Professor Dumped Over Evolution Beliefs

http://headlines.agapepress.org/archive/3/112003a.asp ^ | March 11, 2003 | Jim Brown and Ed Vitagliano

[Remedy]

A university professor said she was asked to resign for introducing elite students to flaws in Darwinian thought, and she now says academic freedom at her school is just a charade.

During a recent honors forum at Mississippi University for Women (MUW), Dr. Nancy Bryson gave a presentation titled "Critical Thinking on Evolution" -- which covered alternate views to evolution such as intelligent design. Bryson said that following the presentation, a senior professor of biology told her she was unqualified and not a professional biologist, and said her presentation was "religion masquerading as science."

The next day, Vice President of Academic Affairs, Dr. Vagn Hansen asked Bryson to resign from her position as head of the school's Division of Science and Mathematics.

"The academy is all about free thought and academic freedom. He hadn't even heard my talk," Bryson told American Family Radio News. "[W]ithout knowing anything about my talk, he makes that decision. I think it's just really an outrage."

Bryson believes she was punished for challenging evolutionary thought and said she hopes her dismissal will smooth the way for more campus debate on the theory of evolution. University counsel Perry Sansing said MUW will not comment on why Bryson was asked to resign because it is a personnel matter.

"The best reaction," Bryson says, "and the most encouraging reaction I have received has been from the students." She added that the students who have heard the talk, "They have been so enthusiastically supportive of me."

Bryson has contacted the American Family Association Center for Law and Policy and is considering taking legal action against the school.

[js1138]

Because the evolutionist Parthians are in retreat.

I've noticet that on FR. By the way, what ever happened to bat boy and LBB?

Aside from the merits of the science, when you say that people are in retreat, wouldn't that imply that they are getting less assertive rather than more? Or do creationists claim this firing is the Mother of All Victories?

[Right Wing Professor]

We generally don't ask students to 'think critically' about other established scientific laws either.

I should hope we do. Critical thinking is essential to truly understanding them.

You're teaching a university general chemistry course. You have a year and approximately 90 lecture hours to cover all of chemistry. You can find lots of typical syllabi and textbooks on google. Typically, you have one lecture and maybe one recitation to cover the second law of thermodynamics. Explain to me how you're going to effect 'critical thinking' about the second law, incorporating a reasonably comprehensive overview of the theoretical background and the experimental evidence.

Funny how allegedly hard-nosed conservatives turn into fuzzy thinking liberals when it comes to evolution. 'Critical thinking' is ordinarily a postmodernist code phrase. But then politics makes strange bedfellows.

[Right Wing Professor]

But I do not even buy your premise, because in reality there is SOOOOOOOOO much more to modern biology than evolution. Evolution is there, but it is not at the core.

More proof by unsubstantiated assertion. Real biologists, who teach and write about biology, and actually know some, say otherwise.

And I understannd that some of the evolution-based theories about what the DNA of various species will tell us when analyzed have been disproven.

Then you'll be happy to cite this evidence. You can do that, can't you?

[Right Wing Professor]

Would you agree that there is a bit of difference between the LAWS of thermodynamics and the THEORY of evolution?

Read the !@#$ thread before you post.

[Junior]

And 150 years later not only does it not cure belly ache, but it has not led to a single useful application.

I have been waiting for you to open your big mouth on this.  Of course, I didn't have to wait long.

From Constructing the Tree of Life:

Earlier versions of the ancestral chart, technically known as a phylogenetic tree, already have been used to diagnose and treat disease.

For example, researchers used this technique to swiftly identify the lethal hanta virus that was discovered in the Four Corners area of New Mexico in 1993. The virus's genetic makeup was unlike anything previously reported, but the phylogenetic tree of known viruses showed that its closest relatives were other hanta viruses from Asia. The degree of closeness was determined by counting the number of differences between the genes of the Four Corners virus and those of other viruses.

``This identification was possible only through phylogenetic analysis of the virus, which allowed very rapid identification,'' said David Hillis, a biologist at the University of Texas-Austin.

A better source of Taxol, the breast cancer drug, was discovered by tracing the genetic relationship between Taxol's original source, a rare yew tree, and a more common shrub.

Hillis uses phylogenetic techniques to research the origin and predict the course of HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. He also studies harmful invasions by alien species, such as Asian clams that are clogging the cooling systems of power plants throughout the United States.

``Almost all invasive species are now identified using phylogenetic techniques,'' Hillis said.

Phylogenetic evidence was used to convict a Louisiana physician of attempted murder after he injected his mistress with HIV-infected blood from one of his patients. The evidence showed that the virus in the victim's blood was closely related to the patient's virus.

This was ``the first use of phylogenetic analysis in a criminal court case in the United States,'' Michael Metzker, a geneticist at the Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, reported in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

I can guarantee you are going to ignore this post or call it a bunch of lies because your brain cannot comprehend you might actually be wrong about something.

[Doctor Stochastic]

Atheists and agnostics are often more tolerant of Christians than other Christians are, too.

[PatrickHenry]

I have been waiting for you to open your big mouth on this.

Yup. That thread was a loaded bear trap, all waiting to get sprung. Very well done. And now the abuse will flow ...

[fella]

" University counsel Perry Sansing said MUW will not comment on why Bryson was asked to resign because it is a personnel matter."

Is anyone else noticing the pattern of personnel matter being used as a shield for the liberals to hide their dirtywork behind?

[hawkaw]

New evidence comes out every day that pounds a nail in the coffin of creationism.

Yes that is very true but I think some miss this point.

I think a big problem is that people try to force religion and science together on this issue and you can't do it.

A faith or Religion has to be absolute. There is a conclusion first and then you go and look for the evidence after. But no matter what the conclusion stands. Thus, to people who believe the bible is God's word and such, creation is absolute and cannot be disputed. For if you dispute creation then you would have dispute the bible (the word of God). That could trigger a loss of God and a loss of faith to some. The thought of no after life would freak some people right out of their wits. Thus, defending creation as absolute as indicated in the bible is of utmost importance to them (rightly or wrongly of course).

Science is a little different. Science does not require a conclusion first and then an attempt to defend the conclusion at all costs. There is a hypothesis created. Then a methodolgy is created to attempt to prove the hypothesis. One then makes observations on the experiment and based on the observations creates a discussion and then reaches a conclusion(s). Then it all starts all over again as peers review the work.

At this point someone has created a theory of evolution. It is not "absolute". Science is designed to test that theory over and over and to obtain evidence. The theory may be disgarded, adjusted or even proven to be true. It may take time with experiment after experiment in several fields of science such as biology, microbiology, geoscience etc.. But no matter what scienctists who are looking into the theory should not conclude first like all creationists must do.

Of course Christians who consider the bible as the word of God also must belong to the "flat circular (2 dimension) earth society" and believe people with leprosy were "cleaned" by Jesus instead of healed. Just as creation is absolute to a Christian who believes the bible is the word of God, so are these two bible points as well. Using science (as the Greeks of the day knew)to test different theories showed that the world is more "spherical" (3-D) in shape and that leprosy is only a bacteriological disease that is now called Hansen's disease that can be "healed". But Christians who believe the bible is the word of God, must not dispute any of these bible principles since to do so would be to loose faith and the after life.

I guess my points are that people need to critically think and read and separate their absolute faith from the testing approach offered by science.

hawk

[atlaw]

"This past fall I sat in on an Evolution class. After the class I had a discussion with the professor, and he had no answer for my questions. (You should have seen the expression on the face of the student who listened to our conversation!)"

What were your questions?

[edsheppa]

Critical thinking is a skill, an approach. It could be applied in virtually every lesson in every subject. What does this really mean? What would its negation really mean? What are the assumptions behind it? Could they be wrong, perhaps subtly? What is the evidence for it? Could there be errors in the explanations of the evidence? Are there possibly limits on its applicability? And so on.

Of course there are other pedagogical desires that are just as important. The knowledge, organizing concepts, attitudes etc. must be imparted. But critical thinking is a cross discipline attitude that it is also beneficial to impart and building it into the curriculum is a good thing.

I shan't take offense at your "fuzzy thinking liberals" crack. The fact is liberals are among the least critally thinking people I know. But the lack of this skill isn't a purely liberal thing. Just look at the typical deevo posting to these threads. I assume they are generally conservative but are unable to think critically.

[PatrickHenry]

What were your questions?

It's just a fantasy about this creationist comic book: Jack Chick's "Big Daddy".

[atlaw]

"So, how might the theory of evolution be modified to fit the problem of complex systems impossible to create with only one birth defect at a time? Why, with the theory of intelligent design, which does not deny that evolution occurs. It merely says that along the the way, there is a guiding hand."

I am unaware of an Intelligent Design theory that accepts evolution and merely postulates an occasional "quiding hand." Where is this guiding hand evident? In other words, how can we tell what the guiding hand accomplished as opposed to what evolution (the flailing hand?) accomplished?

And doesn't such a theory have all the negative theological consequences (and perhaps more) that evolution allegedly has?

[js1138]

Yes, what were your questions?

[Right Wing Professor]

Critical thinking is a skill, an approach. It could be applied in virtually every lesson in every subject. What does this really mean? What would its negation really mean? What are the assumptions behind it? Could they be wrong, perhaps subtly? What is the evidence for it? Could there be errors in the explanations of the evidence? Are there possibly limits on its applicability? And so on.

Sounds wonderful. So when we've spent a semester applying this to the second law, we can move on and cover the other 80 or 90 basic principles we cover in general chemistry. And in 10 years or so, the students can move on to their sophomore year.

With all due respect, your posting betrays the very typical ignorance humanities types have about how science is taught, and more fundamentally about how science proceeds. Scientists - very good ones - went back and looked at the fundamental intellectual structure of thermodynamics perhaps 100 years after the important discoveries, and we cover them, somewhat, in advanced graduate courses. But if we did this at the introductory stages of chemical education, the students would graduate knowing almost no chemistry.

Back in the good old days, we taught elementary math. by rote. Kids learned tables; they learned algebra by learing to apply basic algorithms; they memorized and learned to apply trigonometric formulas. Oddly enough, in being taught this way, a lot of students were able later to divine the fundamental principles behind mathematics, and almost all of them learned at least how to figure. Now, we try to teach them 'fuzzy math', letting them explore what addition and multiplaction 'mean'. And they don't learn math at all, most of them.

You can't truly think critically in a field until you've mastered it. No undergraduate student has mastered a scientific field; there just isn't time. Trying to pretend they can in a meaningful way think critically in the way you propose about basic principles is an empty, faux-intellectual exercise, and wastes everyone's time; the student's, and the teacher's.

[Junior]

Beartrap placemarker.

[amarok]

• You apparently assume this professor was preaching creation; the article implies she was questioning evolution. There's a difference.
• You assume she doesn't believe in the laws of thermodynamics. That doesn't make sense since they are more of an obstacle for evolutionists rather than creationists (if, in fact, she is a creationist).
• I wouldn't be surprised to hear a high school biology teacher refer to the "law of evolution" rather than the "theory of evolution," but a college professor? I find that indeed very curious.

[Aracelis]

You don't have the answer. I do not recall any chemistry book covering flying off the earth.

Andrew, give it up. Didn't you read my post? I do not care about the "discussions" on these threads anymore because nothing is ever accomplished.

[MEGoody]

As I have said, it is political pressure that keeps Darwinian evolutionary theory alive, not true science.