William Dembski links here to a post on another blog about a recent article in the Chronicle of Higher Education. The Chronicle article discusses the dangers (and, unfortunately, fact) of data misuse and forgery in science.
Why did Dembski link to the post? Don't know. He rarely offers any kind of discussion of his posts---he simply links to an article and leaves it to the reader to draw the appropriate conclusions. In this case, only his post title, "The Fetid Little Fingers of Science" indicates his stance.
But a few things come to mind after reading the post he links to:
The article draws attention to the motives of the scientists who engage in some kind of misconduct; many of them do so because of some "perceived injustice." According to the Chronicle article, "When scientists perceive injustice in their workplace, particularly regarding how rewards are distributed, they are more likely to compromise their integrity, the researchers found."
Interesting. So are ID proponents who feel that the scientific establishment is against them and their work more likely to distort their research? Should we be on the lookout for ID misbehavior?
Dembski's post title implies that the scientific community is dysfunctional and corrupt (or at least that's the message I got -- if he didn't mean that, he might want to actually, you know, write something in his post). But if ID is science, as its proponents claim, are their fingers also fetid? Or is it just those who oppose ID who are stinky?
In Dembski's post, he quotes the entire article he links to (not exactly appropriate), but, oddly, leaves out a sentence in the last paragraph. While Dembski's quote of the article reads
The article is of interest primarily because it details the extensiveness of scientific misconduct. Our society tends to place inordinate trust in science and in scientists, assuming that the scientific method effectively removes the risk of misbehavior. The Korean stem cell and cloning scandal should be sufficient warning. This article brings the issue much closer to home.
the original article is
The article is of interest primarily because it details the extensiveness of scientific misconduct. Our society tends to place inordinate trust in science and in scientists, assuming that the scientific method effectively removes the risk of misbehavior. In a fallen world, this could never be true. The Korean stem cell and cloning scandal should be sufficient warning. This article brings the issue much closer to home.
(emphasis mine). Out of the entire quote, Dembski leaves out that one sentence. No ellipses or [snip] or anything to indicate that he removed text from the quote. I wonder why that sentence bothers him so much. Could it be that he is still trying to disassociate intelligent design 'theory' and theology?
Okay, so he didn't quote that one sentence (but did quote the rest of the post). Not exactly earth shattering. Except that he was linking to a post about scientific integrity. Would it have been too much to ask for some integrity from Dembski? Irony, thy name is 'Bill'.