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Faith, Science and the Persecution of Richard SternbergBENJAMIN D. WIKERA fellow Catholic is now being persecuted, in no small part, because of his religion. You haven’t heard about it — nor are you likely to — precisely because it is just the kind of story the reigning media assiduously ignore.
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Richard
Sternberg
| The powers-that-be are
trying to round up scientist Richard Sternberg and hound him out of town (the
town, in this instance being Washington, D.C.). All in the name of secularist
ideology posing as science.
Before we turn to Sternberg’s interesting
case, we should recall the recent clarifying words about evolutionary theory by
Cardinal Archbishop of Vienna Christoph Schönborn in his now-famous New
York Times op-ed, “Finding Design in Nature.”
“The
Catholic Church, while leaving to science many details about the history of life
on earth, proclaims that by the light of reas on the human intellect can readily
and clearly discern purpose and design in the natural world, including the world
of living things. Evolution in the sense of common ancestry might be true, but
evolution in the neo-Darwinian sense — an unguided, unplanned process of
random variation and natural selection — is not. Any system of thought
that denies or seeks to explain away the overwhelming evidence for design in biology
is ideology, not science.” (emphasis added)
Sternberg is being
driven out of his job as a Research Associate at the Smithsonian Institution’s
National Museum of Natural History by ideologues.
A little background:
Rick Sternberg is extremely well qualified for his position. He has two Ph.D.s
in evolutionary biology — one in molecular evolution and the other in systems
theory and theoretical biology. He has published more than 30 very technical articles
in respected biological journals.
Everyone was quite happy with his
work, both as staff scientist with the National Center for Biotechnology Information
and as a research associate at the Smithsonian.
All was well until Sternberg,
as managing editor of the Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington,
allowed a technical paper critical of neo-Darwinism to be published: “The
Origin of Biological Information and the Higher Taxonomic Categories,” written
by Steven Meyer.
Meyer’s Ph.D. is in the history and philosophy
of science from Cambridge University. He is an advocate of Intelligent Design.
“I was supposed to be a gatekeeper turning
away unpopular, controversial, or conceptually challenging explanations of puzzling
natural phenomena. Instead I allowed a scientific article to be published critical
of neo-Darwinism, and that was considered an unpardonable heresy.”
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Instead of engaging Meyer’s paper through argument, the powers-that-be
simply dismissed it as religious tripe, and began attacking Sternberg with startlingly
underhanded animus, doing anything they could to make his life miserable to indelibly
soil his reputation and to drive him out the Smithsonian.
First, Smithsonian
officials tried to remove him directly, charging that as managing editor he had
violated the publication process. But Sternberg followed the procedure perfectly.
He discussed publication with a fellow scientist at the Smithsonian, and before
publication he had the article peer-reviewed by three molecular and evolutionary
biologists — all with doctoral degrees.
Unable to trump
up any legitimate charges, Smithsonian officials went after him indirectly, creating
an intolerable work environment, smearing him with false allegations, pressuring
the National Center for Biotechnology Information to fire him, and worst of all,
investigating his personal religious and political beliefs behind the scenes.
The interesting thing in regard to this last skullduggery of prying into
his religion is that Sternberg is not an advocate of Intelligent Design, but of
the structuralist approach to biology. But the assumption of those “digging
for dirt” was that, if he believed in God, then his skull was obviously
soft enough to admit Meyer’s paper rather than reject it outright.
The U.S. Office of Special Counsel was called in to investigate. Its officials
decided unambiguously in Sternberg’s favor, although officials at the Smithsonian
have now stoutly refused to cooperate with the investigation. Small wonder, given
their less-than-admirable methods of trying to destroy Sternberg.
Reading
the Special Council’s report is an eye-opener. Before the Smithsonian stopped
cooperating with the investigation, behind-the-scenes e-mail correspondence was
gathered by investigators. It is clear from reading them that Smithsonian officials
had little but contempt for religious believers:
“After spending
4.5 years in the Bible Belt,” said one,” I have learned how to carefully
phrase things in order to avoid the least amount of negative repercussions for
the kids. … The most fun we had by far was when my son refused to say the
Pledge of Allegiance because of the ‘under dog’ part.”
Charming. The e-mails reveal what is truly behind the “careful phrasing”
of these scientist-administrators. They are secularist ideologues with a barely
suppressed disdain for believers.
“It is clear that I was targeted
for retaliation and harassment explicitly because I failed in an unstated requirement
in my role as editor of a scientific journal,” Sternberg contends. “I
was supposed to be a gatekeeper turning away unpopular, controversial, or conceptually
challenging explanations of puzzling natural phenomena. Instead I allowed a scientific
article to be published critical of neo-Darwinism, and that was considered an
unpardonable heresy.”
Interesting, isn’t it? Can you imagine
a scientist of Sternberg’s stature being persecuted because he allowed a
paper to be published that concluded evolution occurs as “an unguided, unplanned
process of random variation and natural selection” and that consequently
all notions of a Creator God are entirely groundless? Of course not. That’s
orthodoxy. Or is it ideology masquerading as science?
One thing is for
certain. Sternberg is still being persecuted behind the scenes for daring to allow
science to question science.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT Benjamin
D. Wiker. "Faith, Science and the Persecution of Richard Sternberg." National
Catholic Register (October 2-8, 2005). This article is reprinted with
permission from National Catholic Register. All rights reserved. To subscribe
to the National Catholic Register call 1-800-421-3230. THE
AUTHOR Benjamin
Wiker holds a Ph.D. in Theological Ethics from Vanderbilt University, and has
taught at Marquette University, St. Mary's University (MN), and Thomas Aquinas
College (CA). He is now a Lecturer in Theology and Science at Franciscan University
of Steubenville (OH), and a full-time, free-lance writer. Dr. Wiker writes regularly
for a variety of journals, including Catholic World Report, New Oxford
Review, and Crisis Magazine, and is a regular columnist for the National
Catholic Register. He has published three books, Moral
Darwinism: How We Became Hedonists (InterVarsity Press, 2002), The
Mystery of the Periodic Table (Bethlehem Books, 2003), and Architects
of the Culture of Death (Ignatius, 2004). He is currently working on another
book on Intelligent Design for InterVarsity Press called The Meaning-full Universe.
He lives with his wife and seven children in Hopedale, OH.Copyright © 2005
National Catholic Register
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