Posted on 02/03/2009 5:36:29 PM PST by GodGunsGuts
Judge Jones, whose distinction prior to the Dover case was running the Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board, now has multiple honorary doctorates for rendering his decision, which he cribbed from the ACLU’s Proposed Findings of Fact and Conclusions of Law. Ben Stein, who is an acclaimed actor, author, and economist, on the other hand, has just been denied an honorary doctorate at the University of Vermont:
“This is not, to my mind, an issue about academic freedom or the openness of the campus to all points of view. Ben Stein spoke here last spring to great acclaim,” UVM President Dan Fogel said. “It’s an issue about the appropriateness of awarding an honorary degree to someone whose views in many ways ignore or affront the fundamental values of scientific inquiry and I greatly regret that I was not attuned to those issues.” (full story click here)
That’s right, for questioning Darwin and pointing out the racist implications of his theory (implications that Darwin himself drew in his DESCENT OF MAN), Ben Stein is now an affront to science.
Perhaps one beneficial consequence of the current recession/depression is that tax-payers will pay more attention to how their tax dollars are being misused by schools like UVM. But that may be too much to hope.
We’ll know that the tide has turned when Judge Jones’s Dover decision and Darwin’s inflated claims about the power of natural selection are themselves seen as an affront to science.
My husband and I saw “Expelled”. It was very worthwhile and a different and memorable movie. Just to see the egghead professors that believed in Darwinism, search for an answer to Ben’s questions, only to come up with no good answer at all, was worth the price of admission.
“Can you substantiate that charge? Or are you just blowing smoke out your a$$?”
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2177834/posts?page=13#13
I’m going to assume that you can read...
Different, yes, but two sides of the same coin. “ID” is a pseudoscientific theory that tries to somehow debunk evolution with an alternative theory without any basis in the scientific method. Creationism(sts) just ignores science. I respect them in their honesty.
Thanks for the ping!
Yes, authoritarianism and propaganda are obviously correct, give the man a rubber degree!
What are you doing at FR?
I didn’t get an honorary doctorate from the University of Vermont either, and nobody has written a word about it to my knowledge. What I’d like to have is one from DeVry. I’ll bet you don’t see many of those.
Exposing those who lie to further their cause.
A good example was Guillermo Gonzalez, who was supposedly denied tenure at ISU because of his beliefs. They tell you a tenure rate of 91% at ISU, not the 66% in his department that is actually relevant. They tell you he was an outstanding academic, but that was prior to his time at ISU. In his time there, which is what counts, his work declined rapidly, the work he did was mainly rehashes of old data. He wasn't even first author of any papers for three years straight. What was he doing? Writing the non peer-reviewed The Privileged Planet instead of doing the kind of work that would get him tenure. Plus, none of his graduate students got their doctoral degrees, and he secured grant money at a rate far below average (and was repeatedly warned about it).
The picture is clearly of someone who was promising during his postdoc studies, but then ceased the kind of work that could fulfill that promise in tenure.
But the movie makes it look like there was a persecution for his beliefs. No, this is the ID version of playing the race card when you fail due to your own lack of merit.
What does that have to do with this thread?
Ben Stein was the star of the movie that made that lie and others like it. Now life imitating art, people are claiming Stein is being persecuted for the same reason.
William ‘Bitter’ Dembksi really hasn’t got over the well merited and thorough kicking that ID and Creationism masquerading as science got at Dover. Good.
My apologies.
I am stunned that Ben Stein would give money to that clown, but Ben has made a career of being weird.
I think Ben Stein would wear this as a badge of honor.
I know I would. ;o)
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