But here's a whopper from Coyne:
Francis Collins is ticked off at atheists
Speaking at an editorial board meeting at USA Today, National Insitutes of Health director Francis Collins, an evangelical Christian, has struck out at atheists. He’s particularly upset at some critical comments made by Steven Pinker that were first reported on this website. Collins now argues that the conflicts between religion and science are “overstated.”There is no conflict between science (the empirical study of nature) and belief in God (the belief that nature has an intelligent Personal Cause). There is obviously no logical contradiction, and there is no historical contradiction. Most great scientists have been Christians. Few were, or are, atheists.
If there is a logical contradiction to be found between science and theology, it would be between the search for rationality in nature and the belief that nature has no rational cause.
The atheist explanation for ultimate reality-- 'shit happens'-- is no impetus to science.
Coyne:
Asked about complaints from researchers such as Harvard’s Steven Pinker, over an avowed Christian heading a scientific agency, Collins said, “angry atheists are out there using science as a club to to hit believers over the head.”Yep.
He expressed concern that prominent researchers suggesting that one can’t believe in evolution and believe in God, may be “causing a lot of people not familiar with science to change their assessments of it.”Yep. My guess is that a lot of ordinary folks, taking a close look at Coyne, Myers, and Dawkins, are saying "as*holes". What should bother scientists is that these people are:
1) Right.
2) Taxpayers
“A person’s private beliefs should not keep him from a public position,” Pinker wrote in 2009. “But Collins is an advocate of profoundly anti-scientific beliefs, and it is reasonable for the scientific community to ask him how these beliefs will affect his administration,” he added...'Have you now or have you ever been a Christian...?'
None of Collin's beliefs are 'anti-scientific'. That's particularly funny coming from Pinker, a pseudoscientist p.r.-obsessed psychologist who wouldn't know what the inside of a laboratory looked like, who is criticizing the science cred of one of the best molecular geneticists of the century.
And Collins is still an advocate of profoundly anti-scientific beliefs, including the notion that the laws of physics indicate fine-tuning by a deity (the same one who freezes waterfalls in three parts), and that human morality—which he calls “The Moral Law”—can’t be explained by evolution, ergo Jesus. (I’m publishing a response to the latter idea within the next few days.)Debates about the origins of natural laws and constants are philosophical debates, not scientific debates. Pinker, a man who believes that the laws of nature 'just happened' is calling the belief that they have an intelligent Source ' anti-science'. What a jerk.
I’m still awaiting evidence for Collins’s accommodationist claim that those who argue for an incompatibility between science and faith have turned many people away from science. What we do know is that those arguments have turned many people away from faith, which is of course a good thing.Don't worry, Jerry. The insistent public assertion that science is only compatible with the fringe ideology held by 4% of the population who have a propensity to totalitarianism won't affect the public's view of science. Rest easy, fool.
Collins has, of course, again overstepped his boundaries as NIH director. To see this, imagine if he was an atheist instead of a Christian, and “struck out at angry religious people” for trying to blur the boundaries between science and superstition.Coyne 'strikes out' at "angry religious people" all of the time. He's a tenured professor at a major university and is the recipient of lavish public funding. Many of his coprolalic colleagues (e.g. P.Z. Myers) are employees of public universities.
Atheists suckling at the public teat should be careful about advocating religious litmus tests.
Imagine if he said that religious people were using Jesus as a club to hit the scientifically-minded over the head. Collins would be fired in a millisecond, and religious people would come down on him like a ton of bricks.Atheist scientists say that all of the time. That's about all they say. They keep their jobs, and sell tons of books.
Would Coyne like to list the atheist scientists who have been fired for their view? I can name quite a few Christian scientists who have bee fired for their beliefs-- Richard Sternberg, Guillermo Gonzalez, David Coppedge, the list goes on.
His ability to get away with this as America’s most famous government scientist shows the profound asymmetry between theists and atheists in America.
The asymmetry, Coyne, is this: Christians believe in freedom of speech and unfettered public discussion. Atheists' views on the matter are becoming more clear each passing day.
I wonder if such comments would be grounds for barring entrance to countries like Canada and the UK where such calls for the marginalization of identifiable groups is considered 'hate crime'? Geert Wilders was cleared, but he did not eschew the removal of Muslims from positions of influence, as Coyne has done.
ReplyDeleteThis stuff smacks of Nuremberg like thinking.
Coyne may just have got himself on a no entry list!
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeletePinkerton, NOT Coyne. Mea Culpa.
ReplyDelete<<<needs some coffee
I've only read so far as
ReplyDeleteMost great scientists have been Christians. Few were, or are, atheists.
Whoa! Hold on, Mike! Are you claiming that few of today's great scientists are atheists? Here are some stats for you to chew on. A study of personal beliefs of top scientists* showed that only 7% believed in personal God, while 72% did not. That was in 1998. And even in the good old days (1914), atheists among top scientists outnumbered believers two-to-one.
*Members of the US National Academy of Sciences.
On the subject of militant atheists v. Francis Collins, I do not share their opposition and in my view, religious beliefs do not necessarily interfere with science. Francis Collins is a great example of that. He is a born-again Christian who is at the top of his field (genetics).
ReplyDeleteIronically, Francis Collins is a proponent of evolution! Your ID colleagues are not exactly fond of him. Francis Collins — Christian Darwinist and Opponent of ID. I'm sure you are not exactly thrilled with him, either.
@oleg:
ReplyDeleteI'm talking about great scientists throughout history. Historian Rodney Stark has pointed out that virtually all of the 100 or so greatest scientists of the enlightenment and up to the early 20th century were Christians (and some Jews). Atheist scientists were virtually non-existent.
I don't mean to assert that metaphysical bean-counting is a way to truth. I am merely pointing out that the assertion that belief in God is incompatible with science is a joke.
The prevalence of atheists among modern elite scientists is perplexing. Atheism is an ignorant idea, which intrinsically offers no impetus to science whatsoever. Why would belief that there is no ultimate explanation for the universe aid in the quest for explanations for the universe?
I point out that the ranking of leading scientists today is a matter of self-selection (peer review, election to NAS, etc). Atheists are inveterate censors and have an obvious propensity to totalitarianism when in power, so perhaps the prevalence of atheists at the top of science now is explained in the same fashion as we can explain the prevalence of Marxists in the Soviet Politburo. It wasn't because these folks were such great administrators or politicians. It was because they towed the party line.
That's certainly true in evolutionary biology, where expression of the basic Christian belief that life manifests His design is a ticket for automatic unemployment.
And lastly, I will comment on this:
ReplyDeleteI can name quite a few Christian scientists who have bee fired for their beliefs-- Richard Sternberg, Guillermo Gonzalez, David Coppedge, the list goes on.
First, Richard Sternberg was not fired from any job. He had been the editor of the Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington and his appointment had ended before the controversy even began. Neither was Sternberg "fired" from his unpaid position as a research associate at the Smithsonian. He remained an SI research associate as late as 2008 if memory serves me right. We can dig that out if you want.
David Coppedge is not, and never has been, a scientist. He was a sysadmin at GPL. Whether his termination was right or wrong we shall see.
And we can discuss the tenure case of Guillermo Gonzalez. We can review his publication record and grants since the time he joined Iowa State. Ready for that?
Are there any more scientists you'd like to add to the list of one?
You are perplexed, Mike. Good.
ReplyDeleteAtheism is a fairly recent phenomenon. No wonder all scientists prior to the eighteenth century were religious: there were no atheists in the modern sense of the world. Boy, have the times changed!
I don't buy your argument about discrimination against Christians at NAS. You can take any other sample of scientists, like a science department at Stony Brook. I am sure you know that there are few believers among them. You can take Nobel laureates, who are certainly not a self-selected group, and still find the same results.
@oleg:
ReplyDeleteMy only purpose in pointing out the massive contributions of devoutly Christian scientists to science is to disprove the idiot atheist assertion that theism and science are in conflict.
Beyond that, bean-counting is problematic. For example, scientists as a whole are one of the most Democratic segments of American society. Very few scientists (perhaps 5%) are Republicans.
Does this mean that voting for Gore/Kerry/Obama is less 'in conflict with science' then voting for Bush/McCain?
Of course not. There are all sorts of social pressures, selection pressures, etc involved in career choice, career advancement, etc. I suspect that the top ranks of many fields (entertainment, government, finance, etc) may be skewed with respect to religious practice. It doesn't mean that there is a fundamental conflict between religious practice and attainment in a particular field.
And if you want to bean-count occupations and faith, you have to admit that atheists are highly over-represented in the upper echelons of Communist tyrannies.
No conflict there.
@oleg:
ReplyDelete[First, Richard Sternberg was not fired from any job. He had been the editor of the Proceedings of the Biological Society of Washington and his appointment had ended before the controversy even began. Neither was Sternberg "fired" from his unpaid position as a research associate at the Smithsonian. He remained an SI research associate as late as 2008 if memory serves me right. We can dig that out if you want.]
I know Sternberg personally. He was the victim of an astonishing campaign of professional destruction. See the link under "Smithsonian Controversy" (http://www.richardsternberg.org/smithsonian.php)
Brutal attacks on Christian scientists like Sternberg got me involved in this controversy. No person who has any respect for individual rights or science would condone what was done to him.
The attack on Sternberg was a precis of why we fight.
Sternberg may not have been treated in the best possible way, but he was not fired. He did not lose any job over the Meyer article. Period. It does not matter whether he is your personal acquaintance. The facts are known.
ReplyDeleteAnd what about Gonzalez? Do you want to discuss his scientific performance at Iowa State?
@oleg:
ReplyDelete[And what about Gonzalez? Do you want to discuss his scientific performance at Iowa State]
Sure. Start here. (http://trinitylawschool.wordpress.com/2007/07/31/guillermo-gonzalez-v-iowa-state-university-discrimination-and-intelligent-design/)
@oleg:
ReplyDeleteAnd after we're done discussion Christians in science who have been fired for their beliefs, let's discuss atheists in science who have been fired for their beliefs.
Can you think of any?
It's on, Mike!
ReplyDeleteNo need to point me to blog articles about Gonzalez. I am quite familiar with his case. I discussed it with your colleague Luskin at the time when it was unfolding. I also happen to know one of the people in the ISU physics and astronomy department. On top of that, my astronomy colleagues knew Gonzalez.
The blog post you linked was written by a lawyer who either does not know much about tenure review or pretends not to. He writes:
"Dr. Guillermo Gonzalez is an astrophysicist and assistant professor of Astronomy at Iowa State University (ISU). To Gonzalez’s credit, he boasts some 68 peer review articles, co-authored the standard astronomy textbook used even by fellow faculty members of ISU, was instrumental in the discovery of two new planets and his research has led to what is now known as the galactic habitable zone (GHZ)."
Gonzalez had a pretty good record of publications when he arrived at ISU after his postdoctoral work. That is not in dispute. That was required to land a good tenure-track position at a major research university such as Iowa State. The idea of a GHZ was one of the things he did as a postdoc at the University of Washington.
Tenure decisions are based on the work accomplished in the tenure-track position. Your postdoc years do not count. What counts is your ability to conduct research: building a new lab, securing external funding, getting time at telescopes, publishing papers, and graduating students with a PhD. Was Gonzalez successful in these respects? The answer is no.
Gonzalez joined the ISU in the fall of 2001. If you examine Gonzalez's publication record from 2002 to 2007 (the period relevant to tenure review), the number of publications went steadily down. From 5 in 2002 and 2003 to 0 in 2004, 3 in 2005 and 2006, and 2 in 2007. For comparison, he had 9 publications in 1998 and 10 in 1999, during his postdoc years.
Granted, when you start in a faculty position you tend to have fewer papers at the beginning as you build the lab and teach your students. In fact, the 2002 and 2003 publications were from previous collaborations. But there was no pick up in later years. Things just went down hill.
You can also look at his funding record. He was awarded something like $20k in federal grants between 2001 and 2007. Discovery Institute gave him another $50k. Can you do research with that kind of money? Of course no. You should be getting at least $100k a year to just hire a grad student and pay yourself a month of the summer salary, and I am not even counting research expenditures here!
Has any graduate student finished a PhD with Gonzalez? I don't think so.
So what did Gonzalez accomplish during his tenure track? Let's see. He published a book for the lay audience (The Privileged Planet.) He prepared a new edition of a textbook. These activities are commendable but they are not a replacement for research work. In fact, I would not advise any young faculty member to ditch research and write a textbook. It's just silly.
Let me know how this looks, Mike.
Hey, what happened to my post on Gonzalez? Did it get stuck in the spam filter?
ReplyDeleteWeird... those statistical number sound so different from the 45% atheists or materialists I think from opther polls I saw.
ReplyDeleteI mean I bet that atheism must be really main stream in some areas... but is it really 70% ???
Wow ... I hate statistics XD... they always give different results
Things were stuck in the spam filter. They're released!
ReplyDeleteAtheism is a fairly recent phenomenon
ReplyDelete_________________
Oleg, Atheism as a major drive in Western society is 300 years old. It was there in the Enlightment and David Hume and baron d'Holbach will agree with me.
Atheism have grown more in end of the 19th century mainly thanks to critics of religion coming from Communism, Anarchism.
That was when atheism * atheism is mandatory in the most mainstream ideas of communism and anarchism * kicked up.
If you want to be free of the problems of the society... you have to let go of religion and become: ATHEIST * not secular or agnostic orr deist... you HAD to be an atheist! *
The point was... The idea of God existing could end up creating religion again or allowing people to be controlled by "religious" leaders.
Of course... people need leaders... so they fixed that by deifying their leaders.
But back on topic man... Atheism as a position exists since Ancient times, as a more popular thing, is 300 years. And in the last 100 years atheism and science has been "sold" together. I mean I find very funny that most popularizers of science... are disbelievers.
I mean obviously I see the possible conflicts, but I really see the conflict in education.
People are educated to see science as truth. We are dogmatizing people, and some people just don't like that and that scares people away from science.
@oleg:
ReplyDeleteThe issue with Gonzalez is two things:
1) How did he compare to other tenured faculty in the department?
2) Was there discrimination based on his religious views?
Let's see:
1) How did he compare to other tenured faculty in the department?
Gonzalez' citation record, compared with other professors:
(http://www.rasmusen.org/x/2007/06/10/the-guillermo-gonzalez-tenure-case-at-iowa-state/)
THE TENURE CANDIDATE:
Guillermo Gonzalez 244, 209, 147, 91, 88.
THREE OF FIVE " DISTINGUISHED PROFESSORS":
Costas Soukoulis: 175, 95, 77, 69, 42.
David Johnston: 816, 349, 288, 212, 141.
Kai-Ming Ho 221, 190, 92, 90, 88
ALL SIX ASSOCIATE PROFESSORS:
James Cochran 95, 79, 60, 58, 35
John Lajoie 8, 1.... looks like he is older. Maybe he stopped
publishing after getting tenure.
Craig Ogilvie 6, .... hardly any, though 65 or so publications back
in 2004, his latest CV . Odd.
Soeren Prell 3, 1.... hardly any.
Marzia Rosetti: zero cites! Though several articles.
Joerg Schmalian 155, 130, 86, 81, 56,
Gonzalez' citation index was at the level of "distinguished professors" in the department.
Ever look PZ Myers up in Pub Med? I've got medical students who have more publications. How did he get tenure?
2) Was there discrimination based on his religious views?
Let's go... the e-mails!:
(http://www.evolutionnews.org/ID_was_the_Issue_Gonzalez_Tenure.pdf)
Executive Summary
Internal e-mails and other documents obtained under the Iowa Open Records Act completely
contradict public claims by Iowa State University (ISU) that the denial of tenure to astronomer
Guillermo Gonzalez was unrelated to his support for the theory of intelligent design. According to
these documents:
Dr. Gonzalez was subjected to a secret campaign of vilification and ridicule by colleagues in
the Department of Physics and Astronomy who explicitly wanted to get rid of him because
of his pro-intelligent design views, not his scholarship.
Dr. Gonzalez’s work and views on intelligent design were repeatedly attacked during
department tenure deliberations.
Dr. Gonzalez’s colleagues secretly plotted to evade the law by suppressing evidence that
could be used against them in court to supply proof of a hostile work environment.
One of Dr. Gonzalez’s colleagues admitted to another faculty member that the Department
of Physics and Astronomy had violated the principle of academic freedom “massively” when
it came to Gonzalez, while other colleagues expressed qualms that their secret plotting
against Gonzalez was unethical or dishonest.
Dr. Gonzalez’s department chair misled the public after the fact by insisting that “intelligent
design was not a major or even a big factor in this decision”—even though he had privately
told colleagues that Gonzalez’s support for intelligent design alone “disqualifies him from
serving as a science educator.”
In voting to reject tenure for Dr. Gonzalez, members of the Department of Physics and
Astronomy all but ignored recommendations made by the majority of their own outside
scientific reviewers, who thought Gonzalez clearly deserved tenure.
The bottom line according to these documents is that Dr. Gonzalez’s rights to academic freedom,
free speech, and a fair tenure process were trampled on by colleagues who were driven more by
ideological zeal than by an impartial evaluation of Gonzalez’s accomplishments as a scientist.
Note to oleg: aren't e-mails a pain?
Sorry, Mike, but you did not seem to read my comment carefully.
ReplyDeleteGonzalez's citation record reflects mostly his postdoctoral work, which was done under the guidance of his postdoc advisors in Austin and Seattle. I have already acknowledged that his postdoctoral work was high-quality. That is not in doubt.
However, the decision to not award tenure was based on his performance as an independent researcher, a principal investigator who directs students and postdocs. And on that front, Gonzalez did not do well. There was not much research output as judged by the number of papers, essentially no external funding, and no students getting to a PhD.
The bottom line is that he was a brilliant postdoc but not a successful junior faculty.
You brought up PZ Myers but that's absolutely an apple-to-oranges comparison. PZ got tenured at the University of Minnesota at Morris, not exactly a hotbed of research. If you want a meaningful comparison, look at the performance of someone in the same department. Joerg Schmalian joined the department in 1999 and was promoted to Associate Professorin 2002. You can find his list of publications for that period on the web. He had the funding to pay students and postdocs.
The spam filter is acting up again.
ReplyDeleteBy the way, Eric Rasmusen's blog post has errors.
ReplyDeleteFor instance, he wrote that one of the associate professors, "Marzia Rosetti," had only a few articles and no citations at all. He misspelled the professor's last name. It should be Rosati. She is a high-energy experimentalist in the PHENIX collaboration. As a member of that collaboration, she has plenty of articles (159 according to ISI Web of Science) and lots of citations (8972).
He is also mistaken about the amount Gonzalez obtained as a faculty member at the ISU. When he joined Iowa State, he brought with him $122k in previously awarded funds from the Templeton Foundation (for the Privileged Planet) and from NASA. As a faculty at Iowa State, he only got $20k from the NSF (or NASA, I do not remember) plus $50k from Disco 'Tute. $70k over 6 years, that's pocket change for a PI at a major research university. Doesn't fund even a single grad student.
@oleg:
ReplyDeleteNot sure what's up with the spam filter. Sorry.
Regarding Gonzalez: how do you explain the emails? It seems they were less interested in his productivity than in his personal beliefs. Why did his colleagues, including the chairman, lie about their reasons for denying him tenure?
i.e.:
"One of Dr. Gonzalez’s colleagues admitted to another faculty member that the Department
of Physics and Astronomy had violated the principle of academic freedom “massively” when
it came to Gonzalez, while other colleagues expressed qualms that their secret plotting
against Gonzalez was unethical or dishonest.
Dr. Gonzalez’s department chair misled the public after the fact by insisting that “intelligent
design was not a major or even a big factor in this decision”—even though he had privately
told colleagues that Gonzalez’s support for intelligent design alone “disqualifies him from
serving as a science educator.”
In voting to reject tenure for Dr. Gonzalez, members of the Department of Physics and
Astronomy all but ignored recommendations made by the majority of their own outside
scientific reviewers, who thought Gonzalez clearly deserved tenure."
Is this a lie?
Mike,
ReplyDeleteYou are not citing emails, you are citing spin put out by Disco 'Tute.
@oleg:
ReplyDeleteSo you deny the truth of these assertions based on the source.
You are knowledgeable about the case. What exactly about the above statements is untrue? Please be specific. Are the quotations fabricated?
I would not trust anything put out by Casey Luskin and his friends at Discovery. What you cited was an "executive summary" in this Discovery press release. Let's have a closer look at Part F of the document:
ReplyDeleteOf the nine review letters by scientists outside ISU that gave recommendations regarding Dr. Gonzalez’s final tenure decision, six strongly supported his tenure promotion and gave glowing endorsements of his reputation and academic achievements. (Even Dr. Gonzalez’s tenure dossier admitted that “five of the external letter writers … including senior scientists at prestigious institutions recommend his promotion” and that only “[t]hree do not.”)
I'm sure you are familiar with the process of tenure review at a major research university. Letter writers act in an advisory capacity. Tenure is not automatically given if a majority of the letters are positive. It doesn't work like that. Three negative letters out of nine would make tenure prospects problematic in any serious department.
Would you like to comment on that? Are things different at Stony Brook?
@oleg:
ReplyDeleteMy question is actually quite simple. Were Gonzalez' religious views and his ID views (views he had never expressed in his capacity as an assistant professor) a factor in the tenure decision?
The documents I gave you indicate that his personal views were a factor, and that members of the committee lied about it.
That's serious. It's a public university.
So tell me, oleg. You're obviously well-versed on the case. Is there evidence that his personal views were used against him, or not?
It's a simple question. Why can't you answer it?
@ oleg:
ReplyDelete[I would not trust anything put out by Casey Luskin and his friends at Discovery]
I know the folks at the DI very well, and Casey is a good friend of mine. He is a man of impeccable integrity. You may disagree with his viewpoints, but your assertion that he is untrustworthy is utterly wrong. Of all of the people with whom I have dealt with on these issues, he is the most meticulous about getting the truth exactly right.
You should be ashamed of what you said about him, and about the other honest people at the DI.
Mike,
ReplyDeleteIf Gonzalez had an actionable case, why didn't he sue Iowa State for religious discrimination? Perhaps there is no there there?
I was not privy to the details of the case, but from what little I know about it, Gonzalez's work on ID did influence the tenure decision, but not in the way you imagine. Gonzalez made his own choice to promote ID at the expense of working in the field of astronomy. His ID work consisted of writing a book for the lay audience. That does not earn you cookie points for tenure. Neither does writing textbooks. His colleagues were embarrassed that an assistant professor with a good previous record wastes his time on promoting creationism instead of making himself a name in the field.
And their worries were confirmed when tenure letters came back.
Now, you are a tenured faculty member and the vice-chair of a department at Stony Brook. What would be the tenure prospects of a junior professor in your department if a third of his letters said "Don't tenure him"? Maybe you clinical types play by different rules, I dunno. But research and funding are key things in science departments and some of the letters obviously pointed out glaring holes in those parts of his CV.
Are we both talking about the same Casey Luskin, Mike? The guy who channeled Baghdad Bob in 2009?
ReplyDelete@oleg:
ReplyDeleteI believe that a man with his publication record would be tenured easily at Stony Brook. I have seen many people with substantially weaker records tenured.
This is certain: we would not discuss the man's personal religious views.
We are a public university (like Iowa State), and to do so would be a violation of quite a few laws, as well (probably) of the Constitution.
If I heard such matters being discussed, I would:
1) Object.
2) Call the university's office of legal counsel immediately to warn them of a violation of the law that has just occurred.
As to why Gonzalez didn't pursue legal remedy, it may well be that he didn't want to work with bigots, and that he got better offers.
@oleg:
ReplyDelete"...embarrassed that an assistant professor with a good previous record wastes his time on promoting creationism"
You admit that his religious views were used against him. Why did his colleagues lie about their conversations and why did some of them express great discomfort about factoring his religious views into the decision?
The issue is simple: were his religious views a part of the discussion?
@oleg:
ReplyDeleteOh, and your link had nothing to do with "Baghdad Bob".
Casey published a newsletter for college students. So what?
@oleg:
ReplyDeleteIf you had said:
"...embarrassed that an assistant professor with a good previous record wastes his time on promoting Judaism"
Would the moral status of it be any different?
Mike,
ReplyDeleteYou don't take me for a fool, do you? Why do you equate creationism with Christianity?
You also did not answer my question regarding tenure letters. I know people in the physics department at Stony Brook and I don't believe a physicist with a funding level and publication levels of Gonzalez (while on the tenure track, not as a postdoc) would make it there.
As to the Baghdad Bob reference, read Casey's article Confused Darwinists Play Coroner with IDEA Center in the Fall 2009 issue of the newsletter. Then ponder this question: how many more newsletters have come out since then? (Answer: 0.) Maybe that should clear it up.
As to why Gonzalez didn't pursue legal remedy, it may well be that he didn't want to work with bigots, and that he got better offers.
ReplyDeleteWell, if he is happier at Grove City College, then why all the fuzz?
And if Discovery folks are such fine and honest people, why do they like to inflate their own credentials?
ReplyDeleteWhat do you make of this?
"Mr. Luskin is an attorney and published scientist working with the Discovery Institute in Seattle, Wash."
Maybe DIsco 'Tute folks honestly believe everything they write. The charitable interpretation then would be that they are delusional.
@oleg:
ReplyDelete["Mr. Luskin is an attorney and published scientist working with the Discovery Institute in Seattle, Wash."]
Casey has a degree in geology. What's wrong with that?
@oleg:
ReplyDelete[You also did not answer my question regarding tenure letters. I know people in the physics department at Stony Brook and I don't believe a physicist with a funding level and publication levels of Gonzalez (while on the tenure track, not as a postdoc) would make it there.]
I understand your point, but you're evading mine. Whether his academic record warranted tenure is a matter of opinion. He had strengths and weaknesses.
My question is this: were his religious beliefs taken into account in the decision. The evidence, as I understand it, is that they were. I've repeatedly asked you for clarification about your understanding of the evidence, and you're evasive.
Here's my theory: you're evasive because you know that his religious views played a role in the decision, and you don't want to admit it.
Having a master's degree in Earth Sciences = being a scientist? Who knew?
ReplyDeleteMike,
ReplyDeleteNo, I do not think Gonzalez's religious beliefs were taken into account in the decision.
I don't even understand why we are discussing that angle. His mistake was to waste precious time on dabbling in ID instead of doing research. But ID, or any other band of creationism, does not equate with Christianity.
If the view of a professor belonging to, say, a university's Civil Engineering department was that the sun and planets revolved around the Earth, it seems likely the professor's geocentric view would be one influence among others in the department's decision on the continuation of his tenure, despite his geocentrism not being relevant to his teaching or research.
Delete...
Related topic:
There's no necessary connection between ID and religion, as there isn't between Geocentrism and religion. As soon as a designer with certain qualities and propensities is postulated for either of these, the science becomes skewed.
If the view of a professor belonging to, say, a university's Civil Engineering department was that the sun and planets revolved around the Earth, it seems likely the professor's geocentric view would be one influence among others in the department's decision on the continuation of his tenure, despite his geocentrism not being relevant to his teaching or research.
Delete...
Related topic:
There's no necessary connection between ID and religion, as there isn't between Geocentrism and religion. As soon as a designer with certain qualities and propensities is postulated for either of these, the science becomes skewed.
Oleg again sees an argument that is not present;
ReplyDeleteHe asserts that he can refute that Creationism does not equate with Christianity. Apparently someone has inferred that? Maybe it is in a response since removed or lost? I don't see it.
Even though....
WOW! What an observation. It is amazing that through all the centuries of modern theology no one has noticed that before. That Creationism, Theism and Christianity are not all synonyms!
Therefore he MUST be right, and the universe IS a futile collision of particles with no meaning or morality; and it is okay to deny post grads tenure on the basis of their personal beliefs on origins....Right????
WRONG.
You state the obvious as if it refuted fact, Oleg.
Go on, Ignore that too.
(God, reason, and CrusadeRex all appear to currently be on Oleg's ignore list.)
But of a leap, eh Oleg?