An Example of Intelligent Design’s Idea of Peer Review

You just can’t make up stuff like this. Under cross examination in regards to the peer review of his book, Darwin’s Black Box Behe claimed that the peer review was more rigorous since there were more than twice as many reviewers who read the book carefully. One such reviewer was Dr. Atchison, a biochemistry professor at University of Pennsylvania.

So what did, Atchison have to say about Behe’s book and his review of it?

Behe sent his completed manuscript to The Free Press publishers for consideration. The editor was not certain that this manuscript was a good risk for publication. There were clearly theological issues at hand, and he was under the impression that these issues would be poorly received by the scientific community. If the tenets of Darwinian evolution were completely accepted by science, who would be interested in buying the book?

The editor shared his concerns with his wife. His wife was a student in my class. She advised her husband to give me a call. So, unaware of all this, I received a phone call from the publisher in New York. We spent approximately 10 minutes on the phone. After hearing a description of the work, I suggested that the editor should seriously consider publishing the manuscript. I told him that the origin of life issue [which has nothing to do with evolution, -jml] was still up in the air. It sounded like this Behe fellow might have some good ideas, although I could not be certain since I had never seen the manuscript. We hung up and I never thought about it again. At least until two years later.

… In November 1998, I finally met Michael Behe when he visited Penn for a Faculty Outreach talk. He told me that yes, indeed, it was his book that the publisher called me about. In fact, he said my comments were the deciding factor in convincing the publisher to go ahead with the
book. (Source)

So let me see if I got this straight. The idea of rigorous peer review that is twice that of the normal peer review process is a ten minute conversation with the publisher about how important the book might be and never seeing a manuscript and that’s it. Count me really, really, super duper impressed. (Whoops, there I go again, snarking my way past Behe.)

Via Stranger Fruit.

FILED UNDER: Education, Science & Technology, , ,
Steve Verdon
About Steve Verdon
Steve has a B.A. in Economics from the University of California, Los Angeles and attended graduate school at The George Washington University, leaving school shortly before staring work on his dissertation when his first child was born. He works in the energy industry and prior to that worked at the Bureau of Labor Statistics in the Division of Price Index and Number Research. He joined the staff at OTB in November 2004.

Comments

  1. RA says:

    Peer review happens after a book or paper is published!?? Duh!

    The reason most evolutionists don’t like this book is because it promotes the scientific reasons why evolution, with the science we know today, was impossible. The questions being raised show how little science is used in promoting evolution. Its all postulating happenings and processies that have been proven to be statistically impossible.

    Its the evolutionists that are practicing blind faith. Show the science that contradicts these fairy stories for adults and it all colapses like a house of cards.

  2. Steve Verdon says:

    Peer review happens after a book or paper is published!?? Duh!

    Uhhhmmm, did you read the post? There was no peer review despite the claims by Behe, et. al.

    The reason most evolutionists don’t like this book is because it promotes the scientific reasons why evolution, with the science we know today, was impossible.

    Which is why Behe has retreated on virtually every example of an IC system?

    The questions being raised show how little science is used in promoting evolution. Its all postulating happenings and processies that have been proven to be statistically impossible.

    Statistically impossible? Really? Care to provide a single citation?

    Its the evolutionists that are practicing blind faith. Show the science that contradicts these fairy stories for adults and it all colapses like a house of cards.

    Right, which is why evolutionary theory is still the dominant theory explaining the origins of diversity of life…oh wait, that isn’t what you were claiming. Sorry.

  3. Scott says:

    Countless thousands of experiments have been conducted, for over a century now, exploring and thus proving the existence of evolution. I won’t cite any examples as there are too many. If you don’t believe me, do some research, or better yet, take a biology class at your local community college.

    This debate is absolutely ridiculous. Intelligent Design is the same exact thing as creationism. That’s not arguable. Creationism is theology. Theology has no place in public schools as the separation of church and state is constitutionally guaranteed.

    By attempting to disguise creationism by wrapping it in “non science” and calling it Intelligent Design, the proponents of ID automatically discredit themselves, in my opinion. There is no possible way to prove ID just as there is no possible way to prove there is a god. How could so many seemingly intelligent people support this profoundly idiotic notion? It makes me livid just thinking about it.

    The truth is ID is just a small part of a huge conspiracy to overthrow our democracy in order to instill and maintain a theocracy where everyone will, by law, be required to be baptized, go to church, abstain from pre-marital sex, watch only G rated movies, and never critically think for them selves again.

    Any and all proponents of ID need a serious head examination.

  4. Steve Verdon says:

    No more pre-marital sex…my God they must be stopped. Oh…wait, I’m married. Nevermind.

  5. Son of Liberty says:

    Boy, I sure hope that thunderbird’s post is a
    satiric joke.

  6. ken says:

    The thing I’ve always wondered about is which theory of god – the intellegent designer? – these people think is the right one.

  7. Brown Owl says:

    In science it is very difficult to proove a negative. (This is because of the potentially very high number of different theories that might explain a phenomenan.) But ID is solely based on this, which at the same time seeking to claim it is “good science”. As someone said recently, if the history of science has taught mankind anything, it is that we get nowhere by labeling the unknown “God”.

  8. Son of Liberty says:

    I can imagine that the intelligent design crowd would have had a field day with Copernicus. The same logic prevails……..none.

    The basic tenet of the intelligent design hypothesis is that “I can’t imagine it”

    Many years ago it was also obvious that the world was flat, that the sun and universe revolved around the earth, and that sickness was a sign of a god’s displeasure. Religion was also challenged by the discovery that all these ideas were false.

    Just because a person who is labeled a “scientist” and writes books to make a living is pushing an idea doesn’t mean that the idea is science.

    In closing, please don’t insert your irrational religious beliefs into my government.

  9. ID apparently relies on faith-based peer review. You just have to BELIEVE it’s valid!

  10. The fact of the matter is that creationists and ID “theorists” have yet to provide a single experiment, field study, or shit, even a theory to attempt to prove their claims.

    All they have is a laundry list of (weak) arguments against evolution.

    Arguments from ignorance that involve statements like “all they have is a few bones” shows just how little research people do, and how willfully ignorant they can be.

    For a complete list of creationist claims and a demonstration of the robustness of the theory of evolution, click this link:

    http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/list.html

    Evolution is an unbelievable strong theory.

  11. I feel sad when I hear they don’t want to publish a book for such reasons. If scientists are not able to have their books in print because they say something contradictory to the current paradigm, that will stop the development((

  12. Steve Verdon says:

    Lucy,

    What are you talking about, nobody is suggesting that a book not be published. In fact, there are a number of books on intelligent design that have been published, so I’m just not sure what you are referring to here.