Study intelligent design, get thrown out of your lab

Link to: original blogpost - comments

Categories : Intelligent Design, The Critics

Editor : Krauze

published: jeudi 14 décembre 2006 17:18:10

Celeste Biever's article in New Scientist contains a sobering story of the dangers of studying intelligent design within academia. Douglas Axe was studying the limits of protein evolution on a grant from the Discovery Institute at a UK lab for protein engineering.

One day the superviser, Alan Fersht, was contacted by another researcher in the lab, who told Fersht about the Discovery Institute's support for intelligent design, and said that Axe should be thrown out. Fortunately, Fersht refused: "I have always been fairly easy-going about people working in the lab. I said I was not going to throw [Axe] out. What he was doing was asking legitimate questions about how a protein folded."

This story provides a nice antidote to claims from critics that any ID-friendly researcher can just get the Discovery Institute to fund his research. To many in academia, taking money from the Discovery Institute means that you're One of Them, and that you will have to rely on the mercy of others to finish your research.

Evolution, Intelligent Design,