IN2001 I received a letter from a group that had learned that I was skeptical of modern evolutionary theory. They wanted to know if I would be willing to add my name to the statement mentioned previously in these pages: “We are skeptical of claims for the ability of random mutations and natural selection to account for the complexity of life. Careful examination of the evidence for Darwinian theory should be encouraged.” I was happy to respond in the affirmative, and a list with a hundred names was soon published. Most of the signers had doctoral degrees in science, with a handful having Ph.Ds. in fields that, while not part of the natural or life sciences, gave them a valuable and relevant perspective on the evolution question—e.g., engineering and mathematics. Today close to a thousand have signed this Dissent from Darwinism statement.5Its purpose is to show that there are serious scientists who question Darwin’s theory. I am confident, incidentally, that the number of names on the list only scratches the surface, since I know scientists who, while skeptical of modern Darwinism, have not signed the document because they are afraid of the consequences. The danger is far from imaginary. Immediately after the list became public, I received an email from the late Skip Evans of a pro-evolution lobbying group in the United States, the National Center for Science Education (NCSE). Evans was a militant atheist and defender of evolution. He wanted to clarify my motives for signing and inquired if I understood the kind of dangerous people with whom I was in contact. I knew too many good things about the scientists and scholars who had started the dissent list, and too much off-putting stuff about the pro-evolution NCSE, to be impressed by his warnings. However, I could imagine a scientist with little knowledge of either group being taken in by the NCSE’s well-poisoning campaign.
Since 2010 I have been on the advisory board of the German scholarly associationStudiengemeinschaft Wort und Wissen,and I have spoken twice (in 2009 and 2014) at their annual main conference. In the invitation letter to join their advisory board, they were considerate enough to warn me of a potential negative consequence. “In this connection we want to inform you that there is in Germany a very active group of confessing atheistic evolutionary biologists who carefully follow every move of our organization and who do not avoid ad hominem attacks,” the letter explained. “It is possible that as a member of the scientific advisory board you personally can become a target. You should take this into consideration when you think about your participation.” The group had no motivation to exaggerate about this. They were, after all, hoping I would join their advisory board. It was purely out of a sense of fair play that they warned me at all.
Their warning, of course, did not shock me, since I had long been a target of the evolutionary materialists. I have already mentioned several such examples in these pages. Here’s another: I applied for an assistant professorship in biochemistry in 1984 at Helsinki University of Technology (TKK). I later learned from the biochemistry professor who had recommended me for the position that in the meeting of the professors’ council where the hiring decision was made, one professor stood up and strongly opposed my nomination. A person so badly mistaken about biological origins cannot be a teacher in this university, he insisted. My former professor told me that he had to defend my application, telling the others in the meeting, “We are not here to discuss Leisola’s world-view but his competence in biochemistry.” Most of the other professors, he said, clearly felt uneasy in the situation and were looking at the walls.
In 1987 I was a consultant for the Finnish Sugar company. (In 1989 the name was changed to Cultor.) I worked at the company first as a senior scientist, then as a department manager, and beginning in 1991, as a research director. Later I heard that another consultant of the company had advised the executive director not to hire me due to my questionable views on origins and my involvement in Christian student ministry.6
Wilder-Smith had similar stories to relate. He told me how a Professor Hoimar von Ditfurth tried to intimidate him by contacting universities where he had obtained his degrees to expose Wilder-Smith’s supposed deception. He was convinced that no one could get three doctoral degrees in such a short time and at the same time become a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry (FRSC). Reading and Geneva confirmed the degrees, but the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) did not find any information in their files of such a person. Ditfurth wrote to Wilder-Smith that he had exposed his deceit. “You have not obtained a doctoral degree at ETH!” he wrote.
Wilder-Smith called ETH and they immediately found him in their records with his correct name. Ditfurth had misspelled Wilder-Smith’s name when he made the inquiry. ETH wrote a letter to Ditfurth and explained the situation. Next Ditfurth contacted the Royal Society of Chemistry inquiring into the authenticity of Wilder-Smith’s title of FRSC. The society was not impressed with the inquiry and did not even care to answer and passed the letter on to Wilder-Smith.
Ditfurth wasn’t the only evolutionist who tried to play this game. After an Oxford Union debate, Richard Dawkins let it be known that no one by the name of Wilder-Smith had studied at Oxford University and graduated from there.7In reality, Wilder-Smith had studied at Oxford from 1933 to 1935 and finalized his doctoral degree at Reading. If Dawkins had taken only a little care in his investigation of the matter, he might have discovered this.
These incidents suggest how headlong some people can be in their efforts to discredit scientists skeptical of Darwinism.
And by the way, Dawkins wasn’t finished sliming Wilder-Smith. All the information concerning the debate between Dawkins and Wilder-Smith has been lost from Oxford Union’s files. When Dawkins was asked about the debate in May 2003, he admitted that the debate had taken place but then added, “Wilder-Smith I remember as a genial old buffoon... I am not interested in following up Wilder-Smith’s history. The man is too unimportant to waste time over... Wilder-Smith’s account lies somewhere between fantasy, lies, and paranoid delusion.”8Venomous much? The tirade is all the more shameful in light of this: Although Dawkins is a gifted writer and popularizer, Wilder-Smith’s lasting contributions in the field of experimental biology (see above) dwarf those of Richard Dawkins. (A review in the journalNatureof Dawkins’s career autobiography describes the man as a gifted “lyricist” but adds that “a curious stasis underlies his thought, with his view of the genome “grounded in 1970s assumptions.”9) Dawkins’ heavy-handed dismissal fits very well his style. Dawkins is, after all, the one who used these labels for evolution skeptics, including undergraduates: “little fool,” “pathetic little idiot,”10“ignorant,” “stupid,” “insane,” and “wicked.”11Sometimes the attacks go well beyond words. I am just now reading an official report12by a U.S. congressional subcommittee that investigated the treatment of evolutionary biologist Richard von Sternberg. (See Figure 8.2.) Sternberg has two doctoral degrees—one in evolutionary biology and another in theoretical biology. He worked in the National Center for Biotechnology Information of the National Institutes of Health and in the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of Natural History. He also was the editor-in-chief of a science journal published by the Smithsonian, theProceedings of the Biological Society of Washington. One of his responsibilities was to sort submitted papers and send them to two or three experts for peer review.
As is normally the case with peer-reviewed science journals, these reviews happen anonymously. The author does not know who the reviewers are and, based on their report, the editor makes a decision on publication. The decision may be acceptance, a call for minor or major corrections, or rejection.
Stephen Meyer submitted a paper, “The Origin of Biological Information and the Higher Taxonomic Categories,” which considered intelligent design as a possible explanation for the Cambrian explosion, a geological period in which a large number of basic animal body types (not just new species but whole new phyla) appeared abruptly. The three peer reviewers read the paper and unanimously favored its publication. Sternberg accepted the manuscript and it was published.
Then the persecution started.
The hue and cry went up: Science and religion had been mixed! If the paper wasn’t immediately retracted, the reputation of the world-renowned Smithsonian Institution would be forever tarnished! Together with the pro-evolution NCSE, the Smithsonian hatched a plan to destroy Sternberg’s career. As the congressional report details, in an early stage of this campaign, Sternberg’s friends were questioned and false rumors were spread both inside and outside the Smithsonian. The rumors grew so wild that finally a colleague of Sternberg sent Sternberg’scurriculum vitaeto members of the Smithsonian as a proof of his impressive record of scientific accomplishment. Meanwhile, those gunning for Sternberg insisted that the reviewers must have been know-nothing supporters of intelligent design. Sternberg’s religious motives were also questioned and his privileges narrowed. His keys were taken away, he was transferred to a much inferior office space, and he was denied access to scientific samples. The atmosphere became so hostile that Sternberg eventually decided to leave the Smithsonian.
At that point Sternberg’s professional career seemed all but ruined. Who would hire such a suspicious person? Two official investigations were made and all accusations were shown to be groundless and the rumors unfounded, but no one involved at the Smithsonian corrected the rumors or apologized. (Sternberg describes on his webpage the drama of those days.13) In the midst of these events, Sternberg came to Finland and faced similar turmoil. The email discussion I mentioned in Chapter 3, the one that unfolded on the university’s professor list, referred to the incident at the Smithsonian and it was one reason given for canceling the ID seminar.
Later I got a telephone call from one of Sternberg’s friends, who asked if I could offer Sternberg a job in my laboratory till the situation calmed down. I promised to take him onto my team, but he found another job in the United States.
This story places in a whole new light the charge that intelligent design researchers are not legitimate because they do not publish their work in peer-reviewed science journals. In fact, they have had several such articles published in peer-reviewed journals. But is it any wonder it doesn’t happen more often, given what happened to Richard Sternberg?14
Many science journals will under no condition publish a paper that explicitly makes a case for intelligent design. And many journal editors who might have considered doing so will think twice after seeing what Sternberg went through. This was undoubtedly a key reason why so much energy was poured into harassing Sternberg. Darwinists didn’t just want to punish him for heterodoxy. They wanted to make an example of him.
From: HERETIC
ONE SCIENTIST’S JOURNEY FROM DARWIN TO DESIGN
Matti Leisola
Jonathan Witttt
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