International Society for Complexity, Information, and Design
Abbreviation | ISCID |
---|---|
Formation | 6 December 2001 |
Executive director | William A. Dembski |
Website | ISCID.ORG |
The International Society for Complexity, Information, and Design (ISCID) was a creationism advocacy organization that described itself as "a cross-disciplinary
Overview
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The society was launched on 6 December 2001. It was co-founded by
ISCID hosted its first online symposium in October 2002, titled "The Teleological Origin of Biological Information."[4]
ISCID described itself as providing "a forum for formulating, testing, and disseminating research on complex systems through critique, peer review, and publication," with an aim "to pursue the theoretical development, empirical application, and philosophical implications of information- and design-theoretic concepts for complex systems."[1]
ISCID maintained an online journal titled Progress in Complexity, Information and Design (PCID). Articles were submitted through its website and could appear in the journal if they had been approved by one of the fellows.[5] Dembski and Tipler believed that this review process was preferable to the process of scholarly peer review commonly used in mainstream journals, citing that peer review "too often degenerates into a vehicle for censoring novel ideas that break with existing frameworks."[6][7]
ISCID also hosted an online forum called Brainstorms and maintains a copyrighted online user-written
In May 2011 the society's website stated that "ISCID is no longer being managed as an organization".[9] The last issue of PCID was published in November 2005,[10] its essay contests had been discontinued,[11] and the last moderated chat was in 2004.[12] By 2014, its website was no longer online.
PCID peer review controversy
ISCID's journal, Progress in Complexity, Information, and Design has been cited as an example of a journal set up by intelligent design proponents to publish articles promoting intelligent design without a peer review process with sufficient impartiality and rigor.[13][14][2][15] ISCID fellows who comprised PCID's reviewers were characterized as "ardent supporters of intelligent design."[13]
ISCID's peer review policy for PCID was based on ISCID Fellow Frank Tipler's article covering what he saw as problems with traditional peer review processes.[16] ISCID required 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." Once in the archive, articles only needed to be approved by a single ISCID Fellow in order to be published.[17] ISCID says that this policy is designed to provide peer review for quality without squelching paradigm changing theories.[18] However, the American Association for the Advancement of Science contended that review processes such as PCID's were different from the accepted standard of peer review, 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."[19]
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.
Partial list of ISCID Fellows:[20]
- Michael Behe
- John Angus Campbell
- Robin Collins
- William Lane Craig
- Bernard d'Abrera
- William A. Dembski
- Guillermo Gonzalez
- Bruce L. Gordon
- Muzaffar Iqbal
- Christopher Michael Langan
- Forrest Mims
- Scott Minnich
- Paul Nelson
- Alvin Plantinga
- Henry F. Schaefer, III
- Jeffrey M. Schwartz
- Richard Sternberg
- Frank J. Tipler
- Jonathan Wells
Notes and references
- ^ a b "ISCID - International Society for Complexity Information and Design". 2012-11-01. Archived from the original on November 1, 2012. Retrieved 2015-12-27.
- ^ Washington University Law Quarterly, Volume 83, Number 1, 2005.
- ^ a b "ISCID - About". 2013-01-23. Archived from the original on January 23, 2013. Retrieved 2015-12-27.
- ^ "ISCID - Conferences". 2013-04-05. Archived from the original on April 5, 2013. Retrieved 2015-12-27.
- ^ "PCID: Progress in Complexity, Information and Design". 2013-04-05. Archived from the original on April 5, 2013. Retrieved 2015-12-27.
- ^ "PCID - Peer Review or Peer Censorship". 2011-06-07. Archived from the original on June 7, 2011. Retrieved 2015-12-27.
- ^ Tipler, Frank (June 30, 2003). "Refereed Journals: Do They Insure Quality or Enforce Orthodoxy?" (PDF). ISCID Archive. Archived from the original (PDF) on February 4, 2012.
- ^ "ISCID - Brainstorms". 2013-04-05. Archived from the original on April 5, 2013. Retrieved 2015-12-27.
- ^ "ISCID - Contact Information". 2011-05-14. Archived from the original on May 14, 2011. Retrieved 2015-12-27.
- ^ "ISCID - International Society for Complexity Information and Design". 2013-01-23. Archived from the original on January 23, 2013. Retrieved 2015-12-27.
- ^ "ISCID - Essay Contests". 2013-01-23. Archived from the original on January 23, 2013. Retrieved 2015-12-27.
- ^ "ISCID - Live Chat with Carlos Puente". 2012-02-22. Archived from the original on February 22, 2012. Retrieved 2015-12-27.
- ^ a b Isaak, Mark. Index to Creationist Claims. TalkOrigins archive 2006
- ^ Bill Dembski and the case of the unsupported assertion Matt Inlay. Talk Reason.
- ^ Intelligent Design: Creationism’s Trojan Horse, A Conversation With Barbara Forrest Archived 2006-08-09 at the Wayback Machine Americans United for Separation of Church and State, February, 2005.
- ^ Frank Tipler, Refereed Journals: Do They Insure Quality or Enforce Orthodoxy?, ISCID Archive, June 30, 2003
- ^ PCID Archived 2013-04-05 at the Wayback Machine
- ^ Peer Review or Peer Censorship? Archived 2011-06-07 at the Wayback Machine William Dembski. ISCID.
- ^ "AAAS - AAAS Dialogue on Science, Ethics, and Religion - Evolution Resources". 2012-01-14. Archived from the original on January 14, 2012. Retrieved 2015-12-27.
- ^ "ISCID - Fellows". 2013-05-10. Archived from the original on May 10, 2013. Retrieved 2015-12-27.
External links
- ISCID (old website)