Monday, June 07, 2010

Steve Matheson Writes an Open Letter to Stephen Meyer

Steve Matheson has posted on his blog an open letter to Stephen Meyer following their colloquium/debate at Biola University. Subsequent to the event, a posting on the Discovery Institute's blog Evolution News and Views claimed that Dr. Matheson had conceded that design was the best explanation for origins of life questions. In a previous post, he writes that this isn't so. Here, he takes the gloves off:
Your Discovery Institute is a horrific mistake, an epic intellectual tragedy that is degrading the minds of those who consume its products and bringing dishonor to you and to the church. It is for good reason that Casey Luskin is held in such extreme contempt by your movement's critics, and there's something truly sick about the pattern of attacks that your operatives launched in the weeks after the Biola event. It's clear that you have a cadre of attack dogs that do this work for you, and some of them seem unconstrained by standards of integrity. I can't state this strongly enough: the Discovery Institute is a dangerous cancer on the Christian intellect, both because of its unyielding commitment to dishonesty and because of its creepy mission to undermine science itself. I'd like to see you do better, but I have no such hope for your institute. It needs to be destroyed, and I will do what I can to bring that about.
As Glenn Reynolds would say: Ouch! It is quite clear that those writing for the Discovery Institute have a fairly minimal grasp on the discipline (evolution) that they so seek to denigrate. This is clear from the writings of William Dembski, Michael Behe, Jonathan Marks, Jonathan Wells and Philip Johnson. It is also true that many posts or press releases from the Discovery Institute are either misleading or false (here, here, here, here and here just to name a few). All told, this gives one pause as to whether this organization is really involved whatever in a scientific enterprise and that it seeks to address the debate in an honest way.

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1 comment:

  1. Anonymous2:35 AM

    Sadly this is all that Steve Matheson is capable off - name calling and dishonesty . Stephen Meyer exposed Matheson as scientifically illiterate during this encounter and sadly at one point the audience were laughing at Matheson's ineptitude. Richard Steinberg did the same over introns on Matheson's own blog. Matheson is really pathetic.

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