Creation in secular journal (banned)

The following is a list of papers that have been prevented from being published in secular journals. Due to the nature of the subject, the name of the article is not always given because the article is not always given a name. So, instead of listing a series of papers (as in the other articles in this series), they will be listed by each account and a discussion about the happening will following. Since this format takes much longer, it will list 20 instead of 50.

Gentry's 1989 reply letter
In 1989 two geologists published a paper in the journal Science that supported a secondary origin of Po halos. Gentry, in reply, sent a letter bringing up various points that seem to refute the idea of a secondary origin of Po halos. Gentry's paper was dismissed out of hand purely because it mentioned "instantanous creation". This was supported by a letter sent to him by one of the two geologist that supported the secondary origin of Po halos.

Humphrey's and Gentry's reply letters on Lewin's 1985 paper
In 1985, Roger Lewin published a paper in the journal Science named "Evidence for Scientific Creationism?" that reported on a paper by Scott and Cole that denied the existence of published evidence for creationism. Both Robert Gentry and Russel Humphreys sent letters in reply and both were dismissed out of hand. The editors reply to Humphreys went as followed:

Dear Dr. Humphreys:

Thank you for your letter of 30 July. It is true that we are not likely to publish letters supporting creationism. This is because we decide what to publish on the basis of scientific content.

The letters we received objecting to the study reported by Roger Lewin contained arguments that were largely conjectural or anecdotal. They were therefore not considered acceptable material for Science.

Yours sincerely,

/s/ Christine Gilbert

Christine Gilbert Letters Editor Science

The editor's comments on both their papers, suggesting they were entirely "conjectural or anecdotal", but any quick look at Gentry's reply says other wise.

Humphrey's 1992 paper
In 1992, Humphreys submitted a paper to the journal Nature titled "Compton scattering and the cosmic microwave background bumps". The editorial staff, knowing he was a creationist refused to submit the paper peer-review. Six months later, Nature published an article with the same conclusions, but by a different author.

Behe's replies to his critics
Behe has gone through great lengths to publish his replies to his critics. So far, most are in philosphy journals (which seem to be more open minded), but his attempts to publish in biology journals are somewhat hindered because the editors refuse to publish his replies. Behe mainly talks about two such cases. 

The first was when Behe sent a letter to the editor about the possibility to publishing a reply to his critics. After a discussion, the editor decided to reject any of Behe's works.

July 12, 1999

Dear Dr. Behe,

Because of the controversial nature of your letter to [this journal], and concern about whether it would be appropriate for a scientific journal, I asked a senior [journal] advisor to take a look at your submission. As you will see, the accompanying review identifies many apparent flaws in your arguments, and also questions the basic premise of your arguments, that complex systems cannot be dissected to reveal individual components’ roles. I concur with this reviewer’s sentiment: complex systems are being unraveled!

So, I am going to take the liberty as Editor not to seek additional reviews, and deny the request to have your letter published in [this journal]. I would like to encourage you to seek new evidence for your views, but of course, that evidence would likely fall outside of the scientific paradigm, or would basically be denials of conventional explanations. You are in for some tough sledding.

Sincerely,

[The editor]

The second was when he submited a paper to a biology journal. It too was rejected out of hand. The journal's final reply to him reads:

9 February 2000

Dear Dr. Behe:

We are sorry to have been delayed in getting back to you about the possibility of organizing a dialogue on the question of purposeful intelligent design. We have explored the notion with a number of individuals and have had extensive discussion among ourselves over a period of time.

The editors have concluded that the journal should not undertake this project. The reasons are varied, but primarily they reduce to our general feeling that it is not possible to develop a meaningful discussion when the fundamental assumptions of the arguments are so different: on the one hand, the concept of intelligent design beyond the laws of nature is based on intuitive, philosophical, or religious grounds, while on the other, the study and explanation of all levels of the living world, including the molecular level, is based on scientific fact and inference.

As you no doubt know, our journal has supported and demonstrated a strong evolutionary position from the very beginning, and believes that evolutionary explanations of all structures and phenomena of life are possible and inevitable. Hence a position such as yours, which opposes this view on other than scientific grounds, cannot be appropriate for our pages.

Although the editors feel that there has already been extensive response to your position from the academic community, we nevertheless encourage further informed discussion in appropriate forums. Our journal cannot provide that forum, but we trust that other opportunities may become available to you.

Yours sincerely,

[The editorial board]

Johnson replies to Gould
The 1992 issue of Scientific American contain a rebuttal by Stephen Jay Gould to Phil Johnson's Darwin on Trial. In reply, Johnson wrote a detailed responce to Gould, but Scientific American refused to publish it.

Gentry's new red shift interpretation
In 2001, Los Alamos National Laboratory arXiv staff censored ten of gentry's papers.

"The arXiv staff, being fearful of the results of the papers supporting the Genesis record of creation and the overturning of Big Bang cosmology, deleted these papers before they were released to the world. This is scientific censorship at the very highest level and a very clear abridgement of the First Amendment right of freedom of speech."- The Orion Foundation

Stephen Meyer's paper
Richard Sternberg was harassed after allowing an article by Discovery Institute fellow Stephen Meyer to be published in the publication Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington of which he was editor. (U.S. Office of Special Counsel's letter to Dr. Sternberg confirming his allegations)

Henry Morris and the Society of Exploration Geophysicists
To quote Morris:

On one occasion, a member of the Society of Exploration Geophysicists was able to get an invitation for me to speak at their convention, with an agreement that the Society would publish the paper in its journal. When they saw my paper, however, they quickly reneged, even though the article had no religious material in it at all, only science.

Stephen Meyer's letter to Nature
Nature refused to publish Meyer's letter to the journal concerning a paper that interviewed him in a bad light. He simply wanted to set the record streight. To recreate the letter:

May 6, 2005 Sir,

Geoff Brumfiel’s article on the theory of intelligent design (ID) [Nature, “Who has designs on your students’ minds,” April 28th, 2005] repeatedly mischaracterizes the contemporary design hypothesis as an argument from ignorance, as if the ID argument were based solely on the fact that “some biological systems are too complex. . .to be explained by natural selection alone.”,1 Yet, as I explained in our interview, design theorists argue for intelligent design not only because natural selection and other materialistic mechanisms seem incapable of explaining, for example, the origin of digital information and complex machines in cells, but also because we know from experience that systems possessing such features do invariably arise from intelligent causes. 2, 3 As the pioneering information theorist Henry Quastler observed, "information habitually arises from conscious activity." 4 Thus, what we know about the present cause and effect structure of the world suggests intelligent design as an obvious explanation for the information necessary to build living systems.

Similarly, whenever we encounter irreducibly complex systems and we know how such systems arose, invariably intelligence played a role. For this reason, the presence of irreducibly complex systems in cells also constitutes a powerful positive indicator of intelligent design.

Contrary to Brumfiels’ report, the inference to design in biology is not based upon ignorance or religion, but instead upon standard uniformitarian methods of reasoning and biological evidence. Cells contain miniature machines, complex circuits and sophisticated information processing systems exquisite nanotechnology that in any other realm of experience would immediately, and properly, trigger recognition of prior intelligent activity.

Yours sincerely, Stephen C. Meyer, Ph.D. Director and Senior Fellow Center for Science & Culture Discovery Institute