Professor Dumped Over Evolution Beliefs

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.

Longshadow,

The falsification process applies to theories that cannot be proven by any present methods. TOE however has provided predictions that should be verifiable in the fossil record. However the fossil record does not provide the expected result.

As argued in many previous posts the only examples of avian evolution are a handful of fossils from either a century ago or some ever more dubious examples from China. Also there are no examples of what would be a very critical stage in evolution, that of the transition from invertebrate to vertebrate. As both of those transitions would have been very difficult there should have been lots of in between stages and numerous fossils to provide credence to the theory. Instead the fossil record has huge gaps.

Popper's assertion is to provide for undiscovered effects. TOE is based almost solely upon effects as Darwin's "On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection" is based upon his observations and his predictions. Einstein’s General Theory was not based upon observations but upon other scientific theories and discoveries. As the article you posted points out, one of the predictions in Einstein’s General Theory was eventually born out in with light be bent by heavenly bodies in a measurable way. To say TOE needs to be disproved because it cannot be proved by experimentation is completely ignoring all the scientific attempts that have taken place to prove it. Do recall all the Fruit Fly experiments?

Just because TOE does not enjoy the benefit of its predictions being born out, does not exclude it from it needing to be proved. It is quite the other way around, since it has failed to provide any meaningful predictions it should be treated even more skeptically.

It is at best an idea waiting for it's ship to come in. Nice try but still a canard.

Best Regards,
Boiler Plate

In the end a theory has to provide something meaningful such as predictions.

Hoo boy. Earlier in this very post, I gave you a couple of useful predictions made by the Theory of Evolution:

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.

You're really supposed to wait until a new thread begins to reset your memory to zero.

Thank you for your respectful approach to discussion. I very much appreciate your measured responses.

As I do yours. Isn't this better than a flame war?

These provable truths only reinforce the confidence that we do have a reasonable faith that is not purely nebulous.

I understand much better now, though I would maintain that the proofs of these prophecies is more tenuous than you suggest. Historical theories are even more difficult to prove than scientific ones, since we can find hard evidence for the former, but must rely on written documents and oral traditions for accounts of specific events. Still, this is reaching the point where I doubt I would be able to dissuade you, nor would I really wish to. This is the basis of your faith, which is a distinctly personal subject that I would never try to attack.

It seems that many liberal academic Seminaries tend to take the position that the text of the scriptures should be forced to fit the evidence that secular academia presents. Therefore they must cast off many passages of scripture as mythological or a nice story with no factual truth. ...

A reasonable faith, that is based on a message to us that has been provided by God in their original documents, is what I believe and will gladly defend with intellectual honesty intact.

I think you underestimate the importance of a good story, but I see your point. Once you start religating certain parts of the Bible to less than absolute factual, it seems that you have to decide where to draw the line, which seems awfully arbitrary. Who are you to make that decision? Again, this is a point we are going to have to disagree on. I would maintain that even taking the Bible as literally true is arbitrary since the meaning and original wording is subject to change throughout centuries of copying and translation. The original choice of which books would be included in the New Testament can be seen as a tad bit arbitrary. The usual objection to the point I just raised is that those who copied and translated and compiled the Bible were inspired and directed by God. This is a VERY old argument, which I doubt we will resolve on this thread. Still, your decision to accept the Bible as literally true is nothing I should object to. It's entirely a personal decision.

...attempt to compare scientific evidence that has Scriptual significance, to the truths revealed in the Bible.

Here's where I start to have problems. Up until now, you've given probably the best defence o Creationism that I've seen so far. I can't argue with your faith. You have the right to decide your religious views for yourself, and if those beliefs require that you set aside science as a way of perceiving and understanding the world, then so be it. The problem arises when in comparing scientific evidence to scripture, you try to reformulate the evidence or the theory to back up the scripture. In the process, you cease to use religion as your basis for disagreeing with the scientific community, and instead try to use science. It can't be done. By the time you have twisted the evidence and theories around to fully support the literal Biblical story of creation and view of the universe, then you have lost any semblance of scientific rigor. THAT'S what gets us scientists so miffed. It's not the objection based on religion which we can disagree with and move on with our research. It's the attempt to pass off such objections as science. This has the effect of eroding the very principles upon which the efforts of scientists are based. (See recent posts on Karl Popper by longshadow and balrog.) The mixture of scientific and religious reasoning inevitably leads to pseudo-science, because the two fields, while not mutually exclusive, do NOT ask the same fundamental questions about the world we live in. When one encroaches on the other's 'turf', bad things happen.

Hello gomaaa,

The mixture of scientific and religious reasoning inevitably leads to pseudo-science, because the two fields, while not mutually exclusive, do NOT ask the same fundamental questions about the world we live in. When one encroaches on the other's 'turf', bad things happen.

Allow me to provide some links that may provide you with credentialed analysis of some of these "turf wars". I would be interested in your comments regarding these perspectives.

Please listen to some of Dr. Missler's realaudio presentations. Chuck communicates very sophisticated information in a more cogent fashion than most scientists. Dr. Missler is a genius of the caliber of Norman Schwarzkopf, Dr. Edward Teller and Dr. William Bennet.

Bio

As for Popper, he has laid a new philosophical basis for the scientific method which incorporates and supersedes Bacon's. Try reading an adult science book once and awhile - at least then you could discuss it intelligently.

Ahh yes, always the gentleman scholar.

You have not demonstrated why TOE does not need to be proved only that it hasn't. Popper does no get you off the hook as he was relating his new improved method in relation to unobservable theories such as Einstein’s General Theory. As your post pointed out the predictions provided by the General Theory were in fact demonstrated, thanks to a solar eclipse and Popper Cleary states that we should expect those or the theory is a dead end.

You are only trying to hide behind Popper's definition as a means to cover for your lack of evidence or your inability to be honest.

If Popper's new definition of the Scientific Method covered all science then drug companies should just theorize new drugs and hand them out to patients. If nothing happens then it works. It won't matter if the expected result doesn't happen, using your version of Popper's definition the manufacturers can simply state well you have to prove something else happened in order for it not work. Placebo stocks will go through the roof.

Still being the smart guy that you are, why don't you humor us with explanation of where life originated from. Your answer by the way does have an impact on TOE in as much as the same forces that created life are still in play.

Best Regards,
Boiler Plate

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