Posted on 03/11/2003 3:01:59 PM PST by 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.
Now you're just making stuff up. Evolution says species evolve from other species, not by spontaneous generation.
Gosh, I'm assuming you can read as well as I can, but the article says "Bryson believes she was punished for challenging evolutionary thought".
If someone challenges the second law of thermodynamics (and the US patent office gets hundreds of schemes that do that) I'm going to say that person shouldn't be running a chemistry department, because they really don't understand chemistry. I'll make an exception if they're a specialist in stat. mech. and they really have some basis for the challenge, though given the sound basis for the second law I'd be astonished. She, on the other hand, is not challenging evolution, the central paradigm of modern biology, on any research-based basis; her research, such as it is, is in chemistry. She's likely just parroting the usual creationist nonsense.
Now what is that supposed to mean...? That even though I'm a Christian I have no right to my beliefs? Or are you afraid that I will give evolutionists more cannon fodder?
I am a born-again Christian and I also happen to be a scientist. I know that God created the Universe and all that is in it, we differ only in our opinion as to HOW He made it. The evidence thus far points to a very long history, but frankly, I don't care how He did it. What matters to me is that He did, and in the process He created this wonderful world we live in.
We generally don't ask students to 'think critically' about other established scientific laws either. By and large, we regard them as well-established by a large body of experimental work, to which undergraduate students don't have extensive access; and 'critical thinking' about such laws is not a useful pedagogical technique.
That's your opinion and your entitled to it. However, why aren't both theories taught?
I thought this was a thread about evolution.
Evolution has as much to do with biology as theories about the origin of the solar system have to do with chemistry, which is nothing.
ML/NJ
Your unsupported opinion on this is a waste of electrons.
Do a google seach using the search terms evolution, paradigm, biology. You'll find most every biology department in the country disagrees with you.
The difference is purely a matter of nomeclature, and is an accident of history. Evolution is a scientific law in the same sense as any other scientific law.
Incredible.
Want to know another amazing fact? The world isn't flat, it's nearly spherical.
I bet Holocaust denying professors don't last long. Why are the high priests of evolution so afraid of honest discussion?
There's nothing honest about creationism.
Not that it would matter if he did, but no. Here's a link The Lady Hope Story
Well. Gee. Thanks for your evaluation.
Tell me "Professor," what was wrong with my analogy? Did you ever take chemistry? I did, a bit. I don't remember any of my courses considering where all those atoms came from. According to the MW9 I have at hand, biology is "a branch of knowledege that deals with living organisms." I believe living is the operative word.
ML/NJ
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