William Dembski fired from Baylor s Intelligent Design center.

By Tony Carnes | posted 11/28/00 (December 4, 2000 issue)

Baylor University in October terminated well-known Intelligent Design
scientist William Dembski as head of the Michael Polanyi Center for
Complexity, Information, and Design. The center was placed in limbo,
without a name or certain future at the university in Waco, Texas.

Dembski, who retains his Baylor professorship, says he was overwhelmed by
politicking within Baylor. The Polanyi Center s critics were apprehensive,
he says, partly because of Southern Baptist conflicts between creationists
and evolutionists--one front in the ongoing struggle between moderates and
conservatives for control of the Southern Baptist Convention.

Intelligent Design, favored by some conservatives, is a new approach to
the creation-evolution debates that lays aside the question of who
designed the universe to ask whether there is any evidence of design.

Dembski s own work, published by Cambridge University Press in The
Design Inference, employs careful statistical testing of the natural
world to see if it shows evidence of intelligent design. Like a
code-breaker of secret messages, the Intelligent Design analyst asks
whether the signals of the natural world are simply random or point to an
intelligent creative force. Dembski, an Orthodox Christian, says
Intelligent Design research is like looking for the difference between a
jumble of clouds and skywriting that broadcasts a message.

Baylor, which describes itself as  the largest Baptist university in the
world,  has long been a source of complaint for Southern Baptist
conservatives. For example, Judge Paul Pressler of Houston, Texas, decided
to rally Southern Baptist conservatives after hearing students in his
church youth group describe what they were being taught at Baylor.

Moderate Texas Southern Baptists recently redirected $5 million away
from Southern Baptist seminaries and agencies and awarded additional
funds to Texas schools, including Baylor.

Robert Sloan Jr., president of Baylor since 1995, has attempted to take
Baylor in two directions at the same time: moving it into the top tier of
national universities while also reconnecting the school to its Baptist
heritage.

Sloan s method of sidestepping established means for academic
appointments has been controversial. In the meantime, more than a dozen
lawsuits are alleging wrongful termination and demotion during Sloan s
presidency.

Critics say the creation of the Polanyi Center is an example of Sloan s
acting without extensive faculty involvement; it has been a sore spot for
the center s critics from the beginning.

Dembski walked into a tense situation and was subject to dismissive
comments that he was a  stealth creationist.  Michael Beaty, head of
Baylor s Institute for Faith and Learning and Dembski s immediate boss,
urged him to follow a turn-the-other-cheek strategy.

As the controversy escalated, Dembski became ever more embattled. In
January, Polanyi Center critics questioned administrators about the
scientific legitimacy of Intelligent Design and warned that Baylor s
reputation would be severely hurt in the scientific world.

In April and May, critics asked members of Congressional education
committees to withdraw an invitation for Intelligent Design scientists to
give a briefing. The faculty senate voted 26 2 1 to ask that Baylor s
president completely dissolve the Intelligent Design initiatives.

Dembski says that Baylor officials, alarmed at the escalating conflict,
ordered him not to attend the Washington meeting and to write a letter
disavowing it. When Dembski refused, university officials began
considering his termination.

President Sloan appointed a committee to evaluate the Polanyi Center. The
committee recommended stripping the center of its name, absorbing its
functions into the Institute for Faith and Learning, and setting up a
Baylor faculty advisory committee to guide the institute on its
involvement with the Intelligent Design movement. The ad-hoc committee
also clearly recognized Intelligent Design as a legitimate scientific
discipline.

But Dembski mistakenly read the committee s report as a definitive
victory, proclaiming  the triumph of Intelligent Design  in one e-mail
message. He was terminated as director two days after his e-mail became
public knowledge.

 The wedge of truth has a very sharp edge  and will prevail, said
Intelligent Design master strategist Phillip Johnson, speaking at
Pressler s church soon after Dembski s firing. But for now, he says, the
Intelligent Design movement has suffered a huge setback.

Early on, scientists researching Intelligent Design recognized some
powerful advocates for evolution would oppose such research. Some,
worried about adverse publicity, received Intelligent Design research
grants from the Discovery Institute without public disclosure. Says David
Berlinski, a leading Intelligent Design scientist and author of the
recently acclaimed Newton s Gift,  Those who have benefitted from the
change from a fundamentally religious society to a fundamentally secular
one are reluctant to relinquish their power.

oryginal: http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2000/014/18.20.html