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The Michael Polanyi Center (MPC) was, between 1999 and 2000, the first institution within a science department of a research university (Baylor) to "research" intelligent design, the idea that life shows scientific evidence of being designed by an intelligent designer, widely regarded in the scientific community as being baseless pseudoscience. However, criticism from the academics at Baylor saw the center moved into the theology department. Its director, theologian William Dembski, was sacked after he attacked scientists and his boss in an email.
History
Background
Baylor University was founded in 1845 in Waco, Texas as a Baptist University. Baylor also developed into a research university with a reputable science department. In 1991 Baylor became independent from the Southern Baptist Convention to which it had been closely affiliated.
A new Baylor president, Robert Sloan was appointed in 1995. Sloan, was a New Testament Scholar with a doctorate in theology from the University of Basel. He proposed to return the school to its mission of integrating academic excellence and Christian commitment. As a result, the Baylor Institute for Faith and Learning was established in 1997.
Sloan noted:
- Baylor ought to be the kind of place where a student can ask a question and not just get the runaround. He shouldn't have to go to the theology department and be told, 'Oh, that's a scientific question. Don't ask me that.' And then the student goes to the science department and they tell him, 'That's a religious question. Don't ask me that.'
In 1998 Sloan read an article by mathematician, philosopher and intelligent design advocate William Dembski and was impressed. Sloan approached Dembski to Institute for Faith and Learning, whose director Michael Beaty was also impressed by his work and credentials. They learned of Dembki's wish to establish an intelligent design research center. As a result in October 1999, Baylor's Michael Polanyi Center was quietly established without reference to science academics. Dembski named it after the Hungarian scientist and theologian Michael Polanyi (1891 — 1976). Dembski appointed Bruce Gordon as his deputy.
The MPC website stated:
- The Michael Polanyi Center (MPC) is a cross-disciplinary research and educational initiative focused on advancing the understanding of science. It has a fourfold purpose: (1) to support and pursue research in the history and conceptual foundations of the natural and social sciences; (2) to study the impact of contemporary science on the humanities and the arts; (3) to be an active participant in the growing dialogue between science and religion; and (4) to pursue the mathematical development and empirical application of design-theoretic concepts in the natural sciences.
However, academics in the science faculty were concerned that association with pseudoscience would adversely affect their reputations, careers and the quality of degrees offered by the university.
Nature to Nurture
Between April 12 and April 15, 2000 the Center held a conference entitled Nature to Nurture, jointly sponsored by the Discovery Institute and the John Templeton Foundation. Critics of intelligent design within the scientific community were split as to whether to attend. They thought that the conference might give ID more academic credibility, something they argue it lacks, and that it would be used for propaganda by the ID movement and the Christian press. Nevetheless, the conference attracted a a variety of scientists, theologians and philosophers, including Alan Guth, John Searle, and Nobel Prize-winner Steven Weinberg. Some who attended donated their speaking fees to the National Center for Science Education.
The conference brought things to a head and as a result, on April 18 the Faculty Senate (the academics' committee) voted by 27-2 for the center to be abolished. This call was rejected by Sloan on April 20, who commented
- I believe there are matters of intellectual and academic integrity at stake here
We should not be afraid to ask questions, even if they are politically incorrect
A compromise was later reached to form an independent committee to review the center, consisting of eight academics from across the country and chaired by the philosopher Professor William F. Cooper.
The committee met between September 8 and September 10. On October 17 the committtee released its report. Although it recommended that there should be a place for the study of intelligent design, it recommended that the center be renamed and reconstituted within Baylor's Center for Faith and Teaching. This was seen as a compromise between the two sides and an attempt to defuse the row that had developed.
The end
On October 18 Dembski responded to the report with an press release/email:
- The report marks the triumph of intelligent design as a legitimate form of academic inquiry. This is a great day for academic freedom. I'm deeply grateful to President Sloan and Baylor University for making this possible, as well as to the peer review committee for its unqualified affirmation of my own work on intelligent design. The scope of the Center will be expanded to embrace a broader set of conceptual issues at the intersection of science and religion, and the Center will therefore receive a new name to reflect this expanded vision. My work on intelligent design will continue unabated. Dogmatic opponents of design who demanded the Center be shut down have met their Waterloo. Baylor University is to be commended for remaining strong in the face of intolerant assaults on freedom of thought and expression.
Sloan asked Dembski to retract this press release, feeling that it was an unnecessary escalation of the argument and not collegiate, but Dembski refused. On October 19, Dembski was removed from his position of director, though he remained an associate professor. He was replaced by his deputy, Bruce Gordon.
Dembski responded with another press release [1] (http://www.antievolution.org/people/dembski_wa/metanews_20001020_wad.txt) claiming the "utmost of bad faith", and accusing the university of "intellectual McCarthyism". Critics suggested that Dembski deliberately provoked his employers in order to be sacked and then be able to claim he was being witch-hunted.
The recommendations of the committee were carried out and the center was renamed Program in Science, Philosophy and Religion. Dembski never taught a course at Baylor and was shunned by the academics there. Dembski will leave Baylor in June 2005 to take up a new position at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, Louisville as Carl F. H. Henry Professor of Theology and Science.
External links
Baylor University
Baylor press releases
Lariat news items
(Lariat is the Baylor campus newspaper)
Faculty Senate
Dembski
Commentary
Pro-intelligent design
- On the Nature to Nurture conference:
- On the end of the center:
Anti-intelligent design
- NCSE on Center (http://www.ncseweb.org/resources/news/2000/TX/874_baylors_polanyi_center_in_tur_11_1_2000.asp)
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