Romans 1: 18-20 The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people, who suppress the truth by their wickedness, since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.”

I’d almost forgotten, somehow how explicitly Atheistic that modern science is. You may have believed, as I did, that while many scientists were Atheists/materialists or at minimum evolutionists, I also assumed that it was not a factor in papers with non-evolutionary subject matter, and I assumed that many scientists continued to be a low-vocal minority.

A recent (2016) peer-reviewed article on hand movement and hand functionality got many scientists all up in their feelings. The peer reviewed, and rather standard paper mentioned “design” and the “Creator’ several times, which set off quite an uproar and demands for a retraction from the "scientific" community-thus, equating Atheism with Science. Quite a number of scientists whined, stomped their proverbial and actual feet and pouted in unattractive, shrill, voices.

They waved their well-designed hands furiously in the air.

Eventually, the Publisher PLOS-ONE acceded to their demands and retracted the article-but was the damage done? Might believers have noticed it and thought "of course" and shrug?….s8intcom

Article:

Scientific Paper Which Says the Human Hand was Designed by a 'Creator' Sparks Controversy

The paper's perceived references to intelligent design have provoked anger and calls for a boycott of the journal,

By Doug Bolton Thursday 03 March 2016 20:40 The Independent

The language of the paper references a 'Creator', which some saw as an endorsement of intelligent design.

A recent scientific paper on the movement of the human hand has faced strong criticism for referring to a 'Creator' throughout. The paper, titled: 'Biomechanical characteristics of hand coordination in grasping activities of daily living' was written by a team of four researchers, three from Huazhong University in China, and one from Worcester Polytechnic Institute in Massachusetts.

Published in the PLOS ONE Journal, the fairly conventional study looked at the mechanics of how we grasp things, and involved the measurement of the hand movements of 30 participants. However, members of the scientific community have demanded the paper be retracted, for its several perceived references to the pseudoscientific theory [sic] of intelligent design and a possibly divine 'Creator'.

In the opening sentences of the study, it claims the link between muscles and hand movements is the product of "proper design by the Creator."

Later, it says human hand coordination "should indicate the mystery of the Creator's invention," and concludes by again claiming the mechanical architecture of the hand is the result of "proper design by the Creator. "Naturally, [sic] the multiple references to intelligent design in a reputable journal like PLOS ONE have stoked anger in the scientific community, and many people, including researchers who work as editors for the publication, are now calling for it to be retracted.

The paper's authors appeared to acknowledge their mistakes in the comments section, saying the references to the 'Creator' were down to translation errors rather than a belief in intelligent design.

Other comments on the paper called its publication "unacceptable", and criticized the "sloppy job" done by the reviewers and editors. Some scientists said the journal should be boycotted unless amends are made.

Commenting below the study, the journal's staff apologized that the language referring to a 'Creator' was not addressed during the paper's evaluation. They also said they were "looking into" the concerns raised, and would "take steps" to correct the published article.

Update: The journal has now announced the paper will be retracted.

Article Abstract: Biomechanical Characteristics of Hand Coordination in Grasping Activities of Daily Living
Ming-Jin Liu,Cai-Hua Xiong ,Le Xiong,Xiao-Lin Huang
Published: January 5, 2016 Abstract
Hand coordination can allow humans to have dexterous control with many degrees of freedom to perform various tasks in daily living. An important contributing factor to this important ability is the complex biomechanical architecture of the human hand. However, drawing a clear functional link between biomechanical architecture and hand coordination is challenging. It is not understood which biomechanical characteristics are responsible for hand coordination and what specific effect each biomechanical characteristic has. To explore this link, we first inspected the characteristics of hand coordination during daily tasks through a statistical analysis of the kinematic data, which were collected from thirty right-handed subjects during a multitude of grasping tasks. Then, the functional link between biomechanical architecture and hand coordination was drawn by establishing the clear corresponding causality between the tendinous connective characteristics of the human hand and the coordinated characteristics during daily grasping activities.

The explicit functional link indicates that the biomechanical characteristic of tendinous connective architecture between muscles and articulations is the proper design by the CREATOR (emphasis added) to perform a multitude of daily tasks in a comfortable way. The clear link between the structure and the function of the human hand also suggests that the design of a multifunctional robotic hand should be able to better imitate such basic architecture.

Following publication, readers raised concerns about language in the article that makes references to a 'Creator', and about the overall rationale and findings of the study.

Upon receiving these concerns, the PLOS ONE editors have carried out an evaluation of the manuscript and the pre-publication process, and they sought further advice on the work from experts in the editorial board. This evaluation confirmed concerns with the scientific rationale, presentation and language, which were not adequately addressed during peer review. Consequently, the PLOS ONE editors consider that the work cannot be relied upon and retract this publication.

The editors apologize to readers for the inappropriate language in the article and the errors during the evaluation process.

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