Conspiracy theory thinking again. The sum total of your thought processes, as presented in dialogue with me anyway, is loose conjecture, based on no reading, no research, no intellectual effort, and no evidence.
I’m getting old, so you may have to remind me what the earlier ones were.
I agree. I’d have been happy if the discussion had been closed a week ago. It would relieve me of the need to keep defending honorable Christian men like Richard Sternberg against near-libellous charges from people who have nothing to offer but accusations without evidence.
You clearly haven’t read his own account, or the other documents on his site. You are like a judge who listens only to the prosecuting attorney, and doesn’t allow the defense counsel or the defendant to speak. When I grew up, we said that judges like that ran a “kangaroo court.”
Aside from your obvious bias, your scenario doesn’t make sense even on its own terms. He sent out the manuscript to several reviewers. Not telling other editors about the paper would do him no good, if he was trying to slip something through, unless he could be sure the reviewers would give positive reviews. And he couldn’t be sure of that, unless he handpicked favorable reviewers – which on his own account would go against his own stated conception of academic ethics. So either he was being foolish in thinking he could put the article through, or you think he was lying when he says he sent it out to impartial reviewers. Is that your charge, that he was lying – that the reviewers were actually all DI people? If so, provide evidence for the charge. Otherwise, you shouldn’t be making it.
You’ll have seen some of them if you’ve read the DI’s list. Here’s one:
Solomon Victor and Vijaya M. Nayak, “Evolutionary anticipation of the human heart,” Annals of the Royal College of Surgeons of England, Vol. 82:297-302 (2000).
You can always just stop responding. You do not need to have the last word.
I have read plenty of documents from both sides. I would suggest you do the same.
“Plenty of documents” is too vague. Have you read Sternberg’s own documents? If not, you are denying a principle of fundamental justice – the right of the accused to be heard.
As for the documents from the other side you mention, if any of them contain anything beyond speculation about motives, speculation about unrecorded meetings, etc., provide links to them, and I’ll look at them.
But in the meantime, just to be clear: Are you accusing Sternberg of lying when he says he sent out the article to impartial reviewers? If so, make the accusation out loud, not slyly, between the lines.
He was heard. It’s just that based on all the other evidence virtually no one in the scientific community believes him. The facts are a crappy science-free paper was published without proper review in a totally inappropriate journal and Sternberg alone was responsible. The sole goal seems to have been so the DI could claim it was published in a peer-reviewed science journal even though it wasn’t.
If it wasn’t outright dishonesty then it was hopeless incompetence on Sternberg’s part. Is that your position now?
Thanks for the reference – it’s always good to hear about new material. But I don’t think my original memory was wrong, because the article you cite wasn’t stumbled upon by Discovery until 2012; obviously I was thinking of an earlier edition of the List. Regarding late-discovered articles, see:
https://evolutionnews.org/2012/02/oldies_but_good/
At the time the Meyer article came out, it was hailed at the first peer-reviewed ID article in a science journal (as opposed to philosophy of science journal, or philosophy journal, or anthology book). I think you said you have only been following this stuff for about 5 years, so you probably don’t remember that. It was precisely because it was the first (as far as anybody then knew) that Eugenie Scott and the NCSE tried to redraw the line in the sand by “not counting” the article on the grounds of alleged irregularities in its publication. So while I stand corrected about what the first article was, I was not wrong when I said the Meyer article was the breakthrough article. The Vikings may have discovered America before Columbus, but it was the voyage of Columbus that first convinced Europe, not the earlier and forgotten voyages of the Vikings.
So no one has taken a moment to convince me that there is value here. In fact @eddie wishes this would all end, but can’t help but keep posting. I’m sadistically curious to see how long this can go on. In the end, however, this is just a waste of energy.
I have too much compassion for this poor black knight to let this go on. This thread is official closed. In the future, let’s try and together see how to keep conversations from being compulsive side shows like this. Unless of course, you like compulsive side shows.
