The
International Society for Complexity, Information, and Design (ISCID) was a non-profit professional society that promoted
intelligent designIntelligent design is the assertion that "certain features of the universe and of living things are best explained by an intelligent cause, not an undirected process such as natural selection." It is a modern form of the traditional teleological argument for the existence of God, but one which...
.
and rejected
evolutionIn biology, evolution is change in the genetic material of a population of organisms from one generation to the next. Though changes produced in any one generation are normally small, differences accumulate with each generation and can, over time, cause substantial changes in the population, a...
.
It sought to alter the
scientific methodScientific method refers to a body of techniques for investigating phenomena, acquiring new knowledge, or correcting and integrating previous knowledge. To be termed scientific, a method of inquiry must be based on gathering observable, empirical and measurable evidence subject to specific...
to eliminate what it saw as its
materialisticThe philosophy of materialism holds that the only thing that exists is matter; that all things are composed of material and all phenomena are the result of material interactions. In other words, matter is the only substance. As a theory, materialism is a form of physicalism and belongs to the...
,
naturalisticMetaphysical naturalism , characterizes any worldview in which reality is such that there is nothing but the natural things, forces, and causes of the kind that the natural sciences study, i.e...
,
reductionisticReduction is the process by which one object, property, concept, theory, etc., is shown to be explicable in terms of another, lower level, concept, object, property, etc...
and hence
atheisticAtheism can be either the rejection of theism,or the position that deities do not exist.In the broadest sense, it is the absence of belief in the existence of deities....
underpinnings. The goal of the
intelligent design movementThe intelligent design movement is a neo-creationist religious campaign for broad social, academic and political change to promote and support the idea of "intelligent design." Its chief activities are a campaign to promote public awareness of this concept, the lobbying of policymakers to include...
the Society supports is to "reverse the stifling
materialistThe philosophy of materialism holds that the only thing that exists is matter; that all things are composed of material and all phenomena are the result of material interactions. In other words, matter is the only substance. As a theory, materialism is a form of physicalism and belongs to the...
world viewA comprehensive world view is the fundamental cognitive orientation of an individual or society encompassing natural philosophy, fundamental existential and normative postulates or themes, values, emotions, and ethics. The term is a loan translation or calque of German Weltanschauung , composed of...
and replace it with a science consonant with
ChristianA Christian is a person who adheres to Christianity, an Abrahamic, monotheistic, religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth, who Christians believe was the Messiah prophesied in the Old Testament/Hebrew Bible, and the Son of God.The term "Christian" is also used adjectivally to...
and
theisticTheism in the broadest sense is the belief in at least one deity. In a more specific sense, theism refers to a particular doctrine concerning the nature of God and his relationship to the universe. Theism, in this specific sense, conceives of God as personal and active in the governance and...
convictions" and to "affirm the reality of God." The ISCID sought to undermine the teaching of evolution and replace it with intelligent design.
ISCID's views on evolution and the scientific method ran counter to the
scientific consensusScientific consensus is the collective judgement, position, and opinion of the community of scientists in a particular field of study. Consensus implies general agreement, though not necessarily unanimity. Scientific consensus is not by itself a scientific argument, and it is not part of the...
. Evolution is overwhelmingly endorsed within the
scientific communityThe scientific community consists of the total body of scientists, its relationships and interactions. It is normally divided into "sub-communities" each working on a particular field within science. Objectivity is expected to be achieved by the scientific method...
while intelligent design has been roundly rejected as valid science.
Overview
The Society was launched on 6 December 2001. It was co-founded by
William A. DembskiWilliam Albert "Bill" Dembski is an American mathematician, theologian, and professor of philosophy at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas. . He is a prominent proponent of intelligent design, well-known for his "specified complexity" argument...
, Micah Sparacio and John Bracht. Dembski is its Executive Director. It has about sixty fellows. Among them are leaders of the
intelligent design movementThe intelligent design movement is a neo-creationist religious campaign for broad social, academic and political change to promote and support the idea of "intelligent design." Its chief activities are a campaign to promote public awareness of this concept, the lobbying of policymakers to include...
and fellows of the
Discovery InstituteThe Discovery Institute is a conservative non-profit public policy think tank based in Seattle, Washington, best known for its advocacy of intelligent design. Its Teach the Controversy campaign aims to teach creationist anti-evolution beliefs in United States public high school science courses...
's
Center for Science and CultureThe Center for Science and Culture , formerly known as the Center for the Renewal of Science and Culture , is part of the Discovery Institute, a conservative Christian think tank in the United States...
, the hub of that movement, including Dembski,
Michael BeheMichael J. Behe is an American biochemist and intelligent design advocate. He currently serves as professor of biochemistry at Lehigh University in Pennsylvania and as a senior fellow of the Discovery Institute's Center for Science and Culture...
, Jonathan Wells,
William Lane CraigWilliam Lane Craig is an American philosopher and theologian known for his contributions to the philosophy of religion, the philosophy of time, philosophical theology, and historical Jesus studies. One of the most visible contemporary proponents of natural theology, Craig has contributed to a...
, and Henry F. Schaefer. Other notable ISCID fellows include philosopher of religion
Alvin PlantingaAlvin Carl Plantinga is an American philosopher, currently the John A. O'Brien Professor of Philosophy at the University of Notre Dame. He is known for his work in epistemology, metaphysics, and the philosophy of religion, and in particular for applying the methods of analytic philosophy to defend...
and physics professor and theologian
Frank J. TiplerFrank Jennings Tipler III is a mathematical physicist and cosmologist, holding a joint appointment in the Departments of Mathematics and Physics at Tulane University.-Life:...
. By the end of 2006, ISCID had registered about 2000 members.
ISCID described itself as "a cross-disciplinary professional society that investigates complex systems apart from external programmatic constraints like
materialismThe philosophy of materialism holds that the only thing that exists is matter; that all things are composed of material and all phenomena are the result of material interactions. In other words, matter is the only substance. As a theory, materialism is a form of physicalism and belongs to the...
,
naturalismHumanistic naturalism is the branch of philosophical naturalism wherein human beings are best able to control and understand the world through use of the scientific method. Concepts of spirituality, intuition, and metaphysics are not pursued because they are unfalsifiable, and therefore can never...
, or
reductionismReductionism can either mean an approach to understand the nature of complex things by reducing them to the interactions of their parts, or to simpler or more fundamental things or a philosophical position that a complex system is nothing but the sum of its parts, and that an account of it can be...
. The society provided a forum for formulating, testing, and disseminating
researchResearch can be defined to be search for knowledge or any systematic investigation to establish facts. The primary purpose for applied research is discovering, interpreting, and the development of methods and systems for the advancement of human knowledge on a wide variety of scientific matters of...
on
complex systemA complex system is a system composed of interconnected parts that as a whole exhibit one or more properties not obvious from the properties of the individual parts...
s through critique,
peer reviewPeer review is the process of subjecting an author's scholarly work, research, or ideas to the scrutiny of others who are experts in the same field. Peer review requires a community of experts in a given field, who are qualified and able to perform impartial review...
, and publication. Its aim is to pursue the theoretical development, empirical application, and philosophical implications of information- and design-theoretic concepts for complex systems." Its tagline was "retraining the scientific imagination to see purpose in nature".
ISCID maintained an online
journal__FORCETOC__A journal has several related meanings:* a daily record of events or business; a private journal is usually referred to as a diary....
titled
Progress in Complexity, Information and Design. Articles were submitted through its website and could appear in the journal if they had been approved by one of the fellows. This they argued was a form of peer review, though not the form typically practiced by journals, which Dembski believes "too often degenerates into a vehicle for censoring novel ideas that break with existing frameworks."
ISCID also hosted an online forum called Brainstorms and maintains a copyrighted online user-written
InternetThe Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standardized Internet Protocol Suite to serve billions of users worldwide...
encyclopediaAn encyclopedia is a comprehensive written compendium that holds information from either all branches of knowledge or a particular branch of knowledge. Encyclopedias are divided into articles with one article on each subject covered...
called the
ISCID Encyclopedia of Science and Philosophy. The society featured online chats with intelligent-design proponents and others sympathetic to the movement or interested in aspects of complex systems. Past chats included people such as Ray Kurzweil,
David ChalmersDavid John Chalmers is an Australian philosopher specializing in the area of philosophy of mind. He is Professor of Philosophy and Director of the Centre for Consciousness at the Australian National University.-Background:...
,
Stuart KauffmanStuart Alan Kauffman is an American theoretical biologist and complex systems researcher concerning the origin of life on Earth...
,
Christopher Michael LanganChristopher Michael Langan is an American autodidact whose IQ was reported by 20/20 and other media sources to have been measured at between 195 and 210. Billed by some media sources as "the smartest man in America", he rose to prominence in 1999 while working as a bouncer on Long Island...
and
Robert WrightRobert Wright is an American journalist, scholar, and prize-winning author of best-selling books about science, evolutionary psychology, history, religion, and game theory, including The Evolution of God, Nonzero: The Logic of Human Destiny, The Moral Animal, and Three Scientists and Their Gods:...
.
As of September 2008 the society's website stated that "ISCID is no longer being managed as an organization".. Its last "Society announcement" and last journal publication being in late 2005, no updates on its essay contests and moderated chats since 2004, and no conferences or workshops announced since 2003.
PCID peer review controversy
One of the primary criticisms of the
intelligent design movementThe intelligent design movement is a neo-creationist religious campaign for broad social, academic and political change to promote and support the idea of "intelligent design." Its chief activities are a campaign to promote public awareness of this concept, the lobbying of policymakers to include...
and hindrances to intelligent-design claims being considered legitimate science is that intelligent-design proponents have failed to produce supporting research papers published in peer-reviewed
scientific journalIn academic publishing, a scientific journal is a periodical publication intended to further the progress of science, usually by reporting new research. There are thousands of scientific journals in publication, and many more have been published at various points in the past...
s.
Critics said that intelligent design proponents had set up their own journals with "peer review" which lacks
impartialityImpartiality is a principle of justice holding that decisions should be based on objective criteria, rather than on the basis of bias, prejudice, or preferring the benefit to one person over another for improper reasons.-Philosophical concepts of impartiality:...
and
rigorRigour or rigor has a number of meanings in relation to intellectual life and discourse. These are separate from public and political applications with their suggestion of laws enforced to the letter, or political absolutism...
, and pointed to ISCID's journal
Progress in Complexity, Information, and Design as an example, characterizing the ISCID fellows who comprise
PCID's reviewers as "ardent supporters of intelligent design."
ISCID's peer review policy for
Progress in Complexity, Information, and Design was based on ISCID Fellow Frank Tipler's article covering what he saw as problems with traditional
peer reviewPeer review is the process of subjecting an author's scholarly work, research, or ideas to the scrutiny of others who are experts in the same field. Peer review requires a community of experts in a given field, who are qualified and able to perform impartial review...
processes. Peer review at PCID consists of two steps, acceptance into the archive, then review prior to publishing. ISCID requires that for articles to be accepted into the archive, they "need to meet basic scholarly standards and be relevant to the study of complex systems." And once in the archive, articles then must be approved by a single ISCID Fellow in order to be published: "Once on the archive, articles passed on by at least one ISCID fellow will be accepted for publication." ISCID says that this policy is designed to provide peer review for quality without squelching paradigm changing theories.
PCID's peer review process where ISCID Fellows are reviewers is in contrast to the process described as proper peer review by the
American Association for the Advancement of ScienceThe American Association for the Advancement of Science is an international non-profit organization with the stated goals of promoting cooperation between scientists, defending scientific freedom, encouraging scientific responsibility, and supporting scientific education and science outreach for...
, where "reviewers are experts in the relevant scientific fields who have no conflict of interest with or especially close personal relationships to the authors or requestors" and refers to ISCID specifically. PCID appears to have ceased publication with its November 2005 issue.
Fellows
In addition to guiding the society's various programs, fellows served as the editorial advisory board that peer-reviewed the society's journal, PCID.
List of ISCID Fellows:
- Michael Behe
Michael J. Behe is an American biochemist and intelligent design advocate. He currently serves as professor of biochemistry at Lehigh University in Pennsylvania and as a senior fellow of the Discovery Institute's Center for Science and Culture...
- John Angus Campbell
John Angus Campbell is a retired American Professor of Rhetoric and is a Fellow of the Center for Science and Culture and of the International Society for Complexity, Information and Design, a professional society dedicated to the promotion of intelligent...
- Robin Collins
Robin Collins is an American philosopher. He currently serves as Professor of Philosophy at Messiah College in Grantham, Pennsylvania. His main interests include issues in science and religion and theories of atonement.-Education:...
- William Lane Craig
William Lane Craig is an American philosopher and theologian known for his contributions to the philosophy of religion, the philosophy of time, philosophical theology, and historical Jesus studies. One of the most visible contemporary proponents of natural theology, Craig has contributed to a...
- William A. Dembski
William Albert "Bill" Dembski is an American mathematician, theologian, and professor of philosophy at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas. . He is a prominent proponent of intelligent design, well-known for his "specified complexity" argument...
- Guillermo Gonzalez
Guillermo Gonzalez is an astrophysicist and notable proponent of intelligent design, and is a professor at Grove City College, an evangelical Christian school, in Grove City, Pennsylvania...
- Bruce L. Gordon
Bruce L. Gordon is a Canadian philosopher of science , metaphysician and philosopher of religion.-Early life and education:Gordon was born in Calgary, Alberta, Canada in 1963....
- Muzaffar Iqbal
This page is about the scholar Muzaffar Iqbal. For other people named Iqbal, see IqbalMuzaffar Iqbāl , is the founding president of the Center for Islam and Science, located in Canada and an author...
- Christopher Michael Langan
Christopher Michael Langan is an American autodidact whose IQ was reported by 20/20 and other media sources to have been measured at between 195 and 210. Billed by some media sources as "the smartest man in America", he rose to prominence in 1999 while working as a bouncer on Long Island...
- Forrest Mims
Forrest M. Mims III is an amateur scientist and magazine columnist and the author of the popular Engineer's Mini-Notebook series of instructional books originally sold in Radio Shack electronics stores. Mims graduated from Texas A&M University in 1966 then became a commissioned officer in the...
- Scott Minnich
Scott A. Minnich is an associate professor of microbiology at the University of Idaho, and a fellow at the Discovery Institute's Center for Science and Culture...
- Paul Nelson
Paul A. Nelson is a philosopher of science, American young earth creationist and intelligent design advocate.- Biography :Nelson is the grandson of the creationist author and Lutheran minister Byron Christopher Nelson and edited a book of his grandfather's writings...
- Alvin Plantinga
Alvin Carl Plantinga is an American philosopher, currently the John A. O'Brien Professor of Philosophy at the University of Notre Dame. He is known for his work in epistemology, metaphysics, and the philosophy of religion, and in particular for applying the methods of analytic philosophy to defend...
- Henry F. Schaefer, III
Henry "Fritz" Schaefer III is a computational and theoretical chemist. He is the author of a large number of scientific publications, and was the 6th most cited chemist from 1981 to 1997 and the Graham Perdue Professor of Chemistry and Director of the Center for Computational Chemistry at the...
- Jeffrey M. Schwartz
Jeffrey M. Schwartz, M.D. is an American psychiatrist and researcher in the field of neuroplasticity and its application to obsessive-compulsive disorder ....
- Richard Sternberg
Richard M. Sternberg is an American scientist and intelligent design proponent. He was the editor of the scientific journal Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington who controversially handled the review and editing process of the only article published in a peer-reviewed scientific...
- Frank J. Tipler
Frank Jennings Tipler III is a mathematical physicist and cosmologist, holding a joint appointment in the Departments of Mathematics and Physics at Tulane University.-Life:...
- Jonathan Wells