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.

[Aracelis]

Well, let me extend the hand of peace to you. You are a twit.

ROFL! Well ok, but my ears are still burning from the oaths you uttered the other day while driving.

You have a nice day as well.

[Junior]

Your post shows you to be flailing about looking for an out now that you've been caught in a lie.

First, who cares if there is no cure for the hanta virus? That wasn't the point. The point was, researchers were able to identify the killer through discovering its place on the tree of life. We give you the evidence you claim does not exist, and you move the goalposts. Typical creationis.

Secondly, if you think the fugu fish research belies the article, you have a very poor understanding indeed of genetics (as if that weren't already apparent by your posts). You share a lot of genes with the fugu fish. You share a lot of genes with every critter on this planet. However, you share more of your genes with your closest relative, the chimpanzee. It is these shared genes which allow researchers to place critters on the tree of life.

[Junior]

And it would have been classed as a therapod dinosaur (teeth, tail, skull shape, etc.) if it hadn't been for the imprints of feathers in the fossil. Dinosaur prints discovered prior to the 19th century had been attributed to giant birds because they appeared to be, for all intents and purposes, just that.

[Junior]

Wiggle, wiggle, wiggle.

The impact can be replicated on a smaller scale, physically, or by modeling it on a computer. The physics are consistent.

[PatrickHenry]

Wiggle, wiggle, wiggle. Placemarker.

[Junior]

Or a single-celled critter, which has only one cell and not "cells." See, I can lawyer just as good as AndrewC!

[Junior]

If necessity is the cause of all these changes then why is it that we still have examples of creatures which are identical to those of some 500 million years ago?

Ah, the old "why are there still monkeys" argument. Your friends over at AIG asked that y'all not use that argument any more, as it is obviously fallacious.

[ml/nj]

Did you read beyond the first sentence of my post, or have you read any of the other relevant posts?

The vast majority of XXY males do not produce enough sperm to allow them to become fathers. ...

Man! You evoabsolutists sure are a snotty bunch!

Yes. I read your first sentence, and now I'm quoting it back to you. Okay? I think my questions to you were polite and I assure you that they were genuinely intended to understand and learn more about your point.

Your mighty first sentence implies that some of the XXY males do become fathers. Is that true? Do you have any references that you could provide?

I also asked what XXY meant. I asked you if this is a chromosome triplet rather than a pair. But you ignored the question. Maybe this time instead of some attack upon me, you will deign to answer my questions?

ML/NJ

[ican'tbelieveit]

keep trying junior.

[Dataman]

You dimwits

It's intellectual comments like this that gets these threads moved to the smoky backroom.

[js1138]

I am not being snotty. I asked if you red beyond the first sentence (beyond meaning past). For example, did you read this:

However, no XXY male should automatically assume he is infertile without further testing. In a very small number of cases, XXY males have been able to father children.

That was a direct response to your original question. It took some time with internet searches to find the reference, and I provided a link to the reference. I had hoped you would at least read the part I quoted before flying off the handle.

There's also post #327 that responds to your question.

That makes two clearly worded answers to you question about chromosome count that you haven't read. Not noticing the word "beyond" makes three. This is not snottiness. It's a simple request for the courtesy of reading before flying off the handle.

As for your question about terminology, I can't answer. But I assure you that if you did a google search on chromosome count you could find the answer. That's the way I find stuff.

[Junior]

Keep turning a blind eye to the evidence, ican'tbelieveit.

[ican'tbelieveit]

I am not turning a blind eye. You admitted yourself, you have to do things on a smaller scale. Despite our best extrapolations, you cannot replicate that impact.

[Dataman]

well if it walks like a bird, flaps like a bird, is dressed like a bird and there were already birds around. I'd go with bird. What do you think it is?

It's the closest thing to a transitional form that they have even though its 75 million years too late.

Why doesn't evolution go backwards as well as forward?

That is the 64 million year question, especially in light of the evo claim that a few mutations are beneficial. If a few are beneficial, the rest are not. Those that are not, the creative and inventive minds assume, die because all non-beneficial mutations must die in order that the theory not be embarrassed.

[Nataku X]

It's great you got a good score on the SAT; however, the SAT measures high school competency, not college competency and definitely NOT the doctorate world competency. It only shows that you can do basic algebra and have a basic English vocabulary. My gut instinct says that if you're tooting SAT scores, then you must be very young.

My brother got a 1590 on the SAT (before the re-centering), but he STILL used the "evolution is only a theory" argument, showing that he doesn't have a basic understanding of science. Nothing wrong with that; in one year, he'll get his law degree and be a wonderful lawyer.

790Q/800A/610V GRE. Since you wanted to know.

[VadeRetro]

Junior only gave me two choices Vade. So based upon the information I cited and images of the actual fossils, I am going with bird.

It is creationist dogma, not Junior, which only gives you two choices. You have to lump Archaeopteryx in a bin, bird or dinosaur, swear that everything in the bird bin is "just a bird," swear that everything in the dinosaur bin is "just a dinosaur and nothing but," and then resume demanding evidence that the bins are anything but inviolable. This approach to the data ignores and tries to deny that as you go back in time toward the point of divergence, it becomes harder and harder to assign the "correct" bin. Some creationists decide that Archaeopteryx is a dinosaur. Given that no modern reptile can be confused with any modern bird, it's funny that such a problem comes up as you go back in time.

It's the same thing with creationists, apes, and humans.

As this table shows, although creationists are adamant that none of these are transitional and all are either apes or humans, they are not able to tell which are which. In fact, there are a number of creationists who have changed their opinion on some fossils. They do not even appear to be converging towards a consistent opinion. Gish and Taylor both used to consider Peking Man an ape and 1470 a human, but now Gish says they are both apes, and Taylor says they were both humans. Interestingly, widely differing views are held by two of the most prominent creationist researchers on human origins, Gish and Lubenow. Bowden, who has also written a book on human evolution, agrees with neither of them, and Mehlert, who has written a number of articles on human evolution in creationist journals, has yet another opinion, as does Cuozzo in his 1998 book on Neandertals.

Sorry the sketch doesn't look more like "A bird! Just a bird!" Let me know if anything else about it doesn't match public information on Archaeopteryx.

I've noticed after four years that when creationists make a big show of demanding "the missing links," it doesn't mean a thing. They want to appear to demand physical evidence, but they're chanting a mantra and, when confronted with counterexamples, disallowing any reasoning from physical evidence they don't like. Basically, you're 80 percent "seminar debaters," rather akin to the seminar callers who used to phone C-SPAN during impeachment.

Me an' mah husbin' been R'publicuns fur thurty years but no mower. We're votin' Dimacrat all the way cuz Kin Starr is gone too far ...

I'm going to recycle my summary of the "transitional" question from an earlier thread. One size fits all creationists.

[ThinkPlease]

What kind of proof do I want? You are the one saying that evolution is a fact and in science you know that the burden of proof is on you.

Already you ascribe words to me, when I said no such thing. I did not say evolution was a fact in any post to you up to now. However, it's good for you to realize that evolution is indeed observed in nature on many timescales, and by virtue of that, it is a fact. Understand as well that there is simply a larger body of evidence than what I can provide here. While I can put a few paragraphs of electrons on the screen for you to look at, there is much more than that.

I asked you to provide evidence to demonstrate how invertebrates became vertebrates. Where and when did this happen in the fossil record? What examples of transitional species exist today? What were the motivating forces for the transition. What invertebrates existing today could we expect to transition to vertebrates?

This set of questions is much too broad to comment upon in this setting. Pick one of those questions, and then we can go from there. Again, though, with respect to one of these questions, I ask again: What kind of evidence will it take to convince you?

[Aquinasfan]

A university professor said she was asked to resign for introducing elite students to flaws in Darwinian thought

They fear debate. Very telling.

[hawkaw]

It is only the PSEUDO-SCIENCE of evolution that does not allow for disagreement with its tenets as this article (and many others in the past) show.

My, what a wonderful and outstanding "strawman" argument. Who are you going to sterotype next?

So what you are saying is ALL geoscientists and biologists and chemists etc. all practice PSEUDO-SCIENCE instead of proper science as we were taught in school. For the record, many geoscientists, biologists chemists etc. have, for many years, taken parts of the "theory" and applied "proper" scientific techniques to confirm or deny or amend parts of the theory. Properly trained scientists will not practice "pseudo-science". For if they do they will be wacked by other scientists such as me.

As I have told you "creation" is not a theory. It is an absolute belief that forms part of a religion. A person who believes in creation must, at all cost, conclude it to be true no matter what because God has stated so in the bible. Then that person will go out and seek the evidence and ignore any disputable evidence to uphold their conclusion of creation. For to disagree with Creation would mean a loss of God and the afterlife to a number of people. That's what faith is all about and completely the opposite of proper science.

The theory of evolution is just that - a theory. It is something that can be tested (using science) to see if it really is likely or needs to be amended or needs to be disgarded.

Take care.

hawk