BIO-Complexity

BIO-Complexity is an open access journal published by the weirdly named Biologic Institute, a lame front for creation science. The journal "aims to be the leading forum for testing the scientific merit of the claim that intelligent design (ID) is a credible explanation for life".[1] Good luck with that!

The divine comedy
Creationism
Running gags
Jokes aside
Blooper reel
v - t - e

The articles

The first two articles[2][3] exploit ambiguities in biochemical mechanisms in the typical "God of the gaps"-type argument, and neither provides evidence for an intelligent designer; neither even mentions a designer in the respective papers.[4] Both articles have authors from the Biologic Institute's editorial board[5] (which also includes ID leaders William Dembski and Michael Behe). The Discovery Institute lauded the journal's formation, implying that intelligent design papers were ideologically blocked from publication.[6]

Criticism

Despite the intention to have one article per month, it took from May 2010 until December 2010 for another article to be published (by William Dembski, a member of the editorial team). Only one article was published in 2011, and three total are by Douglas Axe. For 2012, the Panda's Thumb blog points out:[7]

“”…the 2012 volume contains exactly two research articles, one “critical review” and one “critical focus”, for a grand total of four items. The editorial board has 30 members; they must be kept very busy handling all those papers.

Despite its lackluster performance, the journal proclaimed, "Over 2,000 PDFs downloaded… In its first two months, BIO-Complexity has attracted a large readership."[8] The journal was panned in a review by young earth creationist and baraminologist Todd C. Wood:[9]

“”In the larger scheme of things, I am sensing a discouraging pattern to BIO-Complexity publications. As I quoted above, the journal is supposed to be about "testing the scientific merit of the claim that intelligent design (ID) is a credible explanation for life," which is a great goal. But this is the fifth paper published by BIO-Complexity, and it's the fifth paper that focuses on perceived inadequacies of evolution. So when are we going to test "the scientific merit of the claim that intelligent design (ID) is a credible explanation for life?"

If a young earth creationist doesn't like it, who does?

gollark: Fine,a bad GUI then.
gollark: Ah, an OS. It is bad.
gollark: It just says "no signal".
gollark: I don't know how else to get the stupid things to work.
gollark: Can I get them replaced with working ones?

References
  1. Editorial Policies: Purpose and Scope BIO-Complexity
  2. Reductive Evolution Can Prevent Populations from Taking Simple Adaptive Paths to High Fitness by Gauger, A. K. et al. BIO-Complexity 2010(2): 1-9.
  3. The Case Against a Darwinian Origin of Protein Folds by Axe, D. D. BIO-Complexity 2010(1): 1-12.
  4. A review of the first article may be found here
  5. Douglas Axe and Ralph Seelke: Editorial Team of BIO-Complexity
  6. BIO-Complexity: A New, Peer-Reviewed Science Journal, Open to the ID Debate Archive.org copy from May 4, 2010
  7. The Sterility of Intelligent Design by Jeffrey Shallit (December 11, 2012 14:30 MST) Panda's Thumb.
  8. Over 2,000 PDFs downloaded Accessed 9 September 2010, and 29 November 2016.
  9. Wood, Todd C. "Protein evolution in BIO-Complexity." Todd's Blog. 13 April 2011. Accessed 10 July 2011.
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