion component of the Institute for Faith and Learning. In addition, this committee could serve as an effective sounding board for such programs undertaken by the Institute. It could also provide helpful communication with those academic fields from which its members would come.
Given Baylor's tradition, issues related to the interaction of science and religion need to be dealt with openly and freely, and these should be of continuing interest within the program of the Institute for Faith and Learning. Given the present circumstances, these discussions might best be carried out under the broad umbrella of the Institute through adequate administrative structures.
It is quite appropriate to associate the name of Michael Polanyi with discussions relating to science and religion. However, Polanyi explicitly indicated that he did not think that an agency such as that implied by claims of intelligent design need be invoked when dealing with the growth in complexity of the living world over aeons past (Personal Knowledge, p. 395). Given this, and given also the debates that have surrounded the Michael Polanyi Center from its origins, it would seem best that whatever research is carried out at Baylor on the design inference should not bear the Polanyi name. The more inclusive mandate of the Institute for Faith and Learning would allow it to accommodate research of this sort while pointing to a broader range of interests as well.
The recommendations of the Committee can thus be expressed as follows:
(1) It is important for a university in the Christian tradition to take an active interest in issues involving the complex and changing relationships between science and religion. This mission can best be fostered by the Universitys Institute for Faith and Learning where it seems to be naturally at home. In pursuing this mission, room should be made for a variety of approaches and topics. It would clearly be too restrictive on the part of the Institute to focus attention in this area on a single theme only, such as the design inference.(2) Nevertheless, the Committee wishes to make it clear that it considers research on the logical structure of mathematical arguments for intelligent design to have a legitimate claim to a place in current discussions of the relations of religion and the sciences. Although this work, involving as it does technical issues in the theory of probability, is relatively recent in origin and has thus only just begun to receive response in professional journals (see, for example, the essay by Elliot Sober in Philosophy of Science, 66, 1999, pp. 472-488), the Institute should be free, if it chooses, to include in its coverage this line of work, when carried out professionally.
(3) An advisory committee to the Institute for Faith and Learning, composed of Baylor faculty members, should be appointed to assist in planning and reviewing the science and religion component of the Institute.
(4) For the reasons stated above, the Committee believes that the linking of the name of Michael Polanyi to programs relating to intelligent design is, on the whole, inappropriate. Further, the Polanyi name has come by now in the Baylor context to take on associations that lead to unnecessary confusion.
In conclusion, fostering dialogue regarding the history and philosophy of science and especially the relationship between science and religion is important, even if sometimes controversial. Willingness to encourage such dialogue is a measure of the commitment of an institution to the flourishing of academic freedom.
William F. Cooper, Chair
External Review Committee
October 16, 2000
by Larry Brumley
Baylor University Press Release
Oct. 17, 2000
http://pr.baylor.edu/feat.fcgi?2000.10.17.polanyi
Baylor University President Robert B. Sloan Jr. today released the report of the Michael Polanyi Center peer review committee, which was appointed last spring to assess the purposes and activities of the controversial center.
The eight-member committee, composed of academics from throughout the country and chaired by Dr. William F. Cooper, professor of philosophy and former dean of the Baylor College of Arts and Sciences, concluded that the Polanyi Center's mission of fostering dialogue regarding the history and philosophy of science and especially the relationship between science and religion is important, even if sometimes controversial. The report further stated that "the committee wishes to make it clear that it considers research on the logical structure of mathematical arguments for intelligent design to have a legitimate claim to a place in current discussions of the relations of religion and the sciences." Polanyi Center Director William Dembski's research and writings in the area of intelligent design have been the most controversial aspects of the Center's work, even though its academic mission is much broader. Specifically, the committee recommended that the University establish an advisory committee, to be composed of Baylor faculty members from disciplines related to the Center's work, to assist in planning and reviewing its activities. The report also said that the linking of the name of Michael Polanyi to programs related to intelligent design is, on the whole, inappropriate, given the late scientist's views as expressed in his book Personal Knowledge.
The committee recommended that the University discontinue the use of the name while continuing the Center's work within the Institute for Faith and Learning. The Polanyi Center has resided administratively within Baylor's three-year-old Institute for Faith and Learning since it was established in 1999.
"I want to express my deep appreciation to Dr. Cooper and the other members of the review committee for their diligence and dedication in carrying out their charge," Sloan said. "They invested many hours in reviewing and evaluating the work of the Polanyi Center and have delivered a well-written and thoughtful report. I accept all of the committee's recommendations and have asked Provost Donald Schmeltekopf to implement them fully and specifically as soon as possible. "I am pleased that the central mission of the Center has been affirmed and that the committee has underscored the fact that support of academic freedom includes protecting controversial ideas," Sloan said. "We certainly could have and should have handled more effectively the program's implementation, but we will correct some of those early mistakes by acting on the committee's recommendations, specifically to appoint a faculty advisory committee and to discontinue the use of the Michael Polanyi name."
Schmeltekopf said work will begin immediately on appointing the advisory committee. "I will be consulting with Dr. Wallace Daniel, dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, and others on the appointment of an advisory committee that includes faculty members from disciplines that relate to the history and philosophy of science as well as those disciplines that touch on the relationship between science and religion. Its role will be to clarify policies and practices and serve as a sounding board for these programs in the Institute for Faith and Learning. I also anticipate that the committee will play an important role in encouraging better communication between the Institute and various academic departments on campus."
by William Dembski
October 17, 2000
The Michael Polanyi Center Peer Review Committee has now released its official report (http://pr.baylor.edu/pdf/001017polanyi.pdf) and the Baylor University administration has responded to the report (http://pr.baylor.edu/feat.fcgi?2000.10.17.polanyi). As director of the Center, I wish to offer the following comment:
The report marks the triumph of intelligent design as a legitimate form of academic inquiry. This is a great day for academic freedom. I'm deeply grateful to President Sloan and Baylor University for making this possible, as well as to the peer review committee for its unqualified affirmation of my own work on intelligent design. The scope of the Center will be expanded to embrace a broader set of conceptual issues at the intersection of science and religion, and the Center will therefore receive a new name to reflect this expanded vision. My work on intelligent design will continue unabated. Dogmatic opponents of design who demanded the Center be shut down have met their Waterloo. Baylor University is to be commended for remaining strong in the face of intolerant assaults on freedom of thought and expression.
by Ron Nissimov
The Houston Chronicle
October 18, 2000
A controversial center at Baylor University researching the idea that life was created through "intelligent design" instead of evolution should be allowed to continue its work, an external review committee said Tuesday. The committee recommended that a faculty advisory committee be appointed to try to improve the academic center's relationship with the rest of the university. It also recommended that the Michael Polanyi Center change its name because Polanyi - a European chemist and philosopher who died in 1976 - espoused views different from the theories being researched at the center. Although Polanyi challenged the notion that all knowledge could be reduced to the laws of nature, the committee said he did not necessarily believe in the existence of an external force such as intelligent design. The intelligent design movement, which was born in the 1980s and grew in strength in the early 1990s, argues that some life forms and organic molecules are too complex to have been formed through known natural laws, such as chance mutation and natural selection. Proponents say they can use probability models to calculate whether natural phenomena are the result of chance or of a purposeful, intelligent design. Many scientists at Baylor and other universities say intelligent design is akin to explaining little-understood phenomena by invoking spiritual forces. They say it is not a science because there is no way to verify the existence of an intelligent design agent through observation and because no intelligent-design research has been published in peer-reviewed scientific journals.
The nine-member external review committee, which was convened by the university in the spring and met Sept. 8-9, did not address two of the more controversial aspects of the Polanyi Center. Those are the secretive methods used by Baylor President Robert Sloan to establish the center in 1999 and whether it is being used to promote the teaching of creationism in public schools. Although a growing number of scholars nationwide are conducting intelligent-design research and many universities have held conferences on the topic, Baylor - a private college founded in 1845 with a Baptist mission - is the only university in the country to devote a research center to the issue.
Sloan, who has been accused by some faculty members of emphasizing religion over academics since he took over in 1995, said the university will comply with the recommendations. "I am pleased that the central mission of the center has been affirmed, and that the committee has underscored the fact that support of academic freedom includes protecting controversial ideas," Sloan said in a news release. "We certainly could have, and should have, handled more effectively the program's implementation, but we will correct some of those early mistakes by acting on the committee's recommendations."
The review committee said: "Given the university's tradition, there is a natural interest also in the relationship of science and religion. Research in this area ought to strongly be encouraged, at the same time recognizing that this goal is best served by promoting a variety of perspectives." Faculty members who have been publicly critical of the Polanyi Center could not be reached for comment Tuesday.
Baylor spokesman Larry Brumley said the faculty generally had a positive reaction to the recommendations Tuesday. Molleen Matsumara, network projects director for the Center for Science Education, which promotes the teaching of evolution, said it would be wrong to interpret the committee's findings as a validation of intelligent design's claims to scientific legitimacy. Matsumara said the committee explicitly said it would be valid for Baylor, as a religious institution, to investigate the "mathematical arguments for intelligent design," but she stressed that mathematics is not science. The external review committee was chaired by Baylor philosophy professor William Cooper, former dean of the school's college of arts and sciences. Other committee members were from universities around the nation. The committee's expenses were paid by Baylor.
Cooper said he had a fruitful meeting Tuesday with members of the faculty senate. "They were mindful of the recommendations, and they thought the recommendations provided a very good foundation to begin to address some of their concerns," he said. Cooper said the committee did not address the methods used to form the center, because that issue was "past history." The faculty senate, which represents a cross-section of the university, voted 27-2 in April to recommend dismantling the center and starting the project from scratch with faculty input. The senate did not vote on the propriety of intelligent-design research but demanded that the administration seek faculty input before creating academic centers. Cooper also said the committee did not investigate the center's connections with the Seattle-based Discovery Institute, a conservative think tank that promotes the teaching of intelligent design in public schools.
Many intelligent-design researchers have been funded by the institute's Center for the Renewal of Science & Culture. They say they rely on such private funding because the National Science Foundation and most universities won't sponsor the work. William Dembski, director of the Polanyi Center, is a senior fellow at the Discovery Institute's center, and Bruce Gordon, assistant director of the Polanyi Center, is a fellow at the Seattle organization. Dembski has received fellowships of $40,000 to $50,000 from the Seattle institute, and his salary at the Polanyi Center is paid from a $75,000 grant from the John Templeton Fund, which the institute distributes. Brumley said the university will pick up Dembski's salary after the grant expires next year. Sloan has said Dembski and Gordon answer to Baylor and not the Discovery Institute. Dembski could not be reached for comment Tuesday, but Gordon said he believes intelligent design should be taught in public schools only once it gains widespread scientific credibility.
by Blair Martin
The Baylor Lariat
October 18, 2000
http://www3.baylor.edu/Lariat/Archives/2000/20001018/art-front04.html
A report issued by the peer review committee appointed to evaluate the credibility and legitimacy of the Michael Polanyi Center was finally released Tuesday morning, stating that despite controversy, it found the Center's research legitimate.
The committee, composed of eight respected scholars from all over the country and led by Dr. William F. Cooper, recommended that the university should "foster a broad range of scholarship" to address the relationship between science and religion.
Controversy erupted shortly after the center was created in 1999 as a result of a perceived "creationist" undertone of its mission and the lack of communication between Baylor science faculty and the administration.
Chairman of the Faculty Senate, Dr. Jay Losey, said he thought the committee's review of the center was concise while remaining sensitive to all of the concerns raised.
"I am very pleased with the content," he said. "I thought they were very diplomatic and offered great ways to address some of the major concerns."
Although the committee deemed the research valid, they expressed several recommendations to mend the bridge of communication between faculty and the center's administration.
First, the committee concluded that the center's mission is best supported under the structure of the Institute of Faith and Learning, "where it seems naturally at home."
Therefore, Dr. William Dembski and Dr. Bruce Gordon, who had been the sole researchers for the Center, will remain on campus to continue their research under the supervision of Dr. Michael Beaty, the director of the Faith and Learning Institute.
Second, the committee believes the center should not only continue to pursue the intelligent design theory but should expand its focus to include broader areas of its mandate as well.
Third, an advisory committee, composed of Baylor faculty members, should be created to assist in planning and reviewing the science and religion component of the center.
Finally, the committee recommended that the center no longer bear the name Michael Polanyi.
President Robert B. Sloan Jr. said the name change was due to the controversy surrounding the center and its mission.
"The discontinuance of the name, I believe, is for a couple of reasons," Sloan said. "First, I think that name now has gathered a lot of political baggage, and its important for the institute to get a fresh, new start."
He also said that there was inconsistency between the late scientist's views and the original intent of the center.
The transition and formation of an advisory committee should take a couple of weeks, Sloan said.
Although Sloan insisted that the committee's recommendations will be carried out completely and as soon as possible, the question of administrative structure within the center still remains unresolved.
Whether the center will re-emerge under a new name or just be another research project within the Institute of Faith and Learning is unclear.
"We are going to ask the advisory committee to consider that," Sloan said. "If they think its appropriate that we still have a structure like the center, then one of the things they can suggest is a new name."
The Discovery Institute
October 19, 2000
A report issued by the peer review committee appointed to evaluate the credibility and legitimacy of the Michael Polanyi Center was finally released Tuesday morning, stating that despite controversy, it found the Center's research legitimate. The committee, composed of eight respected scholars from all over the country and led by Dr. William F. Cooper, recommended that the university should "foster a broad range of scholarship" to address the relationship between science and religion.
Controversy erupted shortly after the center was created in 1999 as a result of a perceived "creationist" undertone of its mission and the lack of communication between Baylor science faculty and the administration.
Chairman of the Faculty Senate, Dr. Jay Losey, said he thought the committee's review of the center was concise while remaining sensitive to all of the concerns raised. "I am very pleased with the content," he said. "I thought they were very diplomatic and offered great ways to address some of the major concerns."
Although the committee deemed the research valid, they expressed several recommendations to mend the bridge of communication between faculty and the center's administration.
First, the committee concluded that the center's mission is best supported under the structure of the Institute of Faith and Learning, "where it seems naturally at home." Therefore, Dr. William Dembski and Dr. Bruce Gordon, who had been the sole researchers for the Center, will remain on campus to continue their research under the supervision of Dr. Michael Beaty, the director of the Faith and Learning Institute.
Second, the committee believes the center should not only continue to pursue the intelligent design theory but should expand its focus to include broader areas of its mandate as well.
Third, an advisory committee, composed of Baylor faculty members, should be created to assist in planning and reviewing the science and religion component of the center.
Finally, the committee recommended that the center no longer bear the name Michael Polanyi.
President Robert B. Sloan Jr. said the name change was due to the controversy surrounding the center and its mission. "The discontinuance of the name, I believe, is for a couple of reasons," Sloan said. "First, I think that name now has gathered a lot of political baggage, and its important for the institute to get a fresh, new start."
He also said that there was inconsistency between the late scientist's views and the original intent of the center.
The transition and formation of an advisory committee should take a couple of weeks, Sloan said.
Although Sloan insisted that the committee's recommendations will be carried out completely and as soon as possible, the question of administrative structure within the center still remains unresolved. Whether the center will re-emerge under a new name or just be another research project within the Institute of Faith and Learning is unclear.
"We are going to ask the advisory committee to consider that," Sloan said. "If they think its appropriate that we still have a structure like the center, then one of the things they can suggest is a new name."
Center director issues statement vowing research to 'continue unabated'
by Blair Martin
The Baylor Lariat
October 19, 2000
http://www3.baylor.edu/Lariat/Archives/2000/20001019/art-front03.html
Some faculty members expressed "deep, genuine concern" after receiving an e-mail from the director of the Michael Polanyi Center a day after a report affirmed the center's legitimacy and credibility, according to the chairman of the Faculty Senate.
A report was released Tuesday by a committee appointed to review the operation of the center. The committee was comprised of eight scholars from across the country and led by Dr. William F. Cooper.
In response to that report, Dr. William Dembski issued the following statement:
"The report marks the triumph of intelligent design as a legitimate form of academic inquiry. This is a great day for academic freedom. I'm deeply grateful to President Sloan and Baylor University for making this possible, as well as to the peer review committee for its unqualified affirmation of my own work on intelligent design. The scope of the Center will be expanded to embrace a broader set of conceptual issues at the intersection of science and religion, and the Center will therefore receive a new name to reflect this expanded vision. My work on intelligent design will continue unabated. Dogmatic opponents of design who demanded the Center be shut down have met their Waterloo. Baylor University is to be commended for remaining strong in the face of intolerant assaults on freedom of thought and expression."
Chairman of the Faculty Senate, Dr. Jay Losey, said that "anyone can look at the review and also at Dembski's e-mail and make a personal judgment for themselves."
"However, I will say there is deep, genuine concern on the part of Baylor faculty regarding some of the statements made in the e-mail," Losey said. "Deep, genuine concern."
Attempts to reach Dembski at his office Wednesday were unsuccessful.
by Larry Brumley
Baylor University Press Release
October 19, 2000
http://pr.baylor.edu/feat.fcgi?2000.10.19.polanyi
William Dembski was relieved of his duties as director of Baylor University's Michael Polanyi Center today. He will remain associate professor in conceptual foundations of science within the university's Institute for Faith and Learning.
The action follows by two days the release of a peer review committee's report on the Polanyi Center that affirmed the academic work of the center while calling for the appointment of a faculty advisory committee and the dropping of the Polanyi name.
"The theme of the report emphasized the need for the individuals associated with the center to work in a collegial manner with other members of the Baylor faculty," said Dr. Michael Beaty, director of the Institute for Faith and Learning, which houses the center. "Dr. Dembski's actions after the release of the report compromised his ability to serve as director."
Dr. Bruce Gordon, associate director of the center, has been appointed interim director of the program. Gordon holds a Ph.D. in the history and philosophy of physics from Northwestern University, as well as degrees in mathematics, philosophy, theology and piano performance. He was recently a postdoctoral fellow of the Center for Philosophy of Religion at the University of Notre Dame, and is presently at work on a series of articles leading to a book on the metaphysical import of quantum statistics.
Statement by William Dembski on His Removal as Director of the Michael Polanyi Center at Baylor University
October 19, 2000
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 above] 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 on campus. 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 the fig 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.
Baylor's dismissal of Polyani Center director Dembski was not a smart move.
By John Wilson
Christianity Today
October 23, 2000
http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2000/143/11.0.html
Several months ago we reported on the efforts of faculty at Baylor University to shut down the recently founded Michael Polanyi Center for Complexity, Information, and Design. The center, established by administrative fiat at the behest of Baylor President Robert B. Sloan, Jr., under the auspices of the university's Institute for Faith and Learning, came under fire in part because Sloan had avoided traditional faculty channels. But it was clear from the outset that the debate over the center was driven first and foremost by intense opposition to the Intelligent Design movement; the director of the center, who had been personally recruited for the position by Sloan himself, was William Dembski, the most outstanding scholar associated with the ID movement.
In response to faculty criticism, Sloan called for an external review committee to consider the work done under the umbrella of the Polanyi Center and to make recommendations as to whether and how the center should continue to function at Baylor. Last week, on October 17, the committee's report was released. While its tortured language reflected bitter conflict (about which more below), the report nonetheless affirmed the "mission" of the center, as Sloan himself noted in a Baylor press release the same day.
Dembski, as the director of the center, also commented on the report in a one-paragraph e-mail message following its release. "The report marks the triumph of intelligent design as a legitimate form of academic inquiry. This is a great day for academic freedom," Dembski began. He concluded by observing that "Dogmatic opponents of design who demanded the Center be shut down have met their Waterloo. Baylor University is to be commended for remaining strong in the face of intolerant assaults on freedom of thought and expression."
The following day, opponents of the center among the Baylor faculty, including Jay Losey, head of the faculty senate, reacted strongly to Dembski's e-mail. Baylor administrators pressured Dembski to retract the message, but he refused, and on October 19 he was removed as director of the center. "The theme of the report emphasized the need for individuals associated with the center to work together in a collegial manner," said Michael Beaty, director of the Institute of Faith and Learning, in an official statement announcing Dembski's dismissal. "Dr. Dembski's actions after the release of the report compromised his ability to serve as director." Dembski's contract with Baylor still has several years to run, and the terms of his position following the demotion have not yet been spelled out.
What are we to make of this? First, caution is in order in commenting from a distance on personnel decisions at any institution. One doesn't always have possession of all the relevant facts. Moreover, I come to this case with great respect not only for President Sloan but also for Michael Beaty. Still, from this vantage point, the decision to dismiss Dembski as director of the center appears to be a terrible blot on Baylor's record.
When I read that Dembski was being demoted for a lack of collegiality, I wished for a latter-day Jonathan Swift, whose satiric genius could do justice to this affair. Given the way that Dembski's opponents have repeatedly vilified him and his work, with charges of "stealth creationism" and the like, the man has shown the forbearance of a saint.
"Ah," you say, "but what a shame that he didn't maintain that forbearance just a bit longer. Then he could have continued his work at the center." I'm not so sure. Quoted in a Waco Tribune-Herald story, Dembski, explaining his refusal to retract the e-mail, said, "I think it needed to be clear in my statements that there was tremendous opposition to this center, and it would not have been an accurate representation if there was not some reference" to the conflict.
And in fact, as noted above, that conflict is very much apparent in the elephantine language of the external review committee, which sounds more like the language of courtiers than the product of a robust intellectual community. (Note for example the two paragraphs early on&emdash;a substantial portion of the entire report&emdash;given to lauding the great tradition of the science faculty at Baylor, rather as one might flatter a medieval monarch.) How bizarre that the question of the "legitimacy" of Dembski's work "on the logical structure of mathematical arguments for intelligent design" should have to be adjudicated by such a committee in the first place! (And note the condescension that follows; the italics are mine: "the Institute should be free, if it chooses, to include in its coverage this line of work, when carried out professionally.") Having been rigorously peer-reviewed for publication by Cambridge University Press, Dembski's work is obviously "legitimate"&emdash;that is, professionally up to snuff&emdash;by any reasonable standard.
That doesn't mean his arguments will ultimately be vindicated. On that, the jury is out and probably will be for some time. But that isn't and never has been the issue at Baylor. Within any academic field at any moment there are many rival arguments on the table, many of which are mutually contradictory. What opponents of the Polanyi Center have sought to claim is that such work is simply beyond the pale, that it doesn't meet the requirements of the relevant academic disciplines. Hence the opening sentence of Dembski's offending e-mail, which we'll quote again: "The report marks the triumph of intelligent design as a legitimate form of academic inquiry."
Here is what it looks like, then. Dembski's opponents hoped that the external review committee would agree with the faculty senate's April 2000 resolution to disband the center. When that didn't occur, they contrived an excuse to get Dembski dismissed. Presumably the next step will be to ensure that the center goes in a different direction (and there is plenty of wiggle room for that in the committee's report).
What are they so afraid of?
John Wilson is Editor of Books & Culture and Editor-at-Large for Christianity Today.
By Art Toalston
Current Baptist Press News
October 24, 2000
WACO, Texas (BP)--When it comes to creation and evolution, science increasingly is a subject of debate at Baylor University.
A noted scientist who holds to "intelligent design" of the universe rather than Darwinian-style evolution was removed Oct. 19 from his post as director of a Baylor think tank after refusing to rescind a statement he had circulated on campus and the Metanews e-mail list focused on science and religion.
The prof, William Dembski, had stated:
"The report [a Baylor-commissioned study of the university's Michael Polanyi Center for Complexity, Information, and Design headed by Dembski released Oct. 17] marks the triumph of intelligent design as a legitimate form of academic inquiry. This is a great day for academic freedom. I'm deeply grateful to President Sloan and Baylor University for making this possible, as well as to the peer review committee for its unqualified affirmation of my own work on intelligent design. ... My work on intelligent design will continue unabated. Dogmatic opponents of design who demanded the Center be shut down have met their Waterloo. Baylor University is to be commended for remaining strong in the face of intolerant assaults on freedom of thought and expression."
Dembski, whose publishers include Cambridge University Press, remains under contract at Baylor and now holds the post of an associate professor.
Opponents of Dembski's work at Baylor, which is affiliated with the Baptist General Convention of Texas, have interpreted Dembski's references to "dogmatic opponents" and "intolerant assaults" as references to themselves and their opposition to Dembski's thinking on intelligent design.
Also putting the Waco, Texas, university in the spotlight has been a letter by eight Baylor science professors declaring, "Intelligent design is not a science," that made its way into the Congressional Record.
The eight professors were writing to Rep. Mark Souter, R.-Ind., complaining of a Capitol Hill conference on intelligent design May 10.
The Congressional Record entry, including Souter's comments and the professors' full letter, can be seen at a Southern Baptist Convention Internet site, www.Baptist2Baptist.net.
Intelligent design is "an old philosophical argument that has been dressed up as science" and has not undergone substantive peer review in the scientific community, the eight professors wrote.
While many scientists believe in God, the profs wrote, "Materialistic science does not say that there is no God. Rather, it says that God, due to His supernatural and divine nature, cannot be proved or disproved, thus we cannot consider His role in the natural phenomena we observe. Therefore, the existence of God is not a question within the realm of science."
Souter, in his remarks entered into the Congressional Record, stated, "I am appalled that any university seeking to discover truth, yet alone a university that is a Baptist Christian school, could make the kinds of statements that are contained in this letter. Is their position on teaching about materialistic science so weak that it cannot withstand scrutiny and debate?"
Souter noted, "Today, qualified scientists are reaching the conclusion that [intelligent] design theory makes better sense of the data" for such questions as "whether the DNA code is the result of natural causes or an intelligent agent."
The Congressional Record entry has received ongoing attention since its publication in mid-June.
The controversy over Dembski and the Polanyi Center was sparked by a 26-2 vote by Baylor's faculty senate on April 18 calling for dissolution of the center, which had been created at the initiative of Baylor President Robert B. Sloan Jr.
The faculty senate vote came just three days after the center sponsored a four-day conference on the role of naturalism in science featuring leading proponents of both Darwinian evolution and intelligent design theories. At issue during the conference was the question: Is the universe self-contained, as widely held throughout the scientific community, or does it require something beyond itself to explain its existence and internal function?
The controversy prompted Sloan to create an external review committee, chaired by a Baylor faculty member but otherwise composed of scholars from other academic institutions. The committee's report was issued Oct. 17 and affirmed by Sloan.
Among the committee's conclusions: "... research on the logical structure of mathematical arguments for intelligent design [has] a legitimate claim to a place in current discussions of the relations of religion and the sciences."
The field of pursuit is new, having "only just begun to receive response in professional journals," the external review committee said, yet Baylor "should be free, if it chooses, to include in its coverage this line of work, when carried out professionally."
Among the review committee's other recommendations were placing the center under Baylor's Institute for Faith and Learning and discontinuing use of the Polanyi name because the late Hungarian chemist for whom the Baylor center is named, while having built a reputation for studying the interaction of science, philosophy and religion, did not believe that an agent of intelligent design is needed to explain the growth of the living world.
The committee also suggested that an advisory committee of Baylor faculty be appointed "to assist in planning and reviewing the science and religion component" of the institute.
The external review committee's endorsement of study in intelligent design prompted Dembski's e-mail statement, which caused controversy on campus and led to his demotion.
Michael Beaty, director of the Institute of Faith and Learning, in an official statement announcing Dembski's dismissal, said, "The theme of the report emphasized the need for individuals associated with the center to work together in a collegial manner." Dembski's actions after the release of the report, Beaty said, "compromised his ability to serve as director."
Dembski, in response to the statement by Beaty, told the Waco Tribune-Herald, "I think it needed to be clear in my statements that there was tremendous opposition to this center, and it would not have been an accurate representation if there was not some reference [to the conflict]."
Dembski holds Ph.D. degrees in mathematics from the University of Chicago and in philosophy from the University of Illinois at Chicago. He has done post-doctoral work in mathematics at MIT, in physics at the University of Chicago and computer science at Princeton University. He earned a B.A. in psychology and M.S. in statistics also from the University of Illinois at Chicago and a master of divinity degree from Princeton Theological Seminary.
Dembski's writings include a book titled, "Intelligent Design: The Bridge Between Science and Theology," published by Inter Varsity Press in November 1999, and 1998 Cambridge University Press book titled, "The Design Inference: Eliminating Chance Through Small Probabilities."
Jay Losey, a Baylor English professor and faculty senate chairman, told the Waco newspaper, "I think everyone is saddened when a colleague is demoted, but these things happen. In this case, in my judgment, the colleague was intemperate in remarks that he made. There has to be accountability."
Losey told The Lariat, the Baylor student newspaper, that "there is deep, genuine concern on the part of Baylor faculty regarding some of the statements made in the e-mail. Deep, genuine concern."
Losey, to the Tribune-Herald, also said, "Baylor faculty will accept Dembski and [another center associate, Bruce] Gordon as colleagues, provided that they do what all of their other colleagues at Baylor University are doing," Losey said. "That is disseminating their best thinking in peer-review journals and presses that have readers reviewing manuscripts submitted for publication."
Sloan, in a statement in conjunction with the external study committee's report release Oct. 17, had said, "I am pleased that the central mission of the center has been affirmed and that the committee has underscored the fact that support of academic freedom includes protecting controversial ideas."
Director's removal arises from e-mail
by Blair Martin
The Baylor Lariat
October 24, 2000
http://www3.baylor.edu/Lariat/Archives/2000/20001024/art-front02.html
In the wake of Dr. William Dembski's removal from his duties as director Thursday, the Michael Polanyi Center's future is even more unclear.
Dembski was released from his position Thursday after the release of a controversial e-mail he wrote that caused concern among some faculty members.
Faculty senate chairman, Dr. Jay Losey, said Dembski's e-mail conflicted with the theme emphasized in the external committee's report, which stated that he and the Center would work in a collegial manner with other members of the Baylor faculty.
"Any faculty member who posts intolerant remarks should be held accountable for those statements," he said.
Dr. Michael Beaty, director of the Institute of Faith and Learning, said he wouldn't comment on any particulars surrounding Dembski's reassignment except that Dembski's actions, after the release of the e-mail, compromised his ability to serve as director.
Beaty said Dembski will now serve as associate research professor in conceptual foundations of science within the university's Institute of Faith and Learning, where he will devote himself to the research of intelligent design and can serve the remainder of his five-year contract.
In Dembski's absence, Dr. Bruce Gordon, assistant-director of the Polanyi Center, was appointed as interim director to continue the center's daily functions and implement the recommendations of the external peer review committee's report, one of which is to establish an advisory committee to oversee the center.
Gordon said he and Beaty are in the midst of "generating a list of possible names for the advisory committee to be submitted to the provost and Dean Wallace Daniel."
"At the moment, everything is up in the air," he said. "But it is my hope that we [Beaty and Gordon] might reconstitute a new center."
Dr. Charles Weaver, associate professor of psychology and neuroscience, said the advisory committee, which will be composed of faculty members, will serve an important function.
"This is what most faculty was concerned about prior to the report," he said. "By having the formation of this advisory committee, the Polanyi Center will be subject to peer review for their research and writings and will have to actually defend their views."
Weaver said that initially the center's two-man operation, Dembski and Gordon, were outside of any kind of accountability.
"With academic freedom comes accountability," he said. "Responsibility to one's own peers, students and professional colleagues across the nation."
Dembski's reassignment not only adds to the uncertainty of the center -- it is also another incident in the continuing evolution of the center's controversial existence on campus, which began a year ago.
TIME LINE
Oct. 1999 - The Michael Polanyi Center quietly establishes itself onto Baylor's campus. Primarily consisting of Drs. William Dembski and Bruce Gordon, few realized its existence or how much controversy it would foster.
April 12 to 15, 2000 - The Michael Polanyi Center hosts its first conference on campus, titled The Nature of Nature. With debate already surrounding the center's purpose, faculty members were encouraged to attend the various seminars led by acclaimed science and philosophy scholars from around the country.
April 18, 2000 - After much debate among faculty within science, philosophy and theology departments, the Faculty Senate calls for the administration to dissolve the Polanyi Center, stating that the center's study of intelligent design has "creationist" undertones and may ultimately jeopardize their department's degrees.
April 20, 2000 - Sloan publicly rejects the Senate's recommendation to dissolve the center, saying that faculty members were consulted before the center's establishment and that there was a legitimate place for the center on Baylor's campus.
Spring - Administration and faculty reach a compromise and an external peer review committee, consisting of eight academic scholars led by philosophy professor Dr. William F. Cooper, is established to investigate the legitimacy and validity of the Center's research.
Sept. 8 to 10, 2000 - The committee holds its final meeting on Baylor's campus, where they draft a report that will list their thoughts and recommendations of the Center's mission and affiliation with Baylor.
Oct. 17, 2000 - Committee's report is released citing four major recommendations. First, the Center's mission is best supported under the structure of the Institute for Faith and Learning. Second, the Center should not only continue to pursue the intelligent design theory but should also expand a broader focus to include broader areas of its mandate as well. Third, an advisory committee, composed of Baylor faculty members, should be created to assist in planning and reviewing the science and religion component of the Center, and finally, that the Center should no longer bear the name Michael Polanyi.
Oct. 19, 2000 - One day after he released a controversial e-mail, Dr. Dembski is released from his duties as director and reassigned to associate research professor in conceptual foundations of science.
Currently - Drs. Gordon and Beaty are generating names of potential members for the advisory committee.
Salaries, Polanyi among concerns
By BLAIR MARTIN
The Baylor Lariat
October 26, 2000
http://www3.baylor.edu/Lariat/Archives/2000/20001026/art-front03.html
President Robert B. Sloan Jr. answered faculty questions at the President's Faculty Forum Meeting at 3:30 p.m. Wednesday in Kayser Auditorium in the Hankamer School of Business.
During the meeting, which was mediated by Faculty Senate Chairman Dr. Jay Losey, Sloan answered 14 of the given 28 questions, selected by the Faculty Senate, in front of attending faculty members.
After the president responded to a question, he asked faculty for any additional questions they had on the specific topic he was addressing.
Larry Brumley, spokesman for Baylor, said he thought the format of the forum was well organized and educational for him and his colleagues.
"I thought the meeting was very helpful and allowed ample opportunity for follow-up questions to be asked," Brumley said. "Because there is a fair amount of depth in all of the questions, the president does his homework and takes each one seriously."
The first question Sloan addressed concerned the external committee's report of the Michael Polanyi Center.
"There were two major issues I saw in regard to the report," Sloan said. "First, the committee saw that this intellectual project with a broader mandate is indeed a legitimate project, and second, that collegiality among the university is important."
Sloan said it was unfortunate that "further distractions occurred," referring to Dr. William Dembski's reassignment from director of the center, but that it is necessary for colleagues, especially in an academic setting, to be able to maintain constructive dialogue among their fellow academic colleagues.
"We ought to be able to discuss the philosophy and religion of science at a university, even if we don't always agree," he said. "It is important for us all to work together, and we can do so without being disagreeable with one another."
Another question posed to the president was whether he would be willing to announce the average raise for faculty each year as well as for executive personnel.
Sloan said he would not because "he didn't see anything positive to be gained to publishing these numbers."
However, Sloan provided a list of statistical evidence to faculty, which stated that Baylor salaries for assistant, associate and full-time professors were within average percentile among the salaries of other competitive schools.
When asked to comment on an article in Atlantic Monthly about evangelical schools, which claimed he wanted to make Baylor the "Notre Dame of the Baptist world," Sloan said he never "recalled ever using another school as a model or basis for Baylor" but felt that Baylor had the potential to be a "tier one" school and among the top 50 universities in the world.
He was also asked how he and the provost intend to strengthen Baylor's reputation beyond its status as a good undergraduate school or a "mediocre university with a good law school."
Sloan said that, although it is "important as a university to emphasize the value of scholarship, teaching is what Baylor prizes."
"What happens in the classroom is our bread and butter," he said, "but that doesn't mean that we can't improve on research and other areas of discovery."
Michael Beaty
Director, The Baylor Institute for Faith and Learning
October 27, 2000
In light of remarks on the META list that indicate a significant misunderstanding of the recent events surrounding the Polanyi Center at Baylor University, most particularly the removal of Dr. Dembski as its director, I think it is important to clarify the significance of what has happened.
Dr. Dembski was not removed from the directorship for any academic failure. Baylor recognizes the value and legitimacy of his academic work, as did the External Review Committee. Baylor fully supports his academic freedom to pursue his research and hopes that he will continue to do so. Dr. Dembski was removed from his post as director on administrative grounds. In order to function in his administrative capacity, it was necessary that Dr. Dembski be able to work well with other Baylor faculty, first and foremost an advisory committee. It was the judgment of the administration that some of his recent actions severely compromised his ability to perform his central administrative duties. It was for this reason, and this reason alone, that he was removed from his directorial post.
There also has been a suggestion that the removal of Dr. Dembski as director is a sign that Baylor has succumbed to political pressure to squelch work on intelligent design. Nothing could be further from the truth. Having been freed from administrative tasks, Dr. Dembski will be able to devote himself exclusively to research, which arguably is the most valuable contribution he can make to design theory.
Finally, some have claimed that this sad episode suggests that Baylor is weakening its commitment to being a Christian university. Baylor University remains committed to encouraging a faithful intellect and an intellectually responsible faith.
Scientists say the jury is out -- so let the hanging begin.
by Fred Heeren
The American Spectator
November 2000
http://www.spectator.org/archives/0011TAS/heeren0011.htm
Mathematician William Dembski stands accused of bringing shame upon a major university. Not only that, say his colleagues, he has managed to disgrace the entire scientific enterprise.
Scientists from distant universities wrote letters to the editors of his university newspaper, and biologists spoke up through the surrounding city papers, telling the public why this man must be stopped. When Dembski organized an academic conference, one incensed professor from another state sent long e-mails to the scheduled speakers, seeking to discredit Dembski and convincing one famed philosopher to cancel.
The faculty senate of his own Baylor University voted 26 to 2 to recommend that his research center be dismantled. Eight members of Baylor's science departments wrote Congress about the dangers of Dembski's project, and several briefings on the issues were made before a bipartisan group of congressional members and staff.
So you're wondering: What kind of new and evil science is William Dembski practicing? Is he cloning half-humans without souls to create cheap labor? Several Baylor students interviewed for this article couldn't pinpoint the exact deed, but knew it was immoral because they heard that it had something to do with an evil use of the human genome project.
What does Bill Dembski think of all this? A mild-mannered mathematician more at home with probability theory than politics, he shakes his head in disbelief. "I've found that when people get to know me one-on-one, they think what I'm doing is legitimate, or at least worth pursuing. But when they start listening to the siren call of the Internet, things get out of control."
What Dembski has actually done hardly seems nefarious. As a scientist with twin Ph.D.'s in mathematics and philosophy, Dembski has set about developing mathematical methods for detecting intelligent design, should it be discernible, in nature. That's all. What's more, he has submitted his work to the scientific scrutiny of his peers. So why are all these professors so hysterical?
Disguised Creationism?
Since the 1980's, critics have charged that the intelligent designconcept is really just "a disguised form of creationism." According to Eugenie Scott, executive director of the National Center for Science Education: "They're really saying God does it, but they're not as honest as the Biblical creationists. The intelligence is really spelled in three letters: G-O-D."
Not at all, says Dembski. Intelligent design points not to a creator, but to a designer -- a crucial distinction. "If you examine a piece of furniture," he explains, "you can identify that it is designed, but you can't identify who or what is responsible for the wood in the first place. Intelligent design just gets you to an intelligent cause that works with pre-existing materials, but not the source of those materials."
Neuroscientist Lewis Barker, who left Baylor in protest over the administration's "religious" policies, buys none of this: "I see it as a form of stealth creationism, a very old argument wrapped in new clothes." Later, however, he adds: "The whole notion of using mathematics, that's something new."
Also novel is the respect many "intelligent design" proponents have earned in the academic community. "They're real academics, not cranks," admits Skeptic magazine publisher Michael Shermer, whose editorial board is overwhelmingly composed of intelligent design critics such as Stephen Jay Gould and Eugenie Scott herself. "They have real degrees and tenure," adds Shermer. Not only does William Dembski have doctorates in mathematics and philosophy, he has done postdoctoral work in mathematics at MIT, physics at the University of Chicago, and computer science at Princeton University. Even Lewis Barker says: "He seems to be a very bright guy."
Eugenie Scott argues that intelligent design proponents don't have a scholarly position because they never submit their work for peer review. But each time she brings up the kind of scholarly evaluation that's lacking -- the reviewed publications or academic conferences -- she stops short when she comes to the work of William Dembski.
Regarding conferences, Scott remembers Dembski's "The Nature of Nature" conference (April 12-15 at Baylor) and grudgingly admits: "They actually did invite some scientists there." In fact, the slate of speakers included two Nobel Prize-winning scientists and several members from the National Academy of Sciences. The list was weighted toward prominent biologists, physicists, and philosophers who were critical of intelligent design.
And when Scott ticks off a list of non-peer-reviewed design literature, she hesitates when she recalls that Dembski's book, The Design Inference, was written as part of a Cambridge University philosophy of science series. Published as Dembski's doctoral dissertation in philosophy, it became Cambridge's best-selling philosophical monograph in recent years. After surviving a review of 70 scholars, and then the standard dissertation defense at the University of Illinois, The Design Inference finally underwent corrections and refereed scrutiny for two years at Cambridge University Press.
The great irony is that just as Dembski is proposing to test his theory with the help of molecular biologists, the very scientists who are challenging intelligent design to pass scientific tests are using every means possible to ensure those tests never take place.
Birth of a Think Tank
The brief story of Dembski's Michael Polanyi Center starts with its home: Baylor University, the world's largest Baptist institution, located in Waco, Texas. For years, Baylor had a reputation among conservatives for going the way of many once-Christian colleges, neglecting its religious heritage and embracing the politically correct tenets of secular humanism instead.
All that began to change when Robert Sloan became president of Baylor University in 1995. Sloan, a New Testament scholar with a doctorate in theology from the University of Basel, proposed to return the school to its mission of integrating academic excellence and Christian commitment. To foster this goal, he oversaw the establishment of the university's Institute for Faith and Learning, which explores opportunities for profitable engagement between faith and academic pursuits like art, history, business -- even science.
Sloan resisted the urging of fundamentalists to "throw the evolutionists out" of the biology department, vowing never to bar anyone at Baylor from teaching evolution. He rejects the notion of a "creation science" (6-day creation a few thousand years ago). But he also believes that "the academic world has become far too compartmentalized."
"Baylor ought to be the kind of place where a student can ask a question and not just get the runaround," says Sloan. "He shouldn't have to go to the theology department and be told, 'Oh, that's a scientific question. Don't ask me that.' And then the student goes to the science department and they tell him, 'That's a religious question. Don't ask me that.'"
So far this doesn't sound too different from many other universities nationwide that have recently set up centers to revisit the relationship between science and religion. But matters took a fateful turn in the fall of 1998 when President Sloan read an article by William Dembski and was wowed by his work and credentials. Others in the administration were also impressed. Michael Beaty, director of the Institute for Faith and Learning, says that Dembski's work "fit right in with the institute. Bill was fruitfully dialoging with religion and science."
When Beaty sounded him out about his interest in joining the institute, he learned that Dembski was seeking to build a research center to test the theory of intelligent design. The administration received his ideas with enthusiasm. His research would pursue not only intelligent design, but a broad range of topics having to do with the foundations of the natural and social sciences. Thus was born the Michael Polanyi Center, which Dembski named for an eminent physical chemist who taught that biology is not reducible to chemistry and physics.
"This was an opportunity to reaffirm that Baylor is a university where controversial issues can be discussed," says Donald Schmeltekopf, Baylor's provost. "We decided to go ahead and give it a chance, believing the university would be a richer and more compelling place, knowing that there would be those who would have objections." His pleasant expression disappears, and he adds: "We didn't anticipate the amount of objection."
Controversy
After Dembski brought on board Bruce Gordon (Ph.D. in the history and philosophy of physics) as associate director of the Polanyi Center, the duo made a good first impression on the faculty they met. Gordon led a colloquium reading group, using two books about interactions between science and faith. Discussion with participating faculty was cordial.
"The controversy began after our Website debuted in mid-January," explains Gordon. "That's what drew more faculty attention to the center." While the Polanyi site itself was unexceptionable, other groups with evolutionist-bashing agendas began linking up their Websites to the center. Many on the biology faculty flashed back to old culture battles, when such groups had publicly questioned the professors' integrity.
Gordon is understanding, but explains that the realities of the Web are such that the Polanyi Center has no control over who connects to their site.
"We don't endorse a connection to those sites at all. They didn't ask our permission. But we can't spend our time policing the Internet."
Reaction built quickly. One professor who had previously been friendly at the reading group wrote Gordon an insulting letter. An e-mail frenzy began between faculty in all departments, calling special attention to the creationist Websites that claimed the Polanyi Center as one of their own.
News spread to other universities, and soon newspapers in Waco and Houston were filled with reactions from a handful of vocal Baylor professors who were appalled that such a monstrosity as the Polanyi Center should be found on their campus.
By this time, plans were well under way for a large Polanyi conference called "The Nature of Nature." Most Baylor biologists decided to boycott the event. Even so, the April conference drew 350 scholars from around the world whose views varied wildly on the conference's central question: "Is the universe self-contained or does it require something beyond itself to explain its existence and internal function?"
By all accounts, the conference itself was an outstanding success, drawing attention to Baylor as a place that could attract world-class scholars for dialogue on the big questions. In spite of one out-of-state professor's campaign to convince all speakers to cancel, the conference brought together such luminaries as Nobelist/physicist Steven Weinberg, Nobelist/biochemist Christian de Duve, big bang cosmologist Alan Guth, paleontologist Simon Conway Morris, and philosopher Alvin Plantinga.
But the conference only focused the Baylor faculty's anger more intensely on the Michael Polanyi Center. A few days after it ended, the faculty senate met and voted to recommend that the administration dissolve the center immediately. The faculty claimed that President Sloan had no right to set up such a center and choose its head without their involvement.
"It's rather ironic that people in the scientific community, whose rights had to be protected in the face of ideological pressure [from creationists], now appear to be suppressing others," says President Sloan. "People have always asked questions about the relationship of religious views and the natural phenomena we see in the world. I think it just borders on McCarthyism to call that 'creation science.'"
The day after the faculty senate vote, President Sloan addressed the faculty, telling them that he would not close down the Polanyi Center merely because they demanded it. The procedure he had used in setting up the center was no different from the one he and previous administrators had used to establish other centers.
Michael Beaty, director of the Institute for Faith and Learning, notes that they had used the same procedure for setting up the Center for American Jewish Studies, without criticism.
Recognizing that the faculty's real objections were not about procedure, Sloan repeated to the faculty an earlier announced plan to form an independent peer review committee to evaluate William Dembski's work and the work of the Polanyi Center. He said that he sympathized with the science faculty over their concern for their reputations, but that the bigger issue is academic freedom. He didn't like the idea of snuffing out a project without giving it a chance to have its work reviewed by peers.
Assuming the committee would impartially address the matter, Dembski welcomed the review. "Academic programs need to be held accountable," he said at the time. "I would go further than that and say that I value objective peer review. I always learn more from my critics than from the people who think I'm wonderful."
Initially, Baylor spokesman Larry Brumley insisted that the committee wouldn't be asked whether the center should be dissolved. "It's not a committee to look at whether we should reconsider having the Polanyi Center," Brumley said. "They're looking at how we can better communicate its purpose and address the concerns of faculty members."
When the committee membership was announced, however, Dembski was surprised to find antagonistic biologists in the majority. Worse, the committee did not include a single person capable of understanding the mathematical arguments made in Dembski's The Design Inference. (This was partially rectified when one statistician was later added to the team.) Neither were Dembski's prospects brightened when the committee chose as its head William Cooper, a philosophy professor who calls the Polanyi Center extremely "polarizing" and doubtlessly connected to the old-style "creationists."
Lingering anger in the biology department is perhaps an understandable reaction after years of ideological assault by creationism activists. But the personal outrage against the very idea of Dembski's work runs even deeper than that. The resentment becomes obvious to any outsider who dares to roam the halls of the Baylor biology department and ask professors for their take on the dispute.
What exactly is intelligent design (ID), and why do the very words incite such fury among some biologists?
What Is Intelligent Design?
ID depends upon a concept known as specified complexity.
Say you're out raking leaves in the backyard. If you were to find little piles of leaves, equally spaced apart in a long line, the arrangement would be an example of specificity, but it could be explained by what fel