Congress slams Smithsonian's anti-religious attacks

WorldNetDaily.com ^ | December 16, 2006 | Bob Unruh

[editor-surveyor]

© 2006 WorldNetDaily.com

A new report from the U.S. House of Representatives has condemned officials at the Smithsonian Institution for imposing a religious test on scientists who work there. And it suggests their attacks on a scientist who just edited an article on intelligent design are just the tip of the iceberg of an industry-wide fear of anything that suggests man might not have come from a puddle of sludge.

Dr. Richard Sternberg

The report, which cited a "strong religious and political component" in the dispute, was prompted by a complaint from Dr. Richard Sternberg, who holds biology doctorates from Binghamton and Florida International universities and has served as a research associate at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History.

It was prepared for U.S. Rep. Mark Souder, R-Ind., chairman of the subcommittee of criminal justice, drug policy and human resources, and easily confirmed Sternberg's harassment and discrimination allegations that his managers criticized him, created a hostile work environment for him, and now have demoted him because of the article, which he didn't even write.

Excerpt Click here for full article

[RunningWolf]

The person I refer to is not 'a dude'

You missed the point.

[RunningWolf]

The truth comes out.

Evos being liberal elites in disguise think that they own the institution's.

[From many - one.]

"There is not a single genetic scientist that has spoken up here in favor of evolutionism; just a few lower level bottle washers that think it makes them look 'scientific."

You are no longer correct.
I am a professional scientist (now retired) and understand both evolution and genetics. I have also taught both at the college level.

And the primary reason there are so few scientists left here is because of this thread and the related bannings:

A Return to Triangulation (libertarion vs social right)
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1725737/posts?q=1&&page=1

It is now the official position, as spelled out on that thread, that scientists who understand evolution are not welcome here.

When the last of us goes you will have no apparent opposition, but there still will be no validity to ID.

[shuckmaster]

The article is about a congressional report documenting the politicization of Science at the Smithsonian Institute.

Actually the report is about one Luddite congressman trying to politicize the Smithsonian policy of rejecting charlatan anti-science BS and the Smithsonian wisely having none of it. But, don't let that stop you and WND from twisting the truth around 180 degrees because there's good money to be made fleecing ignorant suckers with anti-science BS.

[RunningWolf]

Man you make science look bad, and my south even worse. I would fire back some of your 'work' back at you but its pretty bad, on par with the dlr debacle you had at the dc, or the cg dog crap images on a religion thread here.

Mary Leakey wrote that other archaeologists should try to satisfy their curiosities by hunting for more concrete evidence, rather than spending all their time formulating crazy hypotheses based on a few random scraps of bone.

[ndt]

"The person I refer to is not 'a dude'"

Are you saying that Buckminster Fuller is not a man or are you objecting to my use of a colloquialism?

""Buckminster Fuller had more qualifications than a few of the greatest proponents of evolution, for at least one them she had no formal education.""

I understand what you were trying to say, but it makes no sense. There is nothing inherent in being an architect or a poet or an inventor that makes one qualified to speak on the topic of evolution more then you or I.

Apart from his agreeing with you, what qualification am I missing?

[Heartlander]

A ‘luddite’ does not believe in intelligent design? Surely the belief in the ‘purely’ natural ultimate causes for human intelligence is ‘luddite’ in nature.
Technology implies both intelligence and design.

[metmom]

If ID evolution can't stand on it's own two feet, legislate it so people have to listen. Garbage.

[metmom]

While the precise mechanism of the origin of life on earth remains unknown, once life arose, the process of evolution and natural selection permitted the development of biological diversity and complexity over very long periods of time,

So where does the Cambrian explosion come in? Granted long periods of time were available but it appears that much of evolution didn't occur in all that available time. How do scientists explain that?

Finding an answer to Darwin’s Dilemma

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1751494/posts

[csense]

It is now the official position, as spelled out on that thread, that scientists who understand evolution are not welcome here.

I'd be interested to see a cite for that specific allegation.

[shuckmaster]

Mary Leakey wrote that other archaeologists should try to satisfy their curiosities by hunting for more concrete evidence, rather than spending all their time formulating crazy hypotheses based on a few random scraps of bone.

Actually it was the biogropher you copied from here who made that quote - Not Mary Leakey. If you ever meet an honest creationist, let me know.

[metmom]

Let's see now....

FRevos who have no scientific background or training are *qualified* to speak about evolution and all the shortcomings of ID/creation, even when their areas of study aren't specifically in the field of evolution or even science. Scientists who have PhD's in scientific fields and are much more highly educated than any handful of frevos randomly picked out and put together, are NOT qualified to speak on evolution if their PhD's are not specifically in the field of evolution itself.

So the question arises; Why should we take the word of untrained, unqualified evos who do it as a hobby over the word of a highly educated scientist who does science for a living when neither are speaking in a field of their expertise? Shouldn't the same standard be applied to both situations? Either we accept the words of scientists who are not specialists in evo because we accept the word of less educated evos who are not specialists in evo; or we do not accept the words of less educated evo when they speak on evolution because we don't take the word of highly trained scientists when they speak on evolution.

[csense]

(editor-surveyor)
"There is not a single genetic scientist that has spoken up here in favor of evolutionism; just a few lower level bottle washers that think it makes them look 'scientific."

You are no longer correct. I am a professional scientist (now retired) and understand both evolution and genetics.

Well, are you, or are you not, a genetic scientist?

[RunningWolf]

In her autobiography

Mary explains that through her whole career she was "impelled by curiosity."

She writes that other "archaeologists should try to satisfy their curiosities by hunting for more concrete evidence, rather than spending all their time formulating crazy hypotheses based on a few random scraps of bone"

In her words, "Small pieces of the record have been preserved and can sometimes be found, but it cannot be stressed too strongly that they are indeed small parts and what we uncover may give us a biased view of the picture as a whole."

[RunningWolf]

Yes by their convoluted calculus even Mary Leaky could not say anything.., oh wait I got it wrong, since she believed evo she could say anything.

Mary Douglas Nicol Leakey 1913-1996

' Despite her lack of formal education, Mary Leakey stands out as one of the premiere archaeologists--let alone female archaeologists--of this century'

[ndt]

First, just so we are clear, those are not my words, that was a quote from someone else who I do not fully agree with. I do however concur with the portion you excerpted so I will continue.

"So where does the Cambrian explosion come in?"

About 540 million years ago.

"Granted long periods of time were available but it appears that much of evolution didn't occur in all that available time. "

Are you sure you stated that correctly? The Cambrian "explosion" was just that an explosion, the apparent rapid development of a great deal of diversity. If anything it presents the appearance of "too much" evolution in too short a time span.

There are several possibilities to explain it, my favorite is that there was no Cambrian explosion.

Lack of evidence of diversity is not proof of a lack of diversity. Molecular clock estimates place the origin of bilateral animals at around 1,000,000,000 years ago. Making the question not why the sudden diversity but why are there no signs of it before the Cambrian.

Lack of hard parts? The breakup of snowball earth? The verdict is still out.

In any case, you are still making an argument from ignorance. Just because A is unknown, then B must be true.

So tell me, from you perspective, why did God make such a great diversity of animals appear 540 million years ago and modern humans only in the last 100k or so?

[shuckmaster]

Telling the same lie twice doesn't make it the truth. The page and comment were made by Jenny Dente. You're adding quote marks to Jenny's comment and falsely attributing it to Mary. I really have "faith" that there's at least one honest creationist somewhere in this world but, I haven't met him yet.

[ndt]

"I really have "faith" that there's at least one honest creationist somewhere in this world but, I haven't met him yet."

I should introduce you to my brother. Christian, pastor, teacher, evangelical. Believes that the bible is the word of God and honest enough to admit that there is absolutely no scientific evidence whatsoever to support it. You just got to have faith.

[shuckmaster]

I'd be interested to see a cite for that specific allegation.

If you don't have time for the whole thread post #608 has a good summary. Post #624 also features a classic meltdown. There's plenty more and worse on the same thread.

[RunningWolf]

Look you did not even know about it until you googled the words.

I am not lying and neither is the biographer. If you are going to make that accusation you need to back it up, oh thats right you wont, evos operate with their own rules.

FWI, the biographer lists her sources at the bottom, 7 are Mary Leaky's own books or papers.