GENERAL NEWS

Commentary: It's perilous to ponder the design of the universe

By UWE SIEMON-NETTO, UPI Religion Correspondent

WASHINGTON, Dec. 21

    Professor William A. Dembski, 40, does not show his face at Baylor
University in Waco, Tex., all that often anymore.

    "That's a very hostile environment over there," he told United Press
International. "I go to the library and use the athletic facilities, but I
work from home."

    Baylor calls itself the world's largest Baptist university with 18,000
students. So why would this eminent scholar feel unwelcome in this
Christian school? Why is he an exile within his own four walls?

      Well, Dembski entertains the hypothesis that the universe is the
product of mindful planning rather than a random set of circumstances.
Though an evangelical Christian, this scholar with doctorates in
mathematics and philosophy does not name the designer, at least not in his
work.

    Still, his ideas do not sit well with Baylor professors stuck in
methodological naturalism. This stricture obliges scientists to be
provisional atheists in their work, even if their research surfaces
evidence to the contrary.

    They denounced Dembski's theories as "stealth creationism," as though
he had promoted the notion that God made this world in six days, exactly
as the Bible says.

    In e-mails and letters to the local media, Dembski's opponents accused
him of endangering Baylor's scholarly reputation. At one point, the
controversy became so frenzied that Robert Sloan, the university's
president, spoke of "McCarthyism."

    Sloan, a renowned New Testament scholar, reminded faculty members how
much scientists had suffered in the past when pressured by fundamentalist
creationists. "It's rather ironic that people in the scientific community
now appear to be suppressing others."

    Yet it took Dembski's antagonists a little over a year to have him
fired from his position as Baylor's Center for Complexity, Information and
Design. Now he is just an associate research professor.

    Sloan had caved in, although he "still supports Dembki's work,"
according to Larry Brumley, Baylor's spokesman.

    William Dembski is a leading proponent of a theory known as
Intelligent Design. This is also the title he gave to one of his books
that received much acclaim around from the world. It has already sold
20,000 copies, a staggering figure for a volume of this kind.

    In his research, Dembski applies mathematics and statistics to detect
purpose in the makeup of the natural world. As the magazine Christianity
Today put it, he is "looking for the difference between a jumble of clouds
and skywriting that broadcasts a message."

    President Sloan himself had discovered him a little over a year ago.
Sloan had set himself two goals: leading Baylor into the top tier of
American universities while also guiding it back to its Baptist heritage.

    As part of this endeavor, Sloan set up the Michael Polanyi Center and
put Dembski in charge. The problem is that Baylor is caught up in the
tension between the conservative Southern Baptist Convention and the more
liberal Baptist General Convention in Texas to which this school owes
allegiance.

    "I stepped into internecine Baptist struggles," Dembski told UPI
referring to the ironic kind of struggle where even men and women of faith
purport a materialist way of thinking while at work. "Some of my greatest
enemies are Christians," Dembski said.

    So fierce was the opposition that in April most Baylor biologists
boycotted a Polanyi Center conference attended by renowned mathematicians
and other scientists from around the world, including two Nobel laureates.
Scholars from other universities even tried to sabotage the conference.
They sent bogus notes to all schedules speakers "disinviting" them, the
American Spectator reported.

    Although the conference was a resounding success, Baylor's faculty
senate voted to ask President Sloan to end all Intelligent Design
initiatives. Sloan then convened an "independent committee" to evaluate
Dembski's work. It recommended absorbing the center's functions into the
Institute for Faith and Learning but unambiguously recognized Intelligent
Design as a legitimate scientific discipline.

    Buoyed by this report, Dembski sent out an e-mail: "Dogmatic opponents
of design have who demanded the center be shut down have met their
Waterloo." Said Dembski, "I did not reckon with the faculty's lack of a
sense of humor." Two days later, with Sloan's accord, Dembski was fired
from his position as director of the center.

    Baylor spokesman Brumley mused on Thursday that "a lot that some
bridge-building has to be done within the faculty" for Dembski's work to
go forward. Meanwhile, Dembski works in his house determined not to let
his foes relish their success.

    "I have offers from some Christian colleges," he said, "but to go
there would mean handing a victory to my opponents here. My contract with
Baylor runs for another four years."