Barbara Forrest

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Barbara Forrest

Barbara Carroll Forrest, PhD. is a professor of philosophy at Southeastern Louisiana University in Hammond, Louisiana. She has been an outspoken critic of intelligent design, and the Discovery Institute.

[edit] Biography

Forrest was awarded a Ph.D. in philosophy at Tulane University in 1988. She has taught philosophy at Southeastern Louisiana University since 1981 and presently holds the rank of professor in philosophy in the Department of History and Political Science.

She is co-author with scientist Paul R. Gross of Creationism's Trojan Horse: The Wedge of Intelligent Design (Oxford University Press 2004), which examines the goals and strategies of the intelligent design movement and its attempts to undermine the teaching of evolutionary biology. Analyzed is the absence of a scientific intelligent design hypothesis, ID's religious foundations, and the political ambitions of intelligent design proponents. They examine the movement's Wedge strategy which has advanced and is succeeding through public relations rather than through scientific research. Analyzing the content and character of intelligent design creationism they highlight its relationship to public education and to the separation of church and state.

Forrest serves on the board of directors of the National Center for Science Education (NCSE), the National Advisory Council of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, and the New Orleans Secular Humanist Association.

[edit] Kitzmiller vs Dover Area School District

Forrest was a key expert witnesses for the plaintiffs in the 2005 Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District trial. The defendants were represented by the Thomas More Law Center, a conservative Christian, not-for-profit law center whose motto is "The Sword and the Shield for People of Faith". After Forrest had been deposed, the TMLC tried but failed to have her stopped from testifying. In a motion to have her removed as a witness, they described her as "little more than a conspiracy theorist and a web-surfing, ‘cyber-stalker’ of the Discovery Institute..."[1][2] Judge Jones denied the motion and Forrest's testimony began October 5th.

According to Forrest, after the TMLC's attempt to exclude her as a witness had failed, and only a few days before she would be testifying, the Discovery Institute attempted to publicly ridicule her on their website. She wrote, "On September 29, I noticed that DI had posted a transcript of an interview I had done— except that I hadn’t done it. The transcript was fake. Apparently meant (though not marked) as a parody, the organization whose self-described goal is 'to support high quality scholarship . . . relevant to the question of evidence for intelligent design in nature' ridiculed me by, among other things, having fictitious radio host 'Marvin Waldburger' refer to me as 'Dr. Barking Forrest Ph.D.' If DI thought this would unsettle me, they were ignoring the fact that I had just been through two killer hurricanes. I could only shake my head at their doing something so jaw-droppingly stupid. If they were hoping Judge Jones would see and be influenced by this silliness, it was just another sign of the disrespect for his intelligence and integrity that began before the trial and continues today."[3]

During her testimony the defense would again to ask the court to exclude Forrest from testifying as expert witness. Judge Jones allowed them to present their case for dismissing her and then denied their request. Forrest would go on to testify on the religious origins and nature of the intelligent design movement, the wedge document, and also demonstrated that the drafts of the textbook at the center of the court case Of Pandas and People, substituted intelligent design language for creationist language after the 1987 SCOTUS decision in Edwards v. Aguillard. Her testimony had a significant impact on Judge Jones's decision.