NCSE’s Eugenie Scott To Retire

_{Denyse O'Leary

May 7, 2013

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The NCSE has announced that their director Dr. Eugenie Scott will be retiring by the end of this year. I wonder who will be chosen to replace her?

NCSE’s executive director Eugenie C. Scott announced on May 6, 2013, that she was planning to retire by the end of the year, after more than twenty-six years at NCSE’s helm. “It’s a good time to retire, with our new climate change initiative off to a strong start and with the staff energized and excited by the new challenges ahead,” she commented. “The person who replaces me will find a strong staff, a strong set of programs, and a strong board of directors.”

During Scott’s time at NCSE, she was honored with no fewer than eight honorary degrees as well as the Public Welfare Medal from the National Academy of Science, the inaugural Stephen Jay Gould Prize from the Society for the Study of Evolution, the Public Service Award from the National Science Board, and the Scientific Freedom and Responsibility Award from the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

“It’s not going to be easy to fill the shoes of someone who has done so much to make NCSE into the respected and admired organization it is,” remarked Brian Alters, the president of NCSE’s board of directors. “We look forward with working with Genie to find the best possible successor.” A job announcement is now available; members and friends of NCSE are encouraged to spread the word that what Scott once described as “the best job in the world” will soon be open.

Comments

Oh no folks. Identity matters. Women do not come now or in the past close to mens achievement in science. This is right or wrong. Ms sCott is case in point. I always find the women are not up to keeping up even in the subjects they apply themselves too in science. This is my observation. I have no doubt Ms Scott being picked for her job was because of a desire to have a woman. They needed one in subjects of origin research that largely are male. They always practice affirmative action. I insist. He was inarticulate, constantly based on misunderstanding the whole issues even allowing for being on the anti -creationist side. Thats why I liked her being there and dislike her retirement. She messed up the very organized opposition in academia against recent rising creationism(s). They could of done a better job at dealing with the early years of ID and YEC ascendency. She is to blame because they should iof had a better person and that means a man these days still. There are more women in these science things but they are STILL a poor second. To deny the intellectual prevalence of men is what could balled SEXISM. Identity matters in science in history and today.Robert Byers_{May 8, 2013
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OT: "A number of hominid crania are known from sites in eastern and southern Africa in the 400- to 200-thousand-year range, but none of them looks like a close antecedent of the anatomically distinctive Homo sapiens…Even allowing for the poor record we have of our close extinct kin, Homo sapiens appears as distinctive and unprecedented…there is certainly no evidence to support the notion that we gradually became who we inherently are over an extended period, in either the physical or the intellectual sense." Dr. Ian Tattersall: - paleoanthropologist - emeritus curator of the American Museum of Natural History - (Masters of the Planet, 2012) http://sciencereasonfaith.com/pay-no-attention-to-that-data-behind-the-curtain/ "What's remarkable about this is how closely everyone is related to each other. On a genealogical level, everyone in Europe traces back to nearly the same set of ancestors only a thousand years ago," .... "...such close kinship likely exists in other parts of the world as well." (Genes show one big European family, May 7, 2013) http://phys.org/news/2013-05-genes-big-european-family.htmlbornagain77_{May 8, 2013
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Whoever is chosen to replace Dr. Scott, I'll bet one of the prerequisites will be a willingness to aggressively resist ID at all costs. Given the recent survival of the Louisiana Science Education Act and the fact that ID is gaining momentum, NCSE's new director will no doubt need to carry on Eugenie's crusade with even move vigor. From what I read in the literature and on the blogs, it seems to me the Darwin worshipers are getting more shrill and more desperate.RexTugwell_{May 8, 2013
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F/N 2: I go on to my main point, that the slander perpetuated by NCSE under Ms Scott's watch for many years, the false assertion that ID is "creationism in a cheap tuxedo," is corrected here at UD in the WACs. Let me clip (inviting also an onward reading):
[UD WAC's, ] 5] Intelligent Design is “Creationism in a Cheap Tuxedo” In fact, the two theories are radically different. Creationism moves forward: that is, it assumes, asserts or accepts something about God and what he has to say about origins; then interprets nature in that context. Intelligent design moves backward: that is, it observes something interesting in nature (complex, specified information) and then theorises and tests possible ways how that might have come to be. Creationism is faith-based; Intelligent Design is empirically-based. Each approach has a pedigree that goes back over two thousand years. We notice the “forward” approach in Tertullian, Augustine, Bonaventure, and Anselm. Augustine described it best with the phrase, “faith seeking understanding.” With these thinkers, the investigation was faith-based. By contrast, we discover the “backward” orientation in Aristotle, Aquinas, and Paley. Aristotle’s argument, which begins with “motion in nature” and reasons BACK to a “prime mover” — i.e. from effect to its “best” causal explanation — is obviously empirically based. To say then, that Tertullian, Augustine, Anselm (Creationism) is similar to Aristotle, Aquinas, Paley (ID) is equivalent to saying forward equals backward. What could be more illogical? 6] Since Intelligent Design Proponents Believe in a “Designer” or “Creator” They Can Be Called “Creationists” First, a basic fact: while many intelligent design proponents believe in a Creator (which is their world-view right), not all do. Some hold that some immanent principle or law in nature could design the universe. That is: to believe in intelligent design is not necessarily to believe in a transcendent creative being. However, what is rhetorically significant is the further fact that the term “creationist” is very often used today in a derogatory way. Traditionally, the word was used to describe the world view that God created the universe, a belief shared by many ID scientists, and even some ID critics. But now, that same term is too often used dishonestly in an attempt to associate intelligent design, an empirically-based methodology, with Creationism, a faith-based methodology. Some Darwinist advocates and some theistic evolutionists seem to feel that if they can tag ID with the “Creationist” label often enough and thus keep the focus away from science–if they can create the false impression that ID allows religious bias to “leak” into its methodology–if they can characterize it as a religious presupposition rather than a design inference –then the press and the public will eventually come to believe that ID is not really science at all. In short, anti-ID ideologues use the word “creationist” to distract from a scientific debate that they cannot win on the merits. The only real question is whether someone who uses this dubious strategy is doing so out of ignorance (having been taken in by it, too) or out of malice. 7] Because William Dembski once commented that the design patterns in nature are consistent with the “logos theology” of the Bible, he unwittingly exposed his intentions to do religion in the name of science In general, personal beliefs and personal views about the general nature of reality (be they religious, atheistic, or of any kind) should not be considered directly relevant to what scientists say and do in their specific scientific work: that’s a very simple rule of intellectual respect and democracy, and it simply means that nobody can impose a specific model of reality on others, and on science itself. Moreover, Dembski is qualified as a theologian and a philospher-scientist-mathematician (one of a long and distinguished tradition), so he has a perfect right to comment seriously on intelligent design from both perspectives. Further to this, the quote in question comes from a theologically oriented book in which Dembski explores the “theological implications” of the science of intelligent design. Such theological reframing of a scientific theory and/or its implications is not the same thing as the theory itself, even though each may be logically consistent with the other. Dembski’s point, of course, was that truth is unified, so we shouldn’t be surprised that theological truths confirm scientific truths and vice versa. Also, Dembski’s reference to John 1:1 ff. underscores how a worldview level or theological claim may have empirical implications, and is thus subject to empirical test. For, in that text, the aged Apostle John put into the heart of foundational era Christian thought, the idea that Creation is premised on Rational Mind and Intelligent Communication/Information. Now, after nineteen centuries, we see that — per empirical observation — we evidently do live in a cosmos that exhibits fine-tumed, function-specifying complex information as a premise of facilitating life, and cell-based life is also based on such functional, complex, and specific information, e.g in DNA. Thus, theological truth claims here line up with subsequent empirical investigation:a risky empirical prediction has been confirmed by the evidence. (Of course, had it been otherwise – and per track record — many of the same critics would have pounced on the “scientific facts” as a disconfirmation. So, why then is it suddently illegitimate for Christians to point out from scientific evidence, that on this point their faith has passed a significant empirical test?) 8] Intelligent Design is an attempt by the Religious Right to establish a Theocracy Darwinist advocates often like to single out the “Discovery Institute” as their prime target for this charge. It is, of course, beyond ridiculous. In fact, all members from that organization and all prominent ID spokespersons embrace the American Founders’ principle of representative democracy. All agree that civil liberties are grounded in religious “principles” (on which the framers built the republic) not religious “laws” (which they risked their lives to avoid), and support the proposition that Church and State should never become one. However, anti-ID zealots too often tend to misrepresent the political issues at stake and distort the original intent, spirit, and letter of the founding documents. Historically, the relationship between Church and State was characterized not as a “union” (religious theocracy) or a radical separation (secular tyranny) but rather as an “intersection,” a mutual co-existence that would allow each to express itself fully without any undue interference from the other. There was no separation of God from government. On the contrary, everyone understood that freedom follows from the principle that the Creator God grants “unalienable rights,” a point that is explicit in the US Declaration of Independence. Many Darwinists are hostile to such an explicitly Creation-anchored and declaratively “self-evident” foundation for liberty and too often then misunderstand or pervert its historical context – the concept and practice of covenantal nationhood and just Government under God. Then, it becomes very tempting to take the cheap way out: (i) evade the responsibility of making their scientific case, (ii) change the subject to politics, (iii) pretend to a superior knowledge of the history, and (iv) accuse the other side of attempting to establish a “theocracy.” In fact, design thinking is incompatible with theocratic principles, a point that is often lost on those who don’t understand it. Jefferson and his colleagues — all design thinkers — argued that nature is designed, and part of that design reflects the “natural moral law,” which is observed in nature and written in the human heart as “conscience.” Without it, there is no reasonable standard for informing the civil law or any moral code for defining responsible citizenship. For, the founders held that (by virtue of the Mind and Conscience placed within by our common Creator) humans can in principle know the core ideas that distinguish right from wrong without blindly appealing to any religious text or hierarchy. They therefore claimed that the relationship between basic rights and responsibilities regarding life, liberty and fulfillment of one’s potential as a person is intuitively clear. Indeed, to deny these principles leads into a morass of self-contradictions and blatant self-serving hypocrisies; which is just what “self-evident” means. So, as a member of a community, each citizen is should follow his conscience and traditions in light of such self-evident moral truth; s/he therefore deserves to be free from any tyranny or theocracy that which would frustrate such pursuit of virtue. By that standard, religious believers are permitted and even obliged to publicly promote their values for the common good; so long as they understand that believers (and unbelievers) who hold other traditions or worldviews may do the same. Many Darwinists, however, confuse civil laws that are derived from religious principles and from the natural moral law (representative democracy) with religious laws (autocratic theocracy). So, they are reduced to arguing that freedom is based on a murky notion of “reason,” which, for them, means anti-religion. Then, disavowing the existence of moral laws, natural rights, or objectively grounded consciences, they can provide no successful rational justification for the basic right to free expression; which easily explains why they tend to support it for only those who agree with their point of view. Sadly, they then too often push for — and often succeed in — establishing civil laws that de-legitimize those very same religious principles that are the historic foundation for their right to advocate their cause. Thus, they end up in precisely the morass of agenda-serving self-referential inconsistencies and abuses that the founders of the American Republic foresaw. So, it is no surprise that, as a matter of painfully repeated fact, such zealots will then typically “expel” and/or slander any scientist or educator who challenges their failed paradigm or questions its materialistic foundations. That is why for instance, Lewontin publicly stated: Our willingness to accept scientific claims that are against common sense is the key to an understanding of the real struggle between science and the supernatural. We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs, in spite of its failure to fulfill many of its extravagant promises of health and life, in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just-so stories, because we have a prior commitment, a commitment to materialism. It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counter-intuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door. [Bold emphasis added] The point of all this should be clear. ID does not seek to establish a theocracy; it simply wants to disestablish a growing Darwinist tyranny.
Dr Scott and the NCSE are not exempt from duties of care to truth, accuracy, fairness etc. They knew or should have known better and were repeartedly correcvted time and again. They willfully and remorselessly, ruthlessly pushed a slander. Let that be noted for record. For shame!!!!!!!!! KFkairosfocus_{May 8, 2013
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F/N 1: before I say anything else, let me answer to the women in science silliness with one name: MARIE CURIE. End of argument. KFkairosfocus_{May 8, 2013
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E. Scott @ the NCSE- 26 years of cowardly equivocations, lies and false accussations. The NCSE is respected? By who? Note to the new incoming NCSE director- you are going to have to deal with the fact that Intelligent Design is NOT anti-evolution. Good luck with that...Joe_{May 8, 2013
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Byers: "Women today achieve very little in science still" What a silly thing to say. If you have to make false statements (with no bearing on the issues) in order to have something to say, then ID doesn't need you.Upright BiPed_{May 7, 2013
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Women today achieve very little in science still.
What? Methinks you are a bit out of touch. Scott's shortcomings have nothing to do with the fact that she is a woman and everything to do with the fact that she had a materialist agenda to push.Eric Anderson_{May 7, 2013
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Ummm...."Women today achieve very little in science still"...is this a sexist comment? Could you explain this please.ForJah_{May 7, 2013
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Women today achieve very little in science still. I see none here either. she simply is rewarded for giving the establishment in society and in these 'science' high circles someone to reward for doing their cause. its a fraud of activism from elites. In reality she gave creationism a pulpit by the silly aggressive opposition to creationists. She was very useful back in the early days for entry level activism by creationism. Defending science from creationist aliens just made us very important and all the more how important it all is. Evolutionism and its dUmB strategy of fighting us by hysterical protest will be seen in retrospect as just what the doctored ordered. i wish she wasn't going for that reason but their all the same. Bring on the moral and intellectual accusations against organized creationism(s) science defenders of the universe!!!Robert Byers_{May 7, 2013
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Hasn't Zack Kopplin been auditioning? ;)Chance Ratcliff_{May 7, 2013
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Nick Matzke?paijo_{May 7, 2013
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