Firings and censorships in academia: More prevalent for professors who offend the religious?

One might be led to believe from the movie Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed that post-secondary education is a Darwinian jungle of conspiracies to fire Christians. However, there are quite a few cases of the reverse occurring–evolutionary biologists and teachers fired for not teaching creation or ID with legitimacy or respect. From “Creation, Power, and Violence” by Blake Stacey…

• Steve Bitterman was an instructor who taught the Western Civilization course at Southwestern Community College in Red Oak, Iowa. In 2007, at the age of sixty, he was fired because he did not teach the story of Adam and Eve as literal truth. (How many faithful Christians there are in this country who see that story as an allegory, and a powerful, meaningful one, of the loss of innocence!) “I just thought there was such a thing as academic freedom here,” he said afterward. “From my point of view, what they’re doing is essentially teaching their students very well to function in the eighth century.
• Alex Bolyanatz was an assistant professor of anthropology at Wheaton College, a Protestant liberal-arts college in Illinois. He had been popular with both students and his fellow teachers, but in the spring of 2000, he received a letter from his provost issuing a stern rebuke: “During your term at Wheaton College,” Stanton Jones wrote, “you have failed to develop the necessary basic competence in the integration of Faith and Learning, particularly in the classroom setting.” Jones castigated Bolyanatz for not treating creationism with respect and instead teaching evolution as the plain, scientific truth. Bolyanatz had repeatedly made the point that evolution did not conflict with his own religious faith, but claiming that “The evolutionary model does not discount faith” was not enough to save his job. His experience parallels that of Howard J. Van Till, who taught physics at Calvin College in Michigan. When Van Till made the modest claims that evolution had been scientifically proven and that Biblical texts were influenced by the cultures in which they’d been written, angry community members pressured Calvin College’s Board of Trustees into forming an investigative committee, which subjected Van Till to four years of inquiry. He was, eventually, cleared, but not until the committee had performed, he said, “a test of the entirety of my theological position.”
  
• Likewise, Richard Colling graduated from Olivet Nazarene University and taught there for twenty-seven years. A man of strong religious convictions, he argued that one could believe in the Christian God and still accept the scientific truth of evolution. In 2004, he published a book about this belief, and for his pains, he was barred from teaching general biology or having his book used in the school.
• Colling had been granted tenure, so that at least his job and paycheck were secure, even though the ejection from the community he loved brought him significant anguish. Nancey Murphy of Fuller Theological Seminary did not have that shield, and so when her negative review of Phillip Johnson’s Darwin on Trial aroused Johnson’s ire, she had to fight for her job. Johnson, a lawyer who was one of the instigators in rebranding creationism as “Intelligent Design,” has never displayed a grasp of basic biological facts, but that didn’t stop him from calling up a Fuller trustee and starting a campaign to get Nancey Murphy fired.
• Gwen Pearson taught biology at the Permian Basin branch of the University of Texas, located in the city of Odessa. Her three years as an assistant professor ended with assaults on her integrity and her physical self:
   

This all became a great deal more serious when I began to get messages on my home answering machine threatening to assist me in reaching hell, where I would surely end up. I also received threatening mail messages: “The Bible tells us how to deal with nonbelievers: ‘Bring those who would not have me to reign over them, and slay them before me.’ May Christians have the strength to slaughter you and end your pitiful, blasphemous life!”

An envelope containing student evaluations from my evolution class was tampered with. A student wrote a letter to the president of the university claiming that I said in class that “anyone who believes in God gets an F.” Despite the fact that she had never been in my class, and it was clearly untrue, a full investigation of the charge ensued.

There were other problems. Often I arrived in class to find “Dr. Feminazi” scrawled on the blackboard. An emotionally disturbed student assaulted me on campus. In town, Maurice Sendak’s award-winning book Where the Wild Things Are was removed from school libraries, as it might “confuse children as to the true nature of Beelzebub.” The California-based Institute for Creation Research (ICR) preached in the county stadium to 10,000 local people.

I finally resigned when I received an admonition from the dean in my yearly reappointment letter to “accommodate the more intellectually conservative students with a low threshold of offensibility” in my evolution course. Rather than compromise my academic freedom, I chose to leave what seemed to be a dangerous place.

• Paul Mirecki was professor of religious studies and department chair at the University of Kansas. He planned to teach a class called “Special Topics in Religion: Intelligent Design, Creationism and other Religious Mythologies,” but canceled those plans after two men beat him in the street one December morning. He had displayed an acerbic tongue in online discussion forums, and he later apologized for his less temperate remarks; neither that apology nor sympathy for a physically assaulted human being stayed the KU administration, who forced him to step down as department chair.
• The real occurrence of violence gives death threats a certain cachet of intimidating force. Eric Pianka, a biologist at UT Austin, gave a speech before the Texas Academy of Science, which was presenting him with a distinguished-service award. In his speech, he articulated his fears that overpopulation will lead to a disaster for the human species. The story then took a twist which a fiction writer would be hard-pressed to surpass: a creationist named Forrest Mimsclaimed that Pianka advocated releasing the Ebola virus to eliminate 90% of the world’s population. Other creationists, like William Dembski, soon picked up the story, leading to online hysteria. Within days, Pianka himself and others in the Texas Academy of Sciencereceived death threats.
• Oh, and I’ve also been alerted to the unfortunate case of Terry Gray, a Christian biochemist whose negative review of Phillip Johnson’s Darwin on Trial sparked an unhappy responsefrom the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, which eventually forced Dr. Gray to recant.

(All of the above were all direct quotes from the article here: http://www.antievolution.org/cs/creation_power_and_violence)

To top this off, here is a list of death threats to evolutionary biologists from presumed creationists.

Surely these are fairly isolated incidents, but there are more legitimate and documented incidents here than in the propaganda movie Expelled (several of the professors in that movie were dismissed for poor performance i.e. a large drop in number of publications as discussed here, http://www.expelledexposed.com/index.php/the-truth), and unlike that movie, several of these stories tragically turn violent.

“Evolution: The Anti-Science” or, Why ID is dangerous to teaching correct science

Disclaimer: The following article I quote from is from the young-Earth creationist think tank Answers in Genesis. It does not represent all Christians, religious scientists, or all versions of “theistic evolution.” Given that, the concepts in this article and AiG are in line with The Discovery Institute, which I also discuss below in the context of the infamous leaked “Wedge Document”.

I will quote excerpts from the AiG article, “Evolution: The Anti-Science,” because the actual article is too long to republish.

Here is the thesis of the article:

“… if evolution were true, the concept of science would not make sense. Science actually requires a biblical creation framework in order to be possible. Here’s why:”

Really? Science cannot make sense outside of a young-earth creation framework?? Tell me more! The rest of the article uses philosophical and semantic maneuvering to support this bizarre conclusion.

Science presupposes that the universe is logical and orderly and that it obeys mathematical laws that are consistent over time and space. Even though conditions in different regions of space and eras of time are quite diverse, there is nonetheless an underlying uniformity…The biblical creationist expects there to be order in the universe because God made all things (John 1:3) and has imposed order on the universe. Since the Bible teaches that God upholds all things by His power (Hebrews 1:3), the creationist expects that the universe would function in a logical, orderly, law-like fashion. Furthermore, God is consistent and omnipresent. Thus, the creationist expects that all regions of the universe will obey the same laws, even in regions where the physical conditions are quite different. The entire field of astronomy requires this important biblical principle.

So at this point, the author claims that science requires assumptions and preconceived notions to advance testing hypotheses (correct), but without God keeping all things in life consistent such assumptions are impossible (false). I’m not a student of philosophy or the nature of science, but I think that a scientist would take issue with that claim. We can take evidence of past phenomenon as predictors of the future. As experiments are conducted and hypotheses tested, theories that correctly predict outcomes are validated while those that do not are revised or rejected. If similar conditions exist, there should be a similar outcome. 

Under this assumption, we cannot assume gravity will hold us to the ground tomorrow just because it did today and in the known past. Such a claim would be obviously mocked by scientists. Even though we haven’t found a particle modulator for gravity, we have quantified its force components and documented its law-like behavior. Believing in Biblical creation is not required to assume that without cataclysmic changes to earth gravity will function the same tomorrow.

Ironically, this same think tank argues in separate articles that a 6,000 year-old earth is justified by saying atoms and nuclear decay worked differently at creation. How can the Bible be necessary to prove the law-like properties of the natural world and simultaneously claim atoms and decay worked differently 6,000 years ago???

Next, the author tries to claim all thoughts (not just the brain) are the product of divine intervention. 

In fact, if evolution were true, there wouldn’t be any rational reason to believe it! If life is the result of evolution, then it means that an evolutionist’s brain is simply the outworking of millions of years of random-chance processes. The brain would simply be a collection of chemical reactions that have been preserved because they had some sort of survival value in the past. If evolution were true, then all the evolutionist’s thoughts are merely the necessary result of chemistry acting over time. Therefore, an evolutionist must think and say that “evolution is true” not for rational reasons, but as a necessary consequence of blind chemistry.

This passage is utterly ridiculous because it tries to claim that our thoughts about evolution are the process of evolution so are only necessary for survival. Evolution, over time, resulted in the highly developed primate brain, which is capable of forming thoughts. The individual thought is not a product of evolution, but only the architecture that allowed it to form alongside millions of possible others. The reason we have different memories, thoughts, opinions, and personalities is that a common ancestral brain, modified by individual and familial genetic variations, interacts with experiences that change each persons neural connections.

“Okay, so the author of this article is a little absurd,” you might say, “but this doesn’t represent the mainstream ID or creationist movement, right?” Well, the problem is that individual creationists and ID supporters might not think this way, but the big think tanks like The Discovery Institute are pushing a literal-Biblical methodology in science classes as well as school in general and politics.

Back in 1999, The Discovery Institute’s internal policy papers nick-named “The Wedge Document” (Wikipedia coverage, original PDF document version) were leaked online by a former employee. In the opening goals of the document you can find their two biggest goals,

• “To defeat scientific materialism and its destructive moral, cultural, and political legacies”
• “To replace materialistic explanations with the theistic understanding that nature and human beings are created by God“

Throughout the Wedge Document, its authors make the case for a religious renewal in the United States political, legal and educational systems, including outlawing abortion and gay marriage, along with undermining the secular college and university system.

“Well, they are only acting in line with their beliefs, and Intelligent Design doesn’t advocate any particular religion or deity, so what’s the big deal?” That is one of the greatest successes of the movement, that they have been able to convince a large number of people ID is fundamentally different than creationism. Let’s see some quotes from the document’s main author, Phillip E. Johnson.

Here is quote from a speech called “How the Evolution Debate Can Be Won” Johnson gave at the Reclaim America for Christ Conference in 1999. 

“To talk of a purposeful or guided evolution is not to talk about evolution at all. That is slow creation. When you understand it that way, you realize that the Darwinian theory of evolution contradicts not just the Book of Genesis, but every word in the Bible from beginning to end. It contradicts the idea that we are here because a creator brought about our existence for a purpose. That is the first thing I realized, and it carries tremendous meaning.” He goes on to state: “I have built an intellectual movement in the universities and churches that we call The Wedge, which is devoted to scholarship and writing that furthers this program of questioning the materialistic basis of science. One very famous book that’s come out of The Wedge is biochemist Michael Behe’s book, Darwin’s Black Box, which has had an enormous impact on the scientific world.” …”Now the way that I see the logic of our movement going is like this. The first thing you understand is that the Darwinian theory isn’t true. It’s falsified by all of the evidence and the logic is terrible. When you realize that, the next question that occurs to you is, well, where might you get the truth? When I preach from the Bible, as I often do at churches and on Sundays, I don’t start with Genesis. I start with John 1:1. In the beginning was the word. In the beginning was intelligence, purpose, and wisdom. The Bible had that right. And the materialist scientists are deluding themselves.”

In another quote, Johnson discusses how its necessary to strip the discussion of any references to the Bible or Christianity to make it seem more legitimate.

“So the question is: “How to win?” That’s when I began to develop what you now see full-fledged in the “wedge” strategy: “Stick with the most important thing” —the mechanism and the building up of information. Get the Bible and the Book of Genesis out of the debate because you do not want to raise the so-called Bible-science dichotomy. Phrase the argument in such a way that you can get it heard in the secular academy and in a way that tends to unify the religious dissenters. That means concentrating on, “Do you need a Creator to do the creating, or can nature do it on its own?” and refusing to get sidetracked onto other issues, which people are always trying to do.”

Clearly, it seems to me that the people behind the Intelligent Design movement don’t intend ID as a non-religious intellectual discussion, but as a way to radically redefine science and interject fundamentalist Christian precepts into schools, laws, and government. 

With this column I am not trying to say anyone who subscribes to ID or creationism is foolish or naive, but rather that the people who have shaped the movement have intentions different than a majority of the American population, and that is using ID as a trojan-horse to get a certain brand of theology into the culture.

This column is entitled “Why ID is dangerous to teaching correct science.” I think the evidence shows that ID is not an honest intellectual inquiry, but (1) an attempt to force science to include supernatural causality as a viable explanation for phenomenon and (2) to force Christianity into the school system and the American boy politik

Genetic Nondiscrimination Act Signed into Law

Good news for those (legitimately) fearing possible insurance company reprisal from genetic information. According to a Scientific American article:

President Bush yesterday signed legislation into law that will bar health insurance companies or employers from denying or canceling coverage, hiking premiums or making decisions on hiring, firing and compensation based on genetic test results.

The Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act of 2008 (GINA) sailed through the Senate in late April, following a year of political wrangling, and a week later passed the House by a 414-to-1 margin.

Rep. Louise Slaughter (D-N.Y.), a microbiologist with a master’s degree in public health, introduced the first genetic antidiscrimination legislation 13 years ago. GINA supporters believe the act will encourage people to take advantage of the more than 1,000 genetic tests now available to diagnose and assess risk of diseases without fear of losing their jobs or being denied insurance coverage for doing so.

Hopefully with this protection there will be more preventative health testing that includes genetic screening of risks for heart disease, cancer and heritable disorders. As they say, “forewarned is forearmed.”

Clinton: Every Vote Should Count (Except those that help my opponent)

Even as the Clinton campaign lobbies the DNC Rules and By-laws Committee to seat the delegates from the unsanctioned Michigan and Florida primaries, she is simultaneously trying to strip delegates of a Texas county Obama handily won because they held their primary one day late.

From Politex:

Local Clinton supporters advocated Thursday for unseating ALL of the Democratic delegates from Collin County because their senate district conventions were held on the wrong day.

Officials with the Collin County Democratic Party said they chose to hold the convention a day late because there wasn’t a large enough venue in the county available for the scheduled date of Saturday, March 29. Party officials warned at the time that the eligibility of their delegation may be challenged.

Umm, didn’t Michigan and Florida move their entire state primaries up several months for the sole reason of bucking the DNC calendar and getting more media attention?? You can’t have it both ways, Hillary.

(Thanks to Goldni for bringing this to my attention)

Vet student blogs

If you are reading this and are a vet student with a blog, please let me know so I can add you to the blog roll!

GI Bill Cartoon

Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/paul-rieckhoff/nickels-and-dimes-why-the_b_104229.html

Thoughts on Graduation

Here is the obligatory college graduation blog post. “I’m alum now yay! blah blah blah”  That kind of thing.

The ceremony was Sunday, so I waited a few days to wrap my head around it and get some perspective.

For my family, I didn’t seem too excited. Maybe I was overwhelmed by the sudden pomp and circumstance. Maybe I’ve never been comfortable being the center of attention. Maybe I felt like it was just a short breather since I have a minimum of four more years of formal education.

Any one of those (or more than one) could be correct, but I think the best approximation is that it was an enjoyable but tumultuous four years on The Hill in Ithaca.

When I came to Cornell four years ago, I was a cocksure little smarty-pants who never worked hard in high school yet got straight A’s. I was “that guy” who a majority of my high school probably looked on with a combination of envy and contempt. The kid who spent his evenings with friends and clubs and fun activities, never cracking books but somehow flying through honors and AP classes.

There was just one problem. Cornell is full of kids like me. And most of them are smarter.

Beginning second semester in my chemistry and biology classes, I got smacked with The Curve. For those fortunate enough to not know, The Curve is an ingenious academic invention designed by professors who want to write impossible tests 95% of the class would otherwise fail. What happens is whatever the class “average” is becomes an arbitrary grade point like B or C, then going above or below this in relation to the standard deviation raises or lowers your grades.

For example, sophomore year my organic chemistry class had a final exam where the mean (average) was a 59. I think the standard deviation was 8-12 or something like that. Someone getting a 52 on this test would get a B- or C+. To get an A would require getting in the high 70s or 80s. Keep in mind the average grade in the class was a 59. Why so low? Because professors love to put “challenging” questions on exams to keep scores low (high scores in academia, especially the sciences, make a professor look bad because it was “too easy”), and often these questions are based on information not covered in the class.

So I performed at an “average” level compared to my classmates, many of whom were magnet school students or products of elite prep schools like Exeter and Andover. Considering that a large chunk of the student body were incredibly smart “Harvard-rejects,” I felt enormously outclassed. Doing my best, contrary to the old adage, was not good enough. 

Given my goals of going to graduate school, a few semesters of scattered Bs and Cs along with the occasional A were depressing. I found it bizarre that grad schools expected students at a difficult school to somehow have straight As in a system that pitted students against one another. Since an individuals grades depended on how well other students did, there was a rampant culture of sabotage and not working together. There was no camaraderie for many classes. I saw kids switch pins in lab practicals to screw kids behind them. I watched kids give out wrong homework answers.

And some kids just cracked. I knew one of my friends from freshman year who flunked out. A few dozen of my friends transferred majors from pre-med or engineering to communication of a liberal arts major (sorry arts guys, I was a communication/animal science double major and pre-med and I can tell you, liberal arts classes are MUCH easier). I watched many students self-medicate on alcohol or use study-aid drugs like Adderall.

Academically, things were pretty rough.

But I don’t mean to make it sound like Cornell was some horrific place of torture. Ithaca itself is a magical, almost mythical, little city in the middle of rural New York where everyone (the townies, at least) is friendly, the community pulls together to help its poor, and a majority of people are liberal hippies. The public transit is great. The scenery (as you can tell from previous posts) is breath-taking. There are great farmers markets and coffee shops.

One of the great things about Cornell itself was the variety of extracurricular activities and clubs. During my four years, I was in the football marching band, two fraternities, a world-hunger and poverty awareness club, and a handful of odd student jobs (including chemical disposal, post office, and tech support).

I have fond memories of going to epic hockey games where the crowd stands and cheers and sings for the entire game, even if we were losing (not that we often lost, hockey is one of Cornell’s strong sports). I was fortunate enough to see great concerts and speakers at Cornell, including The Strokes, Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert and Maya Angelou.

Before this post drags on too long, I’ll wrap it up with a few closing comments. I’ve tried to show that I worked my ass off at Cornell for 4 years. It was stressful. But I enjoyed the town and university and had some great memories. I had to leave behind some great friends and I hope we stay in touch, but distance has a way of weakening relationships. I have a lot of conflicting feelings about leaving Cornell, joy, sorrow, pride, remorse, hope, nostalgia.

In a few years I’ll return for a visit, and I’m sure the campus will look a lot different. I’m sure I’ll have great memories.

For the great times and the trying times, thanks Cornell.

 

Hillary Clinton: The Shark Has Been Jumped

Hillary Clinton just cited Robert F. Kennedy’s assassination as a reason for her to stay in the campaign. What is she doing? Is she trying to say that the first serious black presidential candidate is likely to be assassinated? Is she trying to say she’s a “back-up” candidate? What possible benefit could she gain from invoking a tragic killing of a beloved political figure?

Get out now Hillary. You really jumped the shark this time.

Update: In response to many people like Juan Cole defending Clintons remarks, , I would say that the horrible aspect of this (besides using an assassination for political gain) is the implication that she is the “backup candidate.” She has lost every reason to continue, and is now resorting to being the “well if something bad happens I’ll be there.” Even if some tragedy befell a political candidate, former rivals who dropped out could vie for the candidacy at the convention. There is no need to continue on “hoping” for tragedy.

more about “Hillary Clinton: The Shark Has Been J…“, posted with vodpod

 

 

My first year veterinary expenses

Financial Aid Office Estimated First Year Vet-Med Budget for 2008-2009

$38,270 – Tuition

        40 – Fees

 11,490 – Room and board

   2,635 – Books

   4,831 – Personal Expenses

   3,280 – Transportation

      525 – Immunizations

      538 – Grad PLUS loan 3% Fees

———

$61,609 – Total

Financial Aid Package

$8,500 – Subsidized Stafford Loan

34,222 – Unsubsidized Stafford Loan

18,887 – Grad PLUS Loan

———

$61,609 – Total

Draw your own conclusions….

Biochemist murders husband by dumping him into a vat of acid

Isn’t this the plot of Batman for how the Joker is created??

FRESNO, California (AP) – A biochemist was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole Friday for killing her estranged husband by knocking him out and stuffing him into a vat of acid, possibly while he was still alive.

No, I’m not making this up. News story here: http://www.cnn.com/2008/CRIME/05/16/acid.slaying.ap/index.html

One of my friends at Cornell, a biology major, linked this on Facebook. His quote: “Oh, the normal lives of biochemists.”