Another example of Cherry-Picking

It has been long been theorized that North America was originally populated by people coming over a land-bridge across what is now the Bering Sea.  Evidence of such migration has been presented often and little disputes it.  There are disputes over the exact dates, number, and duration of such migrations, in other words some of the details, but the basic theory is well supported.

Well, I caught a new headline from The Christian Times from my Google Alerts.  I know, I know, it's not exactly an authoritative source for much of anything, but it does support something I have said often -- creation pseudo-scientists are perfectly willing to accept some science, providing they can cherry-pick only certain parts of it and discard anything that disagrees with their religious beliefs.  Here's the story: "Discovery of ancient DNA in Alaska supports Tower of Babel account, creationists say".

"A team of researchers . . . sequenced the infant's DNA and compared it to that of modern Native Americans as well as to other ancient and living people across Eurasia and the Americas . . . The team believes that the infant's group and modern Native Americans shared common ancestry with people who crossed from Asia to North America through a land bridge called Beringia some 25,000 years ago."

OK, a study in Nature provides more evidence supporting the Bering Land Bridge.  That's fine in and of itself.  But then a creation pseudo-scientist who works for little kennie ham at Answers in Genesis (AiG) claims that this does support the Genesis story of the Tower of Babel's migration -- however the dating is flawed because it couldn't possible have happened some 25,000 years ago, kennie and his Hamians at AiG doesn't believe the Earth is that old.

So . . . according to kennie and co. when God messed with the people building the Tower and changed all their languages so they could not communicate and continue building a tower that would reach God's front door, they traveled from the Middle East, through all of Asia, crossed the Bering Land Bridge and settled North America all at once.  At the same time they migrated across Europe, Africa, Australia, and all the other islands of the world.  Hmmm, no stretching credibility there.

Of course, there isn't any real support for the Tower of Babel story, it's an origin myth to explain why there are so many human cultures and languages.  But notice how the AiG guy takes part of an actual scientific discovery and spins it to support his religious beliefs -- and yet dismisses other parts of the discovery because of those same religious beliefs:

"Nathaniel Jeanson, a Harvard-trained research biologist with Answers in Genesis (AiG), believes that the dating of the infant girl's DNA was not accurate. However, he said that the other details of the discovery support the Genesis 11 account of mass human migration after the attempt to build the Tower of Babel."

Does anyone really wonder why no one takes creation pseudo-scientists seriously?  AiG's Jeanson is joined by another pseudo-scientist:

"Kurt Wise, a Southern Baptist and Harvard-trained paleontologist, suggested that the 11,500 "radiocarbon years" cited in the study "amount to many fewer true (chronological) years (probably closer to 4,000-4,100 years).""

Were either of these two researchers on the team that made this discovery?  No!  They are simply taking other peoples work, cherry picking some of it, tossing aside the rest and declaring some sort of religious victory.  Have either of them provided evidence that the dating techniques are wrong?  No, they simply wave the Bible and use something called 'biblical chronology', which is somewhat interesting because there is no clear understanding of such a chronology, since it seems to change from sect to sect.  But details like that matter little to the dedicated pseudo-scientist!

Just to be clear, I am not using The Christian Times as an authoritative source, just as an example of how real science is cherry-picked by armchair pseudo-scientists.  I love how they work in that these two are Harvard-trained, like the education they may have been exposed to at Harvard means anything at all to them.  I would be very surprised if they were honest with their beliefs system or their planned use of their education while they were at Harvard.  In my opinion, these are two more examples in the 'Liars for Jesus' club.  Like so many others who misrepresented themselves for the purpose of having an assumed credibility based on their education.  

  I've written about Jeanson before "It's Late, but Answers in Genesis might be joining the 20th century . . . finally!"  I don't recall Wise, but I am sure his name will come up again.  He's a consultant at AiG as well as working at a private Christian college.  Well if that doesn't work out for them in their current positions, maybe the Institute for Creation Research (ICR), Access Research Network (ARN), or Liberty University is looking for help.

So Who is Censoring the Intelligent Design Community's Free Speech?

As expected, the Discovery Institute (DI) has renewed their free speech whine.  "Evolutionist: Free Speech for Me, Not for Thee, Certainly Not for ID".  So the question is are the rights of free expression being taken away from the DI and the few others who are part of the Intelligent Design (ID) Movement?

We discussed something close to this last year, "Is anyone actually censoring the Discovery Institute?".  We determined that the DI's cries of censorship were unfounded and nothing more than another marketing scheme.  They weren't being censored, nor was anyone talking about censoring them.  Disagreeing with them, absolutely!  Keeping them from being taught as science in the science classroom, certainly!  Making fun of the mental rationalizations they use to justify their existence (and funding), oh most definitely!  But those are neither censorship or a violation of free speech.

Now for today's post, it's a teaser for one of their pod casts. In the post they claim:

"Dr. Coyne favors it for people who agree with him, not so much for those who disagree."

I disagree completely. Jerry Coyne's blog "Why Evolution is True" is not about free speech only for those who agree with him, but about telling truth about those with a bone to pick with real science, among other topics. When groups like the DI push pseudo-science as if it was actual science, he's often there to correct them. When they try and hold Darwin up as a poster boy for Hitler, he's quick to point out how wrong they are.  He blogs on many topics, not just Evolution, but often current topics, like the Charlottesville shooting, Feminism, Wildlife pictures (animals and bird, not people).  His blog is interesting and informative.  I don't always agree with him, the differences are usually one of degree, not position.  He is opinionated, for sure, and pulls no punches, so when he called the DI "creationist mushbrains", he means it.  I think he's giving them too much credit, but it is his blog, after all.

I find it hard to think the DI will miss Jerry if he stops blogging.  Their comment:

"The University of Chicago biologist has said on various occasions that we’re “obsessed” with him, but the truth is he is just very useful, very helpful to us. If there ever comes a time when he tires of blogging at 'Why Evolution Is True', that will be a very sad day."

As often as I, and many others, point out the DI's many lies and obfuscations, anyone who has been a thorn in their side for as long as Jerry has will not be missed if he stops blogging.  Jerry has one huge advantage over the DI, he's an actual biologist, not a philosopher or lawyer pretending to be one.  That gives added weight to the topic of evolution and intelligent design.  Can anyone tell me one time Jerry took the DI to task and he turned out to be in error?  Just one?  Neither can I.

One last quote from the DI, which caused me to choke a little on my Diet Dr. Pepper:

" . . . Dr. Egnor [Michael, on of the DI's talking heads] . . . first getting interested in intelligent design, something that impressed him was the way ID proponents are absolutists about letting opponents talk, write, and teach freely, never, ever stooping to the tactic of threatening someone’s job at a university, or the like.  Meanwhile, Darwinists are keen on shutting down conversation — not a hallmark of a strongly supported scientific theory"

So, ID proponents let opponents talk, write and teach freely?  A couple of points here, sort of in reverse order.  Are any ID proponents in a position to not allow science teachers to teach science?  Well the DI would like you to think that even if they had the power, they wouldn't exercise such power.  I do not believe them, for a very simple reason, how many teachers have been disciplined or fired from non-secular schools for teaching actual science?

I'm sure the DI will claim that those had nothing to do with ID -- because they like to claim ID is not Creationism. But we know that is nothing but another lie and marketing campaign. Teaching real biology in a private school can, and has, gotten teachers fired. J.B. Stump is one example, as are Thomas Jay Oord, Pamela Hensley, and Stacy Mendrick.  They aren't the only ones.  All are examples of the close-minded condition of the theological brain.  

One famous, or infamous, example is from the DI's own past, William Dembski.  Anyone else remember :

"While serving as a professor at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, Dembski wrote The End of Christianity, which argued that a Christian can reconcile an old Earth creationist view with a literal reading of Adam and Eve in the Bible by accepting the scientific consensus of a 4.5 billion year of Earth. He further argued that Noah's flood likely was a phenomenon limited to the Middle East. This caused controversy and Dembski's reading of the Bible was criticized by Tom Nettles, a young Earth creationist, in The Southern Baptist Journal of Theology, Southern Seminary's official theological journal. In 2010, the dean of Southwestern's School of Theology, David Allen, "released a White Paper through the seminary's Center for Theological Research defending Dembski as within the bounds of orthodoxy and critiquing Nettles for misunderstanding the book. The paper included Dembski's statement admitting error regarding Noah's flood." Southwestern Seminary president Paige Patterson, a young Earth creationist, "said that when Dembski's questionable statements came to light, he convened a meeting with Dembski and several high-ranking administrators at the seminary. At that meeting, Dembski was quick to admit that he was wrong about the flood. "'Had I had any inkling that Dr. Dembski was actually denying the absolute trustworthiness of the Bible, then that would have, of course, ended his relationship with the school,' he said." (Wikipedia: Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary flood controversy)

Now the reason I want to remind you of that is because just recently the National Center for Science Education (NCSE) reported this: "Dembski and the Scandal of the Evangelical Mind". In it they quote Dembski about that particular controversy:

" . . . this entire incident left so bad a taste in my mouth that I resolved to leave teaching, leave the academy, and get into a business for myself, in which my income would not depend on political correctness or, for that matter, theological correctness."

How quickly the DI tends to forget the idea of 'Theological Correctness'.  So while the DI continues to deny their religious roots, we can see that the theological minded are much more close-minded than the science community, even more close-minded than the claims the DI likes to make against the scientific community, unsubstantiated claims, in my opinion.

If you disagree, just point to a single teacher, professor, administrator who was fired for teaching Intelligent Design?  Not one!  The nearest was John Freshwater, but he was fired for a number of things, including failing to teach the science curriculum he was supposed to be teaching.  So he wasn't just trying to teach ID in addition to real science, he was replacing the curriculum with one of his own choosing.  If that was all, he still might be employed, but remember Freshwater is also the one who lied to investigators, encouraged his students to lie for him, burned crosses into students arms, and lied about leading prayers for one of the student athletic groups.  The others the DI likes to claim were fired, or disciplined, for their support of ID is another set of lies.  Click the links yourself to read about them:

• Crocker's contract was up and she was not re-hired partly because she was failing to teach the subject she was hired to teach..
• Gonzalez was not given tenure because he failed in his responsibilities as a professor with graduate students.
• Sternberg was the already outgoing editor of a minor biological journal who, on his way out the door, violated the journals review procedure to publish one of his friend's ID papers.  A friend he now works for -- imagine that!
• Coppedge was simply downsized and tried to turn it into a religious discrimination suit and failed.  Of course he looked pretty bad when all the evidence showed that he was a poor employee (there were complaints), liked to preach his religion to his co-workers (there were more complaints), and refused to keep his skills current.

There are a few others, but when you did a little you find that the DI's characterizations of the stories are more than a little suspect.  We discussed some of those here: "Skepticism vs. Scholarship (From James F. McGrath)"  It's amazing the spin the DI places on their martyr stories!

Now a new question, Are Darwinists (DI pejorative for Biologists) really shutting down the conversation?  Just how are they doing that?

• One way is to fight letting ID into the science classroom.  Is ID science?  No one has provided any support that ID belongs in the science classroom, especially not the DI.  So this isn't a matter of free speech, but a matter of teaching an actual science curriculum.  Should be also add Astrology to the science classes of Astronomy?  Numerology to Math classes?  Of course not, ID is just like those other area, pseudo-science at best.
• Another way is by reviewing ID literature.  Pointing out the many procedural and factual errors is not a violation of free speech.  Funny when the DI complains about a negative review, they never address the contents of the review, but attack the reviewer.  Did you notice in this very post there isn't a single factual error of Jerry Coyne pointed out, is there?  ID literature is also never published in any forum where the requirement includes actual empirical support.  
• Most scientists refuse to engage in the debate.  For years, real scientists have ignored groups like the DI, Answer in Genesis (AiG), the Institute for Creation Research (ICR), and the Access Research Network (ARN).  Only recently when they try and threaten science education have some scientists spoken up.  The majority refuse to engage because of the tactics of such groups. One of the best responses to such a debate request was "How to respond to requests to debate Creationists", it's a great read, especially the actual response.  This, again, isn't a free speech violation, but an example of using comment sense and professional ethics.  Here, I just have to quote this from Prof Gotelli:
  "So, I hope you understand why I am declining your offer. I will wait patiently to read about the work of creationists in the pages of Nature and Science. But until it appears there, it isn't science and doesn't merit an invitation."

So in what other ways do you think the DI complain about?  Not all complaints, just the ones they keep trying to characterize as issues of free speech?  If we got into their whines about 'academic freedom' -- which I do not believe they understand what that phrase means -- we might be here all night.

In closing no one is inhibiting the DI in the area of free speech.  What they are doing is not giving the DI every platform they seem to think they are entitled to have.  Until they perform real science, they do not belong in the science classroom;  until they support their fanciful ideas, no one is obliged to take them seriously; and until they engage openly and honestly and stop using their many Tactics of Mistake, they deserve every scathing review, every turned down debate request, and not being taken seriously by the scientific and educational communities.

So, to answer the title question, just who is censoring the Intelligent Design Community's Free Speech?  No one, no one at all!

The Discovery Institute is Mad (again)!

A while back we commented on how the Discovery Institute (DI) doesn't get invited to the good parties.  For example, in 2009, when the Vatican hosted a 5-day conference to mark the 150th anniversary of Darwin's 'On Origin of Species', with a main topic of the compatibility of science and creation, the DI was not invited, and that made them sad.

Then just last year (2016) when the Methodists were holding their General Conference, not only was the DI not invited, but the Methodists wouldn't even let them host an Intelligent Design (ID) information table.  That must have made the DI cry because they were so upset they named the United Methodist Council (UMC) as their 'Censor of the Year'. (Which is a Badge of Honor as far as I am concerned!)

Well the "March for Science' is in the running this year -- not only did they not invite the DI, but when the DI asked to be included, they were reminded that they aren't a scientific organization and apparently it made them very, very sad.  There are several posts already on the DI's Evolution 'news' and Views site and I am sure more on in the works.  When the DI had their little tiff with the UMC I stopped counting at 20 different posts, all saying the same whine.  I'm sure there will be plenty of more posts.

Here is a post I saw on the subject: "John West: March for Science or March for Secularism?"  According to West, so of course please take this with a little skepticism, the organizers of the March for Science said:

“it is not our policy to advance specific worldviews or ideas outside of current consensuses of scientific fields.”

Now before you ask, my skepticism is two-fold.  First of all, this is coming from the DI and over the last 10 years of blogging, which include many posts about the DI, I don't immediately trust anything they say.  Secondly, and more specifically, this quote is only part of one sentence and with the tradition of quote-mining the DI holds near and dear to their hearts, I would rather see their request and the March's response in their entirety, rather than let the DI pick and choose which parts to display for me.

However, if that is an accurate quote and if that is within the context of the March's reply, I would have to say they were being exceedingly polite.  Think of what they could have said concerning the DI as a pseudo-science organization, a ministry, one whose continuing efforts damage science education . . . I mean there is a litany of reasons why any organized activity that includes science should exclude organizations such as the DI.  I wonder if Answers in Genesis (AiG), the Institute for Creation Research (ICR) or the Access Research Network (ARN) tried to wrangle invites as well.  How about the American Federation of Astrologers?  I mean if you are going to let in pseudo-science, you might as well get a diverse group.  Plain and simple, I don't trust the DI.

Something else this post does is misrepresent some of the organizations that are invited.  Here is a quote from the post:

"West notes that these include American Humanist Association, Secular Student Alliance, and the Secular Coalition for America—all of which use science to argue that God doesn’t exist. "

That is not what those organizations argue, that's another DI strawman. Here from the Secular Student Alliance:

"Sometimes people use “secular” to mean absolute neutrality toward religion, or as an umbrella label for nonreligious people. When the Secular Student Alliance uses the word “secular,” we as using it as an adjective describing a person who forms their identity independent of any assumptions about the supernatural, is willing to rethink their beliefs in light of empirical evidence, and forms their values based on concern for the present and future world."

It's not that they argue God doesn't exist, but what they are supporting is that they do not need to kneel down to a deity to have full and meaningful lives.  If you really look at those specific organizations, you would see they do little to interfere with peoples actual religious freedoms, but they do defend the rights of people not to have religion forced upon them.  What they also sometimes do, which tends to annoy theists to no end, is to provide valid and verified scientific explanations for many of the things theists attribute to one deity of another, particularly when a theist is trying to force their belief onto others.  I have never seen a member of any of these organizations claim there is no god, but I have often seen theists claim science is wrong because their own explanation includes their deity.  We discussed some of this during the Kim Davis fiasco in Kentucky.

There is a difference between actual religious persecution and what theists like to claim is religion persecution:

Of course, West and his friends can't admit that and probably don't see it that way.  Without their religion they don't seem to feel that have a life, let alone one with meaning.  The problem is they can't conceive of the idea that everyone doesn't feel that way.  So instead of honestly representing these organizations, they get more mileage out of claiming such organizations are some sort of militant organization.

If you have to ask why I would say such things about the DI, I offer one last piece of evidence . . . well, one out of this particular post.  The DI is teaming up with The Stream for a series of posts whining about not being invited.  Well, just what is 'The Stream'?  It self-identifies as (I added the underlining for emphasis):

"The national daily championing freedom, smaller government and human dignity. The Stream offers a rich and lively source for breaking news, Christian inspiration and conservative commentary while challenging the worst in the mainstream media."

They include the following basic tenets:

• Every human being has equal value and dignity.
• We are inherently and specifically social.
• Marriage and the family are the fundamental social institutions.
• We can know God and moral truth.
• Judeo-Christian religious faith guards our freedom.
• We’re all sinners.
• We need a state strong enough to protect and maintain the rule of law but limited enough not to violate it.
• We are meant to be free and responsible.
• When we’re free, we can create wealth and value.
• Culture comes before politics.

So basically, one ministry is teaming up with another ministry to complain about a secular activity that rejected one of the ministries because they are masquerading as a scientific organization.  Gee, how surprising!  And let me remind everyone, tongue firmly embedded in cheek, how there is nothing religious about the Discovery Institute!

Do You Blame the Scientific Community From Giving You Ammunition?

Ridiculous post over on the Discovery Institute's (DI) usual haunt, 'Whatever You Do, Don't Say "Irreducible Complexity"'.  Apparently there is an article in a real scientific journal that warned against using the word 'complex' because of it's association with 'biocomplexity' and 'irreducible complexity'.  Can you blame them?

Just yesterday I posted how the DI is willing to grasp any use of intelligence and claiming it as a victory for their pet religious concept of Intelligent Design. (More Misdirection from the Discovery Institute).  In that post I said:

"What we have also learned, yet again, is that whenever anyone uses their brain (intelligence) and discovers anything that can be interpreted, or even mis-interpreted, as 'design' then the DI is going to try and claim yet another victory for their pet concept ID.  They, the DI, still cannot tell the difference between their Intelligent Design 'theory' and use of intelligence in scientific discoveries."

Since the DI is so quick to make such claims, is it any wonder an article's author might want to avoid some specific terms that would supply the DI with more opportunities?  How many other words do we avoid using because of a specific connotation?  I'm sure you can think of a few, I know I certainly came up with a dozen without much effort.

Of course the DI tries to spin that this as some sort of prejudice . . . and they are right, although not in the way they intended.  Should actual science be prejudiced against pseudo-science?  Most certainly!  The DI doesn't see themselves as pseudo-scientists, but admitting it might have a negative funding impact on the DI.  I mean it's hard to push religion if the donations dry-up.

I do wish to point out one other . ..  lie . . . I know, sugar-coating things isn't my style.  Here's a quote from the DI post:

"Oh, and isn't BIO-Complexity the title of a peer-reviewed science journal open to examining ideas supportive of intelligent design?"

Two problems here.  The first is simple, the paper they found so offensive suggested avoiding the term 'biocomplexity'.  According to Wikipedia:

" . . . some researchers have begun to use the term biocomplexity in a narrower sense to denote the complex behavioral, biological, social, chemical, and physical interactions of living organisms with their environment. This relatively new subfield of biocomplexity encompasses other domains such as biodiversity and ecology." 

Which means the original paper might not have been addressing the DI's journal at all.  The second problem is that even if they were addressing Bio-Complexity, is it really a peer-reviewed science journal?  Not in the least.  It's been identified as the latest Intelligent Design journal. Origins & Design from Access Research Network (ARN) and Progress in Complexity, Information, and Design  from Wild Bill Dembski were two previous attempts.  I said this about Bio-Complexity a while back:

"The National. Center for Science Education had a lot to say about Bio-Complexity shortly after it was announced.  Here is my favorite comment:

"Unable to convince the scientific establishment of the merits of their views, creationists have long been engaged in the project of constructing a counterestablishment, which mimics — or perhaps the mot juste is “apes” — not only peer-reviewed journals but also professional societies, textbook publishers, media organizations, natural history museums, and graduate programs at accredited universities."

So you see, even if the original offending paper was addressing the DI's in-house journal, calling it a peer-reviewed science journal is at best humorous, at worse just another lie.   Real science peer review is not the same thing as having a few people who already agree with you read your papers and pat you on the head.

Personally, I think avoiding certain terms are a waste of time, not because they might cause an association with something the DI might say.  It's because since when does the DI need actual words to try and form an association.  Look at my own post link at the start of this post.  The DI took something unrelated and drew an imaginary line to Intelligent Design.  After all, wasn't it the DI who handed to Ohio State School Board a list of 44 peer-reviewed publications that they said showed support for Intelligent Design?  A list that was fraudulently represented by them! (http://ncse.com/creationism/general/analysis-discovery-institutes-bibliography).

Yea, the DI 'don't need no stinkin' words!

Kirk doesn't like Peer Review

Kirk Durston wrote his first 'faith in science article' and he takes aim at 'Peer Review'.  Does he do a good job, well sort of.  He's not saying much of anything new.  Peer Reviewed journals, well real ones anyway, need to be very careful because when they mess up, they can look pretty bad.  Nothing really new here!  Have there been problems, certainly!  Will there be problems in the future?  More than likely.  But what does Kirk offer instead of peer review?  Nothing!  He just doesn't like it.

Actually that makes a certain amount of sense, I mean the Discovery Institute, whose blog he is posting on, has numerous reasons for not liking peer review.  Imagine you have come up with a way to package and market your religion under the guise of science.  Remember, that's where Intelligent Design started, a repackaging of Creation Science.  But you have your own package and you try and market it and real science gets in the way.  One, of many, of the arguments is that your 'work' hasn't been properly peer reviewed.  I've used this quote before, and it is still applicable.  Dr. Chancey, Chair of the Religious Studies Department at SMU said:

"Many religious groups-Christian and other-do not regard evolutionary theory as a threat. For many people of faith, science and religion go hand in hand. When scholars criticize ID, they are not attacking religion. They are only asking ID proponents to be transparent in their agenda, accurate about their representations of scholarship, and willing to play by the same rules of peer review and quality control that legitimate scholars and scientists around the world follow every day."

I added the underline to make my point.  ID 'theorists' would be welcome to submit their work for peer review if they are willing to play by the same rules.  The question is why aren't they?  I look at things pretty simple, either they cannot play by the same rules, or they will not play by the same rules.  For example anyone remember the Sternberg Peer Review Controversy?  There was a clear example of trying to bypass the process in order to get a paper published.  If you get bored one day look it up in Stephen C. Meyer's 'Signature in the Cell' and see how Meyer re-wrote history in his rationalizing the controversy.  Wikipedia seems to have a much more objective read on what happened.  Funny where Sternberg ended up working.  According to the DI website:

 "Dr. Sternberg is presently a research scientist at the Biologic Institute, supported by a research fellowship from the Center for Science and Culture at Discovery Institute."

So he works at Meyer's place, and Meyer was the author of the paper Sternberg violated procedure to publish.  You know if a HS football coach gets caught helping a particularly talented player get into college and then shortly thereafter gets a job coaching at the same college, the NCAA takes a very long and hard view, frequently to the detriment of the coaches involved.  But I guess that's not an issue at the DI.

So the DI doesn't like the current peer review process.  No surprise there.  They don't seem to like the legal system or even the Vatican.  Remember the legal system is where they lost a landmark case (Dover et al.) and the Pope didn't invite them to the Vatican to discuss Religion and Evolution.  So what does the DI do when there is something they don't like?  I am not surprised to find the DI attacking peer review.  After all, how successful have they been at having their papers published in legitimate peer review journals?  Actually to be more honest, I am not aware of them submitting much to peer review journals, they just keep claiming some sort of discrimination.  Of course there isn't any proof of it, other than their whines.  

Grab a name and hit PubMed and see how often a paper by someone like Meyer, Dembski, or Marks is cited.  You might not be surprised at the answer.  I wasn't able to find any, can you?  There was one Dembski W listed, but it wasn't wild Bill.  Meyer we've discussed numerous times.  Marks is Robert J. Marks, the current editor and chief of Bio-Complexity.  he is also an old friend of Dembski and involved in the Baylor Evolutionary Informatics Lab controversy with him.  He was also one of the alleged victims of intelligent design persecution so hilariously discussed in the Ben Stein abortion 'Expelled'.  On last note on Marks, he is an Electrical Engineer, which makes his just a qualified to head a journal supposedly about biology as Meyer (philosopher of science)  is to write books on it or Dembski (mathematician/historian) to develop theories about it.

Well their first effort seems to be to try and co-opt it.  Since peer reviewed journals don't take them seriously, invent their own!  Their current attempt at co-opting peer review is the in-house online journal called 'Bio-Complexity'.  There they claim to have peer-reviewed articles.

The National. Center for Science Education had a lot to say about Bio-Complexity shortly after it was announced.  Here is my favorite comment:

"Unable to convince the scientific establishment of the merits of their views, creationists have long been engaged in the project of constructing a counterestablishment, which mimics — or perhaps the mot juste is “apes” — not only peer-reviewed journals but also professional societies, textbook publishers, media organizations, natural history museums, and graduate programs at accredited universities."

 Real science peer review is not the same thing as having a few people who already agree with you read your papers and pat you on the head.  Real scientific peer review is more adversarial than that.  It's not people who agree with you, but other experts in the same field.  That's one of the reasons Sternberg got into hot water, he was unqualified to be a reviewer for Meyer's paper for several reasons first he was the journal's outgoing editor so reviewing the paper himself was more an ethical conflict of interest.  His support of ID was well known, as was his relationship with the author so he should have disqualified himself.  Secondly the paper dealt more with Paleontology than his expertise in Taxonomy and Systemics, so he was certainly not a peer based on the subject.  Finally the organization had many much more qualified reviewers, yet Sternberg failed to have one of them review the paper.  So setting himself up as a reviewer violated policy.  So in order to claim their 'work' can be peer reviewed in the future, they create their own journal.  Actually they've done this before (Origins & Design from ACN and Progress in Complexity, Information, and Design  from Dembski) and it hasn't worked yet.

In fact on the subject of peer review, Dembski's PCID had it's own little controversy about the subject.  More than likely one of the things that helped in it's demise.

"PCID's peer review process where ISCID Fellows are reviewers is in contrast to the process described as proper peer review by the American Association for the Advancement of Science, where "reviewers are experts in the relevant scientific fields who have no conflict of interest with or especially close personal relationships to the authors or requestors" and refers to ISCID specifically. (from Wikipedia)"

No one actually buys into their stuff being peer-reviewed, except maybe Access Research Network (ARN) or the Institute for Creation Research (ICR).  But then would that surprise anyone?

So if co-opting doesn't work, go on the attack!  That's what I see Kirk's post as, an attack on peer review.  If you are unable or unwilling to play by the rules, you try and discredit it to weaken science in general.  Will it work?  Doubtful.  Yes, peer review has issues, but the Discovery Institute isn't the group that's going to fix them.  In fact has the DI fixed anything?

Kirk's, and the DI's attacks on peer review sort of remind me of the kid who takes his football home because the other kids don't want to play with them.  Only in this case, they are trying to take away a football that doesn't belong to them, the Peer Review Process.