Here’s a letter in my archives that over the years has aged well. It is vitriol at its finest, and it gives some insight into what critics of ID really think about us. The context is this: A colleague of mine at a major university was holding a seminar on the relation between science and religion and it had just become known around campus that he was an intelligent design supporter. Inadvertently, he emailed a certain professor an invitation to the seminar. This professor wrote back as follows (note that I’ve edited the letter slightly to preserve anonymity). Enjoy!
Dr. _____:
Please remove my name from your e-mail lists. I wish to receive no more of your patronizing invitations. I do not consider you a colleague, in any sense of the word, nor do I consider the work you do a method to facilitate discussion between scientists and philosophers. Rather, your transparent agenda is just the opposite in my view, a thinly veiled attack on the methods and outcomes of science over the last several hundred years. Your work, your personal demeanor, your very presence here, have already polarized local scientists from discussions that, under different circumstances, might have been very productive. From the perspective of many of us, certainly from my perspective, your work might be characterized as simply irrelevant to what we do in contemporary science. Others see your outright antagonism as a threat to our “normal science.” That perspective gives you way too much undeserved credit.
So, harangue whomever you can induce to come to your seminars but please leave me alone. I am not interested in wasting my time nor being bothered with invitations. By the way, what a great job of rewriting the website! The picture in a suit makes all the difference. You are so thoroughly absorbed in your agenda that even when you try you cannot even approach an appearance of objectivity in what you write. Your real agenda just seems to bleed through the rhetoric. Surprisingly, your efforts on campus to promote intelligent design may turn out to be the best “poster child” possible for NOMA [Stephen Jay Gould’s model for the relation between science and religion — Nonoverlapping Magisteria] (If it doesn’t actually drive more to adhere to the war paradigm!). How ironic given that you are trying to build bridges between science and religion? Turns out that we have the optimal “wedge” right here at [snip] University. Well done! And we are paying you for this. Masterful, just masterful! Congratulations.
Now, leave me alone please and erase my name from your archives.
[snip]