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.
Because, as an earlier post said, evolution is strictly speaking, is scientific law.
It's like a chemist questioning the existence of atoms and molecules. There's nothing wrong with a chemist questioning some detail of ill understood molectular structure of some complex compound. But to reject the entire basis of the science of chemistry? That's just beyond the pale.
If creationists or ID people want to dig into the details of biology and start to change some thinking on the details, and evenutually prove the earth was snapped into creation by God's fingers from nothing. Then go at the details. There's plenty of questions there.
Reminds me of Hitlerism ... sieg heil --- evolution !
ROFLMAO...you can't be serious. Tell me, what elements are formed from a 1st generation star? And the 2nd generation? How 'bout a 3rd generation star? Do you know why the inner planets are rocky and the outer planets are gaseous???
Didn't think you could.
Chemistry is central to everything that exists...even physics uses chemistry.
Because the efforts of the alchemists to create gold were what led to modern chemistry.
But the bottom line is, you CAN'T create gold from non-gold, except by manipulating atomic structure. That is now accepted as fact. End of story. Just like evolution is accepted as scientific fact. End of story. (the arguments that it is not accepted in fact, are proposed by people entirely outside the field of science, or by charlitans making money from fools)
Sure. Look at the last word in the sentence. It is no part of the theory of evolution to postulate how living cells came about. Evolution simply describes how living cells evolved after they arose. There are theories which postulate how cells arose, but they're at the moment highly speculative, with no substantial experimental or observational data.
Did she introduce them in any sense other than to discuss why they're now considered incorrect?
You've successfully stated one of many theories about the origin of life.
But it has absolutly ZERO to do with evolution, which by definition cannot even begin until AFTER the creation of life.
I can see you don't even understand the basic principles of what you're aguing against.
Nope, sorry, but that's not the way science works. You can have two theories - both "just" theories - but still have one be not as good as the other. Just as we have here.
Evolution, as a model and as a theory, fits within what we know and understand of the way biology works (with the notable exception of the abiogenetic beginning, before anyone bothers to bring that up, thank you.) It even has had predictive value in biology - specifically, the prediction that large portions of the DNA would contain nonsense strands. That prediction was, in fact, borne out.
Now, there aare still many people poking at the theory of evolution. They have found, and will continue to find problems - which leads to changes in the theory, etc. This in no way, though, puts it on equal ground with other theories, just because they're both theories. Specifically, evolution is considerably more credible than intelligent design (which has the problem that much life on Earth does not appear to have been designed by anyone remotely intelligent ;-) )
Drew Garrett
What if I went into teaching, wouldn't I be a better more prepared biology teacher if I knew what the competing theories would be from some of my students and their parents ?
The author of this article doesn't tell us if the woman taught an opinion one way or the other about the theories. The assumption is made that just because she uses "critical thinking" in title the point of the course was to trash evolution. I for one find it difficult to believe that a critically thinking student of science would conclude creationism makes sense. I can't get there from here using critical thought and I happen to believe that God created the world.
Specifically, evolution is considerably more credible than intelligent design (which has the problem that much life on Earth does not appear to have been designed by anyone remotely intelligent ;-) )
Good explanation of your self -- theories !
Well, the difference really is one of nomenclature and history, whatever you may like to think about it. A scientific law is one that hasn't been disproven yet. Heck, we still refer to Newton's Laws as Laws, even though they have been disproven (or superceded, if you prefer, by the more general cases involving really high speeds and/or really small masses).
Right Wing Professor has referred to the Second Law of Thermodynamics several times - this is probably the firmest law we have in science. But, at the same time as we use it as the basis of most of our work, we don't have any good theoretical underpinning for why it should be true. We accept it because no one has ever proven it false.
Theories are pretty much in the same boat. Come up with a good model, some evidence for it. If people can't prove you're wrong, it may become accepted, and will be called either a Law or a Theory. You may have some other definition for which is which, but it is not the way these terms are actually used.
Drew Garrett
It was a while ago. What I remember learnign from that was that even smart folks can be misled by their prejudices, but then I always thought too much into things.
I don't get a sense from this article that this professor took a stand one way or the other. I do however get the sense this wasn't the normal circulum and was something extra.
I for one don;t think a student can be corrupted by exposure to diiferent ideas. On the contrary, I think even wild ideas help develop creativity.
Really!
Don't tell me you're a "Professor" too.
ML/NJ
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