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.

[gomaaa]

The fossil dates, as you have noted, deny the cladogram.

Right. Bad cladogram! No biscuit! Not every single graph you pick up on the net is valid. This one is wrong. We get it. Stop bringing it up.

We are not restricted by randomness.

Okay, so instead of 10 million years it would only take us five.

Here's a clip from your man James Shapiro's site.

Molecular genetics has amply confirmed McClintock’s discovery that living organisms actively reorganize their genomes (5). It has also supported her view that the genome can "sense danger" and respond accordingly (56). The recognition of the fundamentally biological nature of genetic change and of cellular potentials for information processing frees our thinking about evolution. In particular, our conceptual formulations are no longer dependent on the operation of stochastic processes. Thus, we can now envision a role for computational inputs and adaptive feedbacks into the evolution of life as a complex system. Indeed, it is possible that we will eventually see such information-processing capabilities as essential to life itself.

and a reference:

http://shapiro.bsd.uchicago.edu/index3.html?content=genome.html

I would need to ask a real biologist to be sure, but I think what he's actually studying is the processes by which cells respond to enviornmental changes. You would call this microevolution. I THINK he's saying that this is more likely to be the mechanism for genetic variation instead of random mutation. Natural selection is still a vital part of this. He sees this as a revolution in thinking about evolution. I'm not yet convinced, but it probably has some merit. He really isn't overturning the established system, just proposing a new mechanism for change that may well be valid.

I liked the interview. He kept things on his terms and didn't answer questions completely outside his area of expertise. Of course, I do answer such questions all the time on these threads, but I don't have to worry about my professional reputation, just that of my online alias!

[f.Christian]

... PartII (( link )) --- rehired !

[Junior]

You know, I've never hit the abuse button on any poster. There have been a few I'd love to slap upside the head, especially when they start acting like children, but I've never wanted to see anyone banned -- not even LBB.

[PatrickHenry]

Placemarker to re-set my tagline.

[AndrewC]

We get it. Stop bringing it up.

Ahh, but you see, I did not bring it up. It was used in the argument that the sequence is Sino-Caudi-Archie. Fossil evidence does not show that as far as dating is concerned. The Darwininian world is agog whenever a new "feathered" chinese fossil is "discovered". There is a problem with that. No fossil will ever be found in that strata that will be older than Archie.(even if that fossil were to have a certifed birth certificate in its claws and stating it was the parent of Archie)

[AndrewC]

You know, I've never hit the abuse button on any poster. There have been a few I'd love to slap upside the head, especially when they start acting like children, but I've never wanted to see anyone banned -- not even LBB.

If it matters, I believe you.

[AndrewC]

Certifed, cute but I meant certified.

[f.Christian]

This is used in engineering (( science )) a lot !


"There are three kinds of people ... "


... # 1 --- they make (( good )) things happen !

... # 2 --- they don't know what happened ! !

... # 3 --- they (( butchers // hacks // LOSERS // HATERS // ATHEISTS )) will never know what happened ! ! !

[VadeRetro]

The fossil dates, as you have noted, deny the cladogram.

From Are Birds Really Dinosaurs?

Today the important issue seems to be specifically which dinosaurs are the closest relatives of birds. The controversy over the dinosaurian status of birds had its heyday in the 1970's, but the coverage of the issue today by the press might make you think it was still a problematic matter. For those that have actually seen the relevant specimens and considered all of the relevant data (which is a basic procedure for any scientist), it is becoming increasingly difficult to draw the line between "bird" and "non-avian dinosaur".

...

One proposed difficulty is the gap in the fossil record between the first known bird (Late Jurassic) and the dromaeosaurs, probable sister group of birds (Early Cretaceous). This overlooks the blatant fact that other maniraptoran coelurosaurs, such as Ornitholestes, Coelurus, and Compsognathus, are known from strata of Late Jurassic age. If other maniraptorans were there, it logically follows that the ancestors of dromaeosaurs were there. Fragmentary remains of possible dromaeosaurs are also known from the Late Jurassic.

...

Without its feathers, Archaeopteryx looks much like a small coelurosaur such as a dromaeosaurid or troodontid. The facts are resoundingly in support of a maniraptoran origin for birds; certainly a theropodan origin at the very least.

[RadioAstronomer]

BTTT

[VadeRetro]

It was used in the argument that the sequence is Sino-Caudi-Archie.

I have not argued for a specific sequence, nor have I seen any claims that anyone knows what the specific ancestral sequence is. Creationists evidently intend to turn dino-bird evolution into horse evolution redux. They now quote one evolutionist after another saying that horse evolution was not a linear progression from eohippus to Mesohippus to Equus. (Wow! George Gaylord Simpson figured out back around 1944 that it's not a ladder, it's yet another tree. In fact, he's one of the people they quote.) Then they turn to us and say, "... and thus evolution is false."

You can still tell what diverged from what else by what converges as you go back in the fossil record. Birds and theropods visibly converge on each other as you go back until you can't tell what's what.

[AndrewC]

If other maniraptorans were there, it logically follows that the ancestors of dromaeosaurs were there. Fragmentary remains of possible dromaeosaurs are also known from the Late Jurassic.

Yep when data contrary to what Darwininians believe is incomplete it is a weakness. When there is a hole in the data that Darwininans believe it is quickly filled in with something "imaginary". That is just a rephrasing of -- If I tie A and B together then the common point exists. The fact is Archie is still older than any other feathered fossil and the feathers it has are fairly advanced. There are other creatures with possible feathers but these are deemed plant fronds because to consider them feathers would put a big crimp in the Darwininian view of things. Again, the fact is Archie is older than any other feathered fossil.

[VadeRetro]

When there is a hole in the data that Darwininans believe it is quickly filled in with something "imaginary".

When there's a hole in the fossil record, it's proof of creation and disproof of evolution. Until it is filled. Then it doesn't mean a thing, as now the proof of creation and disproof of evolution is one of the other holes.

[AndrewC]

I have not argued for a specific sequence, nor have I seen any claims that anyone knows what the specific ancestral sequence is.

Ok, but post 342 on this thread has that cladogram displayed. Someone drew it. Someone is using it. And I have posted what the site containing the cladogram states about cladogram meanings.

[VadeRetro]

And now you're confused at the "contradiction?"

[AndrewC]

When there's a hole in the fossil record, it's proof of creation and disproof of evolution.

It is a hole when someone claims something is there and it is not. Who is doing the claiming? I don't claim the hole is a proof of creation.

[AndrewC]

And now you're confused at the "contradiction?"

Let me quote gomaaa

Right. Bad cladogram! No biscuit! Not every single graph you pick up on the net is valid. This one is wrong. We get it. Stop bringing it up.

[VadeRetro]

It is a hole when someone claims something is there and it is not. Who is doing the claiming?

I guess Darwin. Virtually every fossil sequence we argue over in these threads was unknown in his day. He predicted them, they were found, and now they don't prove anything.

[AndrewC]

He predicted them, they were found, and now they don't prove anything.

They prove that people are imaginative. That is why H. Rudolphensis is rattling around in search of a home along with mesonychus, Lucy has turned back into a chimp, and Neanderthal is scratching his head wondering where his children went.

[VadeRetro]

Well, gomaa fell into a lawyerly trap. Bad gomaa! Darwin Central will hear about this!

OK, maybe the cladogram is bad and I missed it. But when I look at the same figure:

I see specific species "diverging" from an inferred "true" line of descent. That is, the lines with the species names come out of group names along the "descent" line. Thus, the cladogram pays tribute to the uncertainty of saying that fossil species Y is the for-sure descendant of fossil species X. A line of descent is depicted, but it does not marry itself to fossil species. An order of appearance is depicted, but it also does not marry itself to fossil species.

Which is to say, you have simply looped back to further thump the drum of "The presumed dromaeosaurid common ancestor of Archaeopteryx and Sinornithosaurus is unknown." I would assume that, if you look at cladograms all over the tree of life, there are many, many such cases where a cladogram presents a presumed order of development of features which "violates" the known fossil record for particular species and their ranges. It's presenting a historical scenario, not charting the fossil record.

That the scenario is a historical narrative and not a fossil chart is exactly why there are often competing cladograms whose differences cannot be resolved without more fossil data. (But what creationists ignore is that time passes, more data does come in, and the ambiguous areas shrink.)