Talk:Francis J. Beckwith

message: Professor Beckwith has sent the following e-mail to the Wikimedia Help Desk.
E-mail removed at request of Beckwith.
Capitalistroadster 06:22, 30 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Beckwith's objections have been aired here before, and there is broad consensus that the article is factual as it stands, despite is objections. As I and others have stated here before, The fact remains Beckwith is a fellow of the CSC , and his articles and books (of which I've read a number) have all argued for ID being legal and appropriate to teach as science. There is no shortage of evidence that Beckwith is widely recognized as a prominent supporter of ID , a point that could be made as an attribution in the article if it's that contentious. Clearly all this justifies identifying Beckwith as a pro-ID supporter, either as a statement of fact, something I think is easily justified, or as an attribution. Either way, the point is it's necessary for a complete and accurate representation of just who Beckwith is, his personal wishes not withstanding.  Since when does Wikipedia omit factual and relevant information based on the subjects personal wishes? FeloniousMonk 07:00, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

text: Wow, now he wanted his e-mail removed too? I'll add links to support the details. FeloniousMonk 16:03, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

text: For what it's worth, I think our article presents the facts reasonably and draws no unsubstantiated conclusions.  For the sake of balance and information, it might be worthwhile to list his other academic affiliations and organizational fellowships (the ones provided in his now-deleted email). TenOfAllTrades(talk) 16:41, 30 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I added added his fellowship at the Center for Bioethics and Human Dignity about 20 minutes before TenOfAllTrades posted this... GMTA. KillerChihuahua 17:45, 30 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Francis J. Beckwith e-mail to the help desk

message: Removed redlink (deleted) categories. --FloNight talk 13:10, 1 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Categories

message: Rewrote the introduction for clarity and to better explain his notability. Tried to not change the overall content. FloNight talk 15:08, 1 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Introduction

message: According to a comment by Beckwith, he had a meat puppet add a large amount of fluff and puffery to this article in order to drown out the info regarding his links to the ID movement, Comment by fbeckwith — December 3, 2006 —telicthoughts.com, defending the fact that doing so created an article giving more coverage of him than far more important philosophers like Descartes and Everett Dirksen. Considering this startling admission by the Beckwith, I've begun the process of trimming the fat and the fluff from this article, and will continue to do so with time. I suggest admins here keep a better eye out for this sort of abuse of this article. Odd nature 20:52, 25 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Good points, thanks for catching that. It's interesting to note that more recently not only has User:24.155.13.78 been adding weasely, biased language, but is in Waco, as is Baylor and Beckwith. FeloniousMonk 06:13, 15 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Signal-to-noise ratio 

message: I've incorporated a small part of Beckwith's changes. I'd appreciate if people would look over those and verify that they were ok. I'd also like to remove a lot of the minor career details. Will anyone object to that? JoshuaZ 13:10, 13 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Changes by Beckwith 

message: I removed the following text from one of the footnotes
"Given that Baylor's president John Lilley is apparently about to make his decision regarding Beckwith's appeal, those who want stand up for Beckwith's academic freedom might consider weighing in with an e-mail to Dr. Lilley at John_Lilley@baylor.edu. Alumni, donors, and parents of potential Baylor students are particularly important voices for the Baylor administration to hear right now."
My reasons were: 
#1It is outdated, referring to a decision to be made in 2006 (if I recall correctly). This decision has been made. 
#2I considers this an unsolicited call to contact and influence the decision of a university administrator, something that has no place in an encyclopedia.
Why did user:odd_nature revert this edit? Northfox 09:09, 25 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  outdated footnote text? 

message: Beckwith left the following on my talkpage -- I think it belongs here. HrafnTalkStalk 06:34, 22 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Incidentally, I'm not a regular editor here -- I followed Beckwith's trail of edits from Discovery Institute intelligent design campaigns‎, and reverted his edits here because they were clearly controversial, substantial and involved a conflict of interest. I therefore leave it to the regulars to address his specific issues. HrafnTalkStalk 07:07, 22 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Are notable individuals allowed to edit their own bios?  OrangeMarlin Talk• Contributions 07:16, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

text: At least one of his edits, regarding the degree made sense. I've removed the line there that was WP:OR and in any event unecessary. It looks to me like the article needs a lot of work. Beckwith's comparison to the other professor articles actually isn't accurate but not for the reason he says. All three of those should have more detailed discussions about how and why they are controversial.  I've also looked over the Hunter Baker controversy. I'm not sure it deserves its own section, but it appears to be more than just a little war of blogs since it got coverage in reliable secondary sources (such as the Washington Monthly article). JoshuaZ (talk) 00:45, 23 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree with you Joshua, but given that I've lately seen the DI trumpeting Beckwith as a "legal scholar", it might be informative to see what sort of assessment of his legal credentials we can provide within wikipedia policies. HrafnTalkStalk 02:35, 23 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  Beckwith is a legal scholar by almost any reasonable defintion. And in any event, Wikipedia's allegiance is to NPOV, not to debunking the DI. JoshuaZ (talk) 03:00, 23 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: He is?  Aren't most legal scholars attorneys?  I can't even imagine being an expert on a legal theory if you cannot practice it.  The best constitutional theorists are admitted to argue before the Supreme Court.  It's like watching an ESPN talking head tell me about hockey--I'd rather listen to an actual hockey player or coach.  Or a Ph.D. in Biochemistry trying to tell an MD that he's practicing medicine wrong.  I think the fact that Beckwith has some insignificant degree in legal issues (it could be about business law for all I know), that does not make him an attorney, let alone a legal scholar.  I think it should be well-know that he's overstating his background.  DI is irrelevant, except that that unethical individuals such as Beckwith do their dirty work.  OrangeMarlin Talk• Contributions 06:01, 23 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  He has relevant degrees and writes in the area. That makes him some form of legal scholar by most definitions. If he isn't such an impressive legal scholar that's a separate issue but is very much OR. Again, are job isn't to combat every claim made by the DI, but to write a WP:V,WP:NPOV compliant article.   JoshuaZ (talk) 14:57, 23 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  About your editing of my page. 

message: : "According to Kevin Drum of the Washington Monthly, this controversy gave rise to creation of The Panda's Thumb (weblog),[15] which has been one of the most notable fora for critics of intelligent design."
This is false. PT's debut occurred at that time, but not because of the Leiter/Baker incident. There's pretty much always going to be some antievolution shenanigan happening, so application of post hoc ergo propter hoc will always "work" to associate the beginning of a project with some event.
Please, please stop passing this on. Yes, Kevin Drum says that, but he happens to be wrong. --Wesley R. Elsberry (talk) 03:55, 23 November 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Per discussion on Elsberry's talk page I've corrected this matter. JoshuaZ (talk) 04:58, 23 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  The Meme That Would Not Die 

message: I have removed links to a web site that is no longer visible, and which is not archived at the Internet Archive. I will be closely reviewing this article for WP:BLP concerns. I have noticed that a number of 'sources' cited in this article are web logs, and I will be examining them to insure that they meet all the requirements of Wikipedia policy. -- Donald Albury 12:36, 15 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Cleanup

message: A friend sent me this link to a blog post by Beckwith on why he doesn't support ID. He quoted from a forthcoming journal article he wrote. Does public opposition to ID count toward being an opponent (not an advocate) of ID? ;) JKeck (talk) 18:30, 11 November 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  More Grist for the Mill 

message: This article  appears noteworthy and portions of it added to the main article may be a good idea. That article out-lines some of the history of Beckwith supporting and defending Intelligent Design Creationism, and his desire to make his behavior look like he is "only interested in the constitutionality" of the Creationist scam. --Desertphile (talk) 00:10, 14 May 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Forrest Responds to Beckwith 

message: Beckwith disputes inclusion in the category for ID proponents. I feel this is an ambiguous one; as far as I can tell the independent sources that discuss this call him an advocate for ID because he defends the permissibility of teaching ID, while his assertion that he is not an ID proponent is based on philosophical differences with those who seek to play on the field of science rather than simply rejecting the idea that science has an inherent legitimacy. As it is ambiguous I raise it here. Guy (Help!) 12:33, 11 December 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: It should be noted that (i) ID is a 'big tent' movement, encompassing a wide range of views, (ii) that ID proponents are often highly equivocal about their views (witness William Dembski, who has recently backtracked heavily on rejection of YEC claims), (iii) that we have the likes of this forthcoming article, in Synthese, by a prominent historian of ID, confirming him as an "ID supporter" & (iv) AFAIK, no unequivocal disavowal of ID by Beckwith. I think that, unless and until some third-party expert expresses an opinion that Beckwith's "philosophical differences" rises to the level of an outright break with ID, we should continue with what these experts currently say about him. HrafnTalkStalk(P) 13:01, 11 December 2010 (UTC)
replies: text:  I agree that what experts say about him is more important than what he says about himself, but he does explicitly state that he is not a supporter of ID. External authorities are, of course, applying the duck test. Guy (Help!) 11:50, 19 December 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Disputed category 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

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