Barbara Forrest on a New ID Book

Barbara Forrest has written a review of the book Darwinism, Design and Public Education, written by John Angus Campbell and Stephen Meyer of the Discovery Institute. Predictably, the DI Media Complaints Division (otherwise known as the DI Blog) is howling in outrage. Just as predictably, their basis for that outrage is a highly dishonest portrayal of what Forrest writes. It begins:

Barbara Forrest is at it again. In her latest review of Meyer & Campbell's Darwinism, Design & Public Education Forrest substitutes strident affirmation for science and scorn for reasoned argumentation. Forrest never chooses to engage the arguments of design theorists but rather questions their qualifications: "John Angus Campbell, who also serves on the journal's editorial board, is a rhetorician. Stephen C. Meyer is a philosopher." What pray tell was your Ph.D. in Barbara? And why is it you don't apply that same standard to Robert Pennock when he deigns himself fit to comment on evolution?

Clearly, the DI wants their readers to believe that Forrest merely said, "They're not scientists so we don't have to listen to them" and left it at that. But that, my friends, is a rather blatant lie. In fact, Forrest only mentions the background of the authors once, at the beginning of her essay, and solely for the purpose of rebutting the DI's highly dishonest claim that the book under review is a "peer reviewed science book". She points out that this is dishonest for three reasons: A) the book's authors are not scientists; B) the book was in fact published as part of the MSU Press's Rhetoric and Public Affairs Series, which means it was not peer reviewed by scientists; and C) the book in fact contains no actual ID science. Indeed, while the DI shills for this book by claiming that the book "features new scientific arguments for design based on evidence in paleontology and comparative anatomy," there are no new arguments at all in the book, which is merely a rehash of a series of articles they published 5 years earlier. So not only is the DI being dishonest in multiple ways in their marketing for the book, but they're also being dishonest in their response to criticism. And we're not done yet.

Like a species of medieval inquisitor, Forrest will brook no debate on this issue.

Ah, more of those offensive and inaccurate comparisons that the DI screams bloody murder about while engaging in themselves. Isn't hypocrisy amusing?

And the wedge again Barbara? (Yawn) That is such old news that has already been dealt with here. For the record I don't know of a single ID theorist who refers to himself as "the Wedge" nor do we do so collectively.

Well yes, the Wedge is old, written nearly a decade ago. But so what? Does that mean it magically went away at some point? It was a document put out by your organization that spelled out your strategy for the future. By what possible reasoning does it become rational to dismiss any reference to that strategy as irrelevant a few years later? For crying out loud, your group publishes a monthly (or so) Wedge Update article, initially written by ID icon Phillip Johnson and later handed off to Discovery Institute Fellow Mark Hartwig. So let's see if I understand the logic here...the DI publishes a strategy document called The Wedge, refers often to the Wedge Strategy, and even publishes a regular column on how this strategy is advancing...but any mention of the Wedge by opponents is dismissed with a feigned yawn and and the ridiculous argument that no ID advocate refers to themselves as the Wedge? I'll take astonishingly stupid arguments for $1000, Alex.

Naturally, the DI blog entry about the review doesn't bother to mention that, aside from the brief allusion to their highly dishonest marketing campaign for the book, Forrest engages in a section by section critique of the substantive arguments in the book, from the rehash of ID arguments on the Cambrian explosion to the legal argument from DeWolf and DeForrest to the philosophical arguments of Nord. No mention of the substance of those critiques at all, because to mention those would show that their earlier claim, that Forrest just dismisses the qualifications of the authors and makes appeals to authority, is a lie.

The more the DI blog continues to post these shrill whines about how terrible the media and those big bad scientists are to them, the more they sound like a 12 year old girl: "Oh my god, that is so unfair. Those people are so mean. It's just totally bogus."