U of Iowa faculty petition against ID released

Posted 20 November 2005 by

...and has spawned some press coverage, here in the Ames Tribune and here in the Cedar Rapids Gazette, making us the first state to have faculty from all Regent universities speak out against intelligent design. I'll briefly address some of the comments. In the first article, U of I physics professor (and signer of the DI's "Scientific dissent from Darwinism" petition) Fred Skiff elaborates one giant strawman:
"It's part of science to consider what blinders you might be wearing," Skiff said. "Materialists put conditions on science that things can only exist if they satisfy materialism. I think that is a mistake."
(Continued at Aetiology) Edited to add: bummer, as noted in the comments, Missouri beat us to the punch. Edited again to add: I see Dembski is claiming " ID proponents were bypassed" when we circulated this. Not true at all--I don't even know who on the faculty is an "ID proponent" besides the already-mentioned Fred Skiff (and I can't say how it was circulated within the physics department, if it went there at all). It was mostly passed along through word-of-mouth, and generally sent to entire departments or colleges at a time. The idea that we were bypassing certain people on a faculty this large is a joke.

7 Comments

Mike Walker · 20 November 2005

Perhaps someone should ask Skiff why he thinks he can publish papers based on his research when he can't be sure whether or not some non-material entity is messing with his experimental results.

byzanteen · 20 November 2005

Aetiology contains every vowel but u. Try a little harder.

Wesley R. Elsberry · 20 November 2005

Aetiology contains every vowel but u. Try a little harder.

Don't say that facetiously.

'Rev Dr' Lenny Flank · 20 November 2005

"Materialists put conditions on science that things can only exist if they satisfy materialism. I think that is a mistake."

IDers always want to keep bleating to me about how awful "materialist science" is. Yet, for some odd reason, they NEVER seem to want to tell me how NON-materialist science would work. I wonder why that is?

hal · 20 November 2005

I'm not sure this is a good idea. It merely provides publicity and a sense of (false) legitimacy to intelligent design.

Jason Ware · 21 November 2005

Its interesting that the IDers see the petition as some sort of hostile act towards them. Its almost like they believe people shouldn't be able to criticize them. Many Christians are the same when it comes to their religion.

Tukla in Iowa · 22 November 2005

I'd have a hard time not slipping in "and then a miracle occurred" as part of a test answer if I were in one of Skiff's classes.