The Houston Chronicle, October 18, 2000, Wednesday P.A29

HEADLINE: 'Intelligent design' center at Baylor gains support from review
committee

BYLINE: RON NISSIMOV

    A controversial center at Baylor University researching the idea that
life was created through "intelligent design" instead of evolution should
be allowed to continue its work, an external review committee said
Tuesday. The committee recommended that a faculty advisory committee be
appointed to try to improve the academic center's relationship with the
rest of the university. It also recommended that the Michael Polanyi
Center change its name because Polanyi - a European chemist and
philosopher who died in 1976 - espoused views different from the theories
being researched at the center. Although Polanyi challenged the notion
that all knowledge could be reduced to the laws of nature, the committee
said he did not necessarily believe in the existence of an external force
such as intelligent design. The intelligent design movement, which was
born in the 1980s and grew in strength in the early 1990s, argues that
some life forms and organic molecules are too complex to have been formed
through known natural laws, such as chance mutation and natural selection.
Proponents say they can use probability models to calculate whether
natural phenomena are the result of chance or of a purposeful, intelligent
design. Many scientists at Baylor and other universities say intelligent
design is akin to explaining little-understood phenomena by invoking
spiritual forces. They say it is not a science because there is no way to
verify the existence of an intelligent design agent through observation
and because no intelligent-design research has been published in
peer-reviewed scientific journals.

  The nine-member external review committee, which was convened by the
university in the spring and met Sept. 8-9, did not address two of the
more controversial aspects of the Polanyi Center. Those are the secretive
methods used by Baylor President Robert Sloan to establish the center in
1999 and whether it is being used to promote the teaching of creationism
in public schools. Although a growing number of scholars nationwide are
conducting intelligent-design research and many universities have held
conferences on the topic, Baylor - a private college founded in 1845 with
a Baptist mission - is the only university in the country to devote a
research center to the issue. Sloan, who has been accused by some faculty
members of emphasizing religion over academics since he took over in 1995,
said the university will comply with the recommendations. "I am pleased
that the central mission of the center has been affirmed, and that the
committee has underscored the fact that support of academic freedom
includes protecting controversial ideas," Sloan said in a news release.
"We certainly could have, and should have, handled more effectively the
program's implementation, but we will correct some of those early mistakes
by acting on the committee's recommendations." The review committee said:
"Given the university's tradition, there is a natural interest also in the
relationship of science and religion. Research in this area ought to
strongly be encouraged, at the same time recognizing that this goal is
best served by promoting a variety of perspectives." Faculty members who
have been publicly critical of the Polanyi Center could not be reached for
comment Tuesday. Baylor spokesman Larry Brumley said the faculty generally
had a positive reaction to the recommendations Tuesday. Molleen Matsumara,
network projects director for the Center for Science Education, which
promotes the teaching of evolution, said it would be wrong to interpret
the committee's findings as a validation of intelligent design's claims to
scientific legitimacy. Matsumara said the committee explicitly said it
would be valid for Baylor, as a religious institution, to investigate the
"mathematical arguments for intelligent design," but she stressed that
mathematics is not science. The external review committee was chaired by
Baylor philosophy professor William Cooper, former dean of the school's
college of arts and sciences. Other committee members were from
universities around the nation. The committee's expenses were paid by
Baylor. Cooper said he had a fruitful meeting Tuesday with members of the
faculty senate. "They were mindful of the recommendations, and they
thought the recommendations provided a very good foundation to begin to
address some of their concerns," he said. Cooper said the committee did
not address the methods used to form the center, because that issue was
"past history." The faculty senate, which represents a cross-section of
the university, voted 27-2 in April to recommend dismantling the center
and starting the project from scratch with faculty input. The senate did
not vote on the propriety of intelligent-design research but demanded that
the administration seek faculty input before creating academic centers.
Cooper also said the committee did not investigate the center's
connections with the Seattle-based Discovery Institute, a conservative
think tank that promotes the teaching of intelligent design in public
schools. Many intelligent-design researchers have been funded by the
institute's Center for the Renewal of Science & Culture. They say they
rely on such private funding because the National Science Foundation and
most universities won't sponsor the work. William Dembski, director of the
Polanyi Center, is a senior fellow at the Discovery Institute's center,
and Bruce Gordon, assistant director of the Polanyi Center, is a fellow at
the Seattle organization. Dembski has received fellowships of $40,000 to
$50,000 from the Seattle institute, and his salary at the Polanyi Center
is paid from a $75,000 grant from the John Templeton Fund, which the
institute distributes. Brumley said the university will pick up Dembski's
salary after the grant expires next year. Sloan has said Dembski and
Gordon answer to Baylor and not the Discovery Institute. Dembski could not
be reached for comment Tuesday, but Gordon said he believes intelligent
design should be taught in public schools only once it gains widespread
scientific credibility.