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.

[narby]

The thing that really bothers me about the creationist bunch is that their purpose seems to be to disprove evolution, rather than develop affirmative evidence of something else.

I suppose that by definition faith will never have evidence to support it.

Too bad. I see this in the end hurting people of faith, not helping.

[narby]

nearly non-existent evidence all the time.

LMAO....

[edger]

The difference between scientific LAWS and THEORIES is a matter of nomenclature and an accident of history?

Where do you teach? I want to keep my kids away from there.

[poindexters brother]

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.

Thinking critically about Euclid's 5th postulate has given us the wonders of non-euclidean geometery.

[Fiddlstix]

Bump

[Right Wing Professor]

Thinking critically about Euclid's 5th postulate has given us the wonders of non-euclidean geometery.

Indeed, but Riemann did that for his habilitation, which is a step after his Ph.D.. If he'd spent math class questioning fundamental postulates, he's have never gotten his primary degree. Research is really only possible when you already know the field.

[Right Wing Professor]

The difference between scientific LAWS and THEORIES is a matter of nomenclature and an accident of history?

No, the difference between what we call the theory of evolution and scientific laws is a matter of nomenclature. The theory of evolution could more accurately be called the law of evolution.

Where do you teach? I want to keep my kids away from there.

Please do. Intelligence has a strong genetic component.

[fr_freak]

Now you're just making stuff up. Evolution says species evolve from other species, not by spontaneous generation.

I believe the term spontaneous generation concerns the very first organism from which every other organism supposedly evolved. Where did the first organism come from? It spontaneously generated!

[narby]

The difference between scientific LAWS and THEORIES is a matter of nomenclature and an accident of history?

Ever take a "music Theory" class? You gonna tell me music is only a theory?

[VOA]

Admittedley I did take a bit of a cheap shot with my comment.

But...we're always hearing about how climatologists can look back millions of years
in the past and thus predict the future...

...it just (in a simplistic fashion) seems funny that a bunch of smarty-pants PhDs
who tell us they know how to read the story of millions of years ago can't figure out
that their department chair-person won't be "going off the reservation" and saying
"unmentionable" things within the walls of the academy, which of course we all know
values "diversity of opinion".
(pardon my derisive laughter at my own comment...)

[narby]

Where did the first organism come from? It spontaneously generated!

The first "organizim" only needed to be a self-reproducing molecule. Whether it "spontaneously generated" itself, or whether God did it, it still doesn't mean that evolution isn't the method God used to create all subsequent life.

[ican'tbelieveit]

a senior professor of biology told her she was unqualified and not a professional biologist, and said her presentation was "religion masquerading as science."

If this "senior professor" told his students that he was against the impending war with Iraq, and wanted them to write their congressman, president to protest it, we would be asking for his head on a platter. But his criticism of this professor is acceptable? She was questioning the obvious flaws in evolution. Questions such as these are what advance science.

[narby]

There was a very good reply earlier about someone who taught "holocaust denial" would be quickly sacked. I think a professor teaching "evolution denial" is in just about the same boat. There's just too much evidence that both the holocaust and evolution occured. There can be innumerable arguments on details of both. And there's plenty of room in evolution for God. But to reject evolution as a principle is just laughable.

[Frankss]

My theory; You don't have to see the carpenter to know he's been there.

[narby]

She was questioning the obvious flaws in evolution.

I can easily question the flaws in attacking Iraq. But that doesn't mean that I believe that it's not the best action right now.

There's details of evolution plenty worth studying. But to question it's fundimental existence? Sure, and 2 + 2 just MIGHT equal 5 in some parallel universe.

[VOA]

There's just too much evidence that both the holocaust and evolution occured.
There can be innumerable arguments on details of both. And there's plenty of room
in evolution for God. But to reject evolution as a principle is just laughable.

I'm generally operating along the same lines.
My zingers were directed to the human foibles of professors...and the sometimes
very glaring hypocrisy of "the academy".

Don't get me wrong...American univerisities/colleges are the greatest in the
world, or at the least in the first rank. But like anything in the USA...
they are improved when folks have the freedom to point and laugh at the "fig leaf"
they occassionally have to clutch...

[ican'tbelieveit]

I am glad that Columbus questioned the fundamental existence of the world being flat. I am glad that many THINKING people question things, without just accepting them. I have questioned the situation in Iraq too. I believe we are making the right decision, but I still questioned it. Questions are what make the world go round.

And the theory of evolution, as it exists now, needs to be questioned. In fact, many thoughts about the theory of evolution have changed as people research and question. So why was it wrong for this professor to do so?

[narby]

My theory; You don't have to see the carpenter to know he's been there.

Ok, but what tools did he use in his work?

All the evidence points to evolution as a primary tool. And a few hundred words in the first two chapters of Genesis just don't give enough detail to say for sure anything else.

My theory; God did it using evolution.

[VRWC_minion]

I suppose if some professor advocates the moon is green cheese theory that they should not be fired either?

If green cheese was a common theory that was being debated often it should be taught so that one is aware of it and the reasons some believe it.

[VRWC_minion]

If my department chair was teaching students an entirely erroneous theory of chemistry,

I think I recall my high school teacher giving us background about the various theories of turning led into gold. What is wrong with that ?