The critique is well worth reading in its entirety. I think anyone who goes through it will agree with Mr. Zero's conclusion:
I hope that when the EiCs received this letter, they threw it straight into the garbage where it belongs. I really hope that this letter did not cause the EiCs to rethink their position on the Forrest piece. I really, really hope that this kind of **** is not what convinced the EiCs to attach the disclaimer.
Sadly, Alvin Plantinga repeated Clark's claim that Forrest's article was "heavy on character assasination" in the New York Times (or perhaps Clark is repeating Plantinga's claim in his letter, there is no way to know since Professor Plantinga's communication to the Eics has not been made public). Moreover, even though it is clear from everything that has been said that somebody complained about another paper that did not criticize a notable conservative Christian, the major actions of the EiCs that have been under discussion concern the reactions to Plantinga and Clark's criticisms: corresponding with Beckwith (and not the non-conservative Christian criticized in the other offending piece, nor the special issue editors for that matter) to let him (and not the other non-conservative Christian offended person) publish a non-reviewed reaction where he misquotes their initial editorial statement. Likewise the special editors said the correspondences they received from the general editors only concerned Forrest's piece.
In any case, Mr. Zero shows how incredibly misleading Plantinga and Clark's claim of "character assassination" is in reference to anything in Professor Forrest's paper.
My concluding thoughts on all of this is that Leiter and others are mistaken to say that there was presssure from "the ID lobby." Indeed, it is correct to say that Beckwith has been part of the lobby and also that the most troubling aspect of this is the manner in which the editors' actions will help the lobby. But this is all consistent with no pressure having come from the "ID lobby."
Instead, it is clear now that the pressure came from leaders of the same conservative Christian lobby that last year unsuccessfully tried to retain the APA's earlier inconsistent deference to Christian colleges with Jim Crow hiring practices and teachings. As far as anyone has been able to adduce, this recent action was solely out of the kind of misguided identity politics that constitutively produce what George Bush calls "the soft bigotry of low expectations" here creating one standard for Forrest and a contradictory, lower, standard for Beckwith (and Plantinga and Clark for that matter with respect to their public statements). Certainly not out of any reasoned position, judging by Clark's letter and Plantinga's public statement, which again solely repeats the central false conceit of Clark's letter.
[Three Notes: (1) for an open letter to Alvin Plantinga concerning his statement to the New York times from the blog's very own Eric Schliesser, go HERE, (2) I cannot state clearly enough that many prominent members of the SCP do not share Plantinga, Beckwith, and Dembski's indefensible views about our obligations towards tax exempt entities which segregate; and it would likewise be a complete mistake to infer widespread agreement with Plantinga and Clark's claims about "character assassination"; for my worries about the SCP as well as defense of a position contradicting Plantinga's essay which is linked to prominently from the SCP's web page, see the post HERE. (3) It would be remiss of me not to note here that I think it speaks very well of Professor Clark that he subjected his letter to the public scrutiny of the philosophical community, and I hope those of us who find his case as uncompelling as Mr. Zero does can still extend him respect for having done this much.]
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