The scientific peer-review process

A common complaint by scientists is that proponents of IDC do not publish in peer-reviewed science journals. Thus in the past year, the Discovery Institute has loudly proclaimed a few new journal publications. And to be fair, The Origin of Species (1859) was not submitted for peer-review by a journal prior to publication, although shorter letters by Darwin and Wallace were read publicly and published by the Linnean Society in London (1858). The heavy emphasis on peer-reviewed journal publications, while very important for scientific careers, tends to obscure the much more comprehensive process of scientific peer-review, which is never-ending.

Peer-review is integral to the processes of science but it does not end with publication in a peer-reviewed journal. Actually, such publication is just the start of scientific peer review. For example, Stephen J. Gould and Niles Eldredge first proposed a new theory of evolutionary change termed "punctuated equilibria" at a scientific meeting in 1971 and published a paper in 1972. This theory is a response to the strictly gradual approach to evolutionary change of the "modern synthesis" of evolution, proposed in the 1930's and '40's. Punctuated equilibria has shown itself to be a remarkably productive and valuable theory in evolutionary biology and paleontology. However despite thousands of peer-reviewed journal publications and books, in 2005 punctuated equilibria remains under discussion in comparison to a strictly gradual approach to evolutionary change. With respect to the competing theories of punctuated equilibria and strictly gradual change, the peer-review process is still actively engaged and seeking new evidence.

The key is surviving and winning scientific peer-review over a period of years, decades, or even centuries, through the accumulation of new evidence. Intelligent Design Creationism has its origins in the works of William Paley (1802) and Georges Cuvier (1812), among others. Yet, two hundred years after some of the ideas central to IDC were first proposed, there is still no replicable scientific evidence supporting IDC that has survived peer review.