Posted on 12/13/2010 11:18:17 AM PST by SeekAndFind
An astronomer is suing the University of Kentucky, claiming he was denied a job running its observatory because of his Christian faith.
Martin Gaskell was once considered the leading candidate to be the founding director of the observatory, opened in 2008.
The Courier-Journal reports that a trial has been set for Feb. 8 after a federal judge ruled Gaskell has the right to a jury trial.
Gaskell argues that the school discriminated against him because he had given lectures in the past discussing astronomy and the Bible and his questions about the theory of evolution, even though he accepts it.
The university acknowledges there were questions about his beliefs, but there was valid scientific concern. It also claims there were other factors in denying him the job, including a poor performance review in a previous job.
RE: Steep downward trend in his work.
Again, please get your facts straight.
Chronicle of Higher Education had asserted that that “Gonzalez’ rate of publication had dropped off dramatically since he joined the ISU faculty.”
Yet, Dr. Gonzalez has the highest per-capita publication count and highest per-capita citation count among ISU astronomers since 2001, the year he joined ISU. So if there was any “drop off” (note the quotes) in Dr. Gonzalez’s productivity, he still outperformed the very ISU astronomers who voted against his tenure.
Moreover, as Rob Crowther documented, Dr. Gonzalez’s annual publication rate has remained about the same at both the beginning and the end of his probationary period at ISU, so ultimately there seems to be no “drop off”.
Here’s a breakdown of his annual raw publications since coming to ISU according to the Smithsonian / NASA Astrophysics Data System ( SEE HERE : http://adsabs.harvard.edu/default_service.html):
2001: 6
2002: 6
2003: 8
2004: 2
2005: 5
2006: 6
So he peaks in 2003 but ends in 2006 just as high as he was when he started at ISU. Moreover, he outperformed all ISU astronomy faculty in normalized publications during that period.
So, I’ll say that Gonzalez did have a TEMPORARY drop in publications during 2004, but this is because during that year he expended much time co-authoring a peer-reviewed astronomy textbook for Cambridge University Press—a textbook that is now used for teaching in his department!
But Dr. Gonzalez immediately BOUNCED BACK in his publication rate after the textbook was published, and as Crowther shows, when Gonzalez was denied tenure by ISU’s president, he was tied for the highest per-capita publication count among ISU astronomers since January, 2006.
SEE HERE :
http://www.evolutionnews.org/2007/12/in_further_attempts_to_try004618.html
The very people involved in helping to deny Gonzalez tenure have been known to flip-flop on their statements ( a very bad sign and evidence that they were biased against his personal belief from the start ). This, inspite of the fact that Gonzalez NEVER TAUGHT Intelligent Design IN HIS CLASSES at ISU.
SOME QUOTES :
•John Hauptman, ISU Physicist:
MOST CURRENT: The ISU Daily reports, “Hauptman said his tenure decision was ‘absolutely not’ based on Gonzalez’s research into intelligent design.”
PREVIOUSLY: Last June, Hauptman explicitly admitted that he voted against Gonzalez’s tenure because of intelligent design (ID): “I participated in the initial vote and voted no, based on this fundamental question: What is science? ... It is purely a question of what is science and what is not, and a physics department is not obligated to support notions that do not even begin to meet scientific standards.”
•Eli Rosenberg, Chair of ISU’s Department of Physics and Astronomy:
MOST RECENT: Rosenberg tells the Des Moines Register that tenure documents included “a few words about intelligent design at the end, and that’s it,” and previously told Nature that “intelligent design was not a major or even a big factor in this decision.”
PREVIOUSLY: During actual tenure deliberations in November, 2006, Rosenberg devotes a full 1/3 of his Chair’s statement in Gonzalez’s tenure file to discussing intelligent design, instructing voting members of ISU’s Department of Physics and Astronomy to make ID a litmus test where Gonzalez’s support for ID as science “disqualifies him from serving as a science educator.”
•Hector Avalos, outspoken atheist Professor of Religion at ISU:
PREVIOUSLY: In the summer of 2005, Avalos e-mails ISU faculty, inviting them to sign a statement calling on “all faculty members to ... reject efforts to portray Intelligent Design as science” because of the “negative impact” due to the fact that “Intelligent Design ... has now established a presence ... at Iowa State University.” Guillermo Gonzalez, being the only well-known ID proponent who has “established a presence” at ISU, is the undeniable target of such a statement.
LATER: Avalos asserts publicly in the ISU Daily, “The statement we wrote was in no way targeted specifically at Gonzalez.”
•John Clem, ISU physicist:
PREVIOUSLY: Apparently Clem prejudges Gonzalez’s tenure case because of ID, stating: “Many of us here at Iowa State are embarrassed by the work of Guillermo Gonzalez, who with Jay Richards published the book ‘The Privileged Planet.’ ... I now feel that publication of such a statement might become the most important piece of evidence in a successful court case to guarantee tenure to the person whose scientific credibility we would be attempting to discredit. ... As for the unfortunate publicity we are receiving and the embarrassment we feel as a department, I think the best policy is to just grin and bear it for the next couple of years.”
MOST RECENT: The ISU Daily reports, “Clem said the decision to deny tenure to Gonzalez was ‘absolutely not’ based on ID.”
So, their denial of tenure to Dr. Gonzalez is CLEARLY BECAUSE OF HIS PERSONAL BELIEF, NOT BECAUSE OF HIS PERFORMANCE AS A FACULTY MEMBER AT ISU.
Therefore:
•Dr. Gonzalez’s funding level, high or otherwise, does NOTHING to negate the undeniable evidence of bias and prejudice against him in the department because he supports ID.
•Dr. Gonzalez’s department does not even consider grants as a criterion for gaining tenure.
Yet he has a $50,000 grant from Discovery Institute that allows him to collect more than enough observational astronomy data each year for the next 5 years.
In short, Dr. Gonzalez has precisely the money he needs to have a successful research program at ISU.
Again, to remind you —— one external reviewer observed, “Dr. Gonzalez is eminently qualified for the promotion according to your guidelines of excellence in scholarship and exhibiting a potential for national distinction. In light of your criteria I would certainly recommend the promotion.”
As a reminder again, 2/3 of the external reviewers who gave an opinion about whether Dr. Gonzalez deserves tenure said he should receive tenure.
•Dr. Gonzalez has more per-capita publications and more per-capita scientific citations since 2001, the year he joined ISU, than all ISU tenured astronomers who voted against his tenure, and he has over 350% more peer-reviewed science articles than what his department ordinarily requires for indicating the type of reputation that demonstrates research excellence.
Moreover, he co-authored a peer-reviewed astronomy textbook with Cambridge University Press that some ISU astronomy classes are now using. These seem like distinct accomplishments that make a tenure denial difficult to justify.
So, why was he denied ? SIMPLE -— He believes in Intelligent Design.
Then why did ISU not say so from the outset ?
RE: Personally, I wouldn’t hire a “young earth”, “creationist” type idiot for anything requiring thinking above the turnip level.
Well, here’s where you and I differ. His personal beliefs are his own. If he COMPETENTLY teaches science and publishes peer reviewed papers that have been ACCEPTED for publication, I see no reason why his personal belief in a young earth disqualifies him from teaching.
IF HE ISN’T TEACHING IT IN CLASS WHAT HE BELIEVES PERSONALLY SHOULD NOT EVEN BE A CONSIDERATION.
Now, if you disagree with him and believe he is a fool to believe so, I’d be very much interested in you or anyone debating him to prove he’s wrong OUTSIDE his place of work.
SOURCE:
http://creation.com/darwinian-thought-police-strike-again
The Discovery Institute in anticipation and response posted a web article by John West on June 1, 2007, entitled ‘The Truth about Research Grants, Gonzalez and ISU’ as follows:
1.As we have reported previously, outside research funding is not a published criterion for earning tenure in Dr. Gonzalez’s department. Indeed, it isn’t even mentioned in the departmental standards for tenure and promotion.
So if this factor was considered key in his tenure denial, Gonzalez’s department was applying a criterion outside of its own stated standards. (The primary standard according to the departmental policy on tenure and promotion is peer-reviewed publications, and 15 articles are ‘ordinarily’ supposed to ‘demonstrate excellence sufficient to lead to a national or international reputation.’ Dr. Gonzalez has 68 peer-reviewed publications, or 350% more than the departmental standard. Twenty-one of these articles were published since 2002, the year after Dr. Gonzalez arrived at ISU.)
2.Contrary to some reports, Dr. Gonzalez did receive outside grant funding during his time at ISU:
From 2001–2004, Dr. Gonzalez was a Co-Investigator on a NASA Astrobiology Institute grant for ‘Habitable Planets and the Evolution of Biological Complexity’ (his part of the grant for this time period was $64,000).
From 2000–2003, Dr. Gonzalez received a $58,000 grant from the Templeton Foundation. This grant was awarded as part of a competitive, peer-reviewed grant process, and his winning grant proposal had been peer-reviewed by a number of distinguished astronomers and scientists.
Earlier in 2007, Dr. Gonzalez was awarded a 5-year research grant for his work in observational astronomy from Discovery Institute (worth $50,000).
3.Using selective figures provided by ISU, the Register implies that one was expected to bring in an average of $1.3 million in grant funding to get tenure in Dr. Gonzalez’s department. Again, there is nothing in the departmental standards about this, and it is hard to know how accurate or comparable this figure is without seeing the specific data for all of the astronomers in the department, and without seeing comparable data from other departments at ISU. Unfortunately, ISU has thus far stonewalled efforts to get grant and publications data for those considered for tenure during the past several years.
On May 16 Discovery Institute filed a public documents request for the grant and publication data of those considered for tenure in Dr. Gonzalez’s department since 1997 and for faculty in other departments considered for tenure since 2002. Thus far the university has provided no data in response to these requests, nor as of today has it responded to repeated requests about when the materials will be provided. [All emphases are in the original—Ed.]
It is worth pointing out again that 91% of ISU faculty considered for tenure this year received it. Did they all receive more than a million dollars in grants [in] order to get tenure? Did they all exceed by 350% their departmental standards for publications? We are trying to find out, but ISU apparently doesn’t want people to know the answers to these questions.
Yes, it is like sociology.The problems arises when one confuses classes of data with concrete realities. Marxism is a form of sociology. So pits “workers” against “the bourgeoisie” as if the relationships between the two groups were purely economic in nature and defined/refined through conflict. Fact is that the existence of “masters” like Owen and Engel is proof that the the relationships between workers and industrialists were not much different than between landowners and their dependents. It all depended on the character of the overlord. Psychologists get into trouble when they generalize, because all in all, the best among them are persons with deep empathy with their patients. The Freudians went bust because they tried to apply a false theory.
So this is where the 350% comes from. They take his ENTIRE history of academic output, which was at its highest before ISU, and then compare it to the standard required during a candidate's time while AT ISU. Dishonest.
Note they cite 21 publications while at ISU, while I have 20 if I dishonestly include 2007 to his benefit. That's far closer than your claim of 33 for his time there, so you and DI better discuss your numbers. And both of you are giving co-authorship the same weight as first-authorship, which is a big deal for the tenure review. Being a co-author can be as simple as a colleague asked you to look over his work, and for that you get your name on it. That's how you get papers with 700+ co-authors.
It is worth pointing out again that 91% of ISU faculty considered for tenure this year received it.
Yet in his department, the one that matters, they only have a 66% tenure rate over the last ten years. Dishonest. I can't believe you threw this out again after I already caught you on it.
Earlier in 2007, Dr. Gonzalez was awarded a 5-year research grant for his work in observational astronomy from Discovery Institute (worth $50,000).
I'll leave aside the fact that this was the Discovery Institute itself, possbily trying to pump up the numbers, and note that they cite a grant from AFTER his probationary period considered for tenure. Dishonest.
That's the DI for you, always dishonest, always distorting the facts. I have a hard time believing anything from this bunch of proven hucksters.
Evaluation of research ability is based primarily upon published papers in refereed journals...
IDers/creationists using "..." always scares me since their primary debate tactic is the misplacement and ommission of key information (see above).
There's no doubt he's a capable scientist. From all I've read I'd love to take one of his classes (aside from the religious card whiner aspect). The problem is that he let his work at ISU slide at a time when he should have been keeping it up. No matter how good you are, if you don't do the work, you don't get the job.
How would you propose to understand the injunction not to steal, if not literally? Analyze that. Or, sticking with the issue of Genesis, how is one to regard, “In the Beginning”? For untold millennia, the Judeo-Christian tradition has understood that there was (is?) a beginning. Within the span of my own lifetime, Science seemed convinced that existence was in an eternal steady state. Thanks to Mr. Einstein and to the discovery of a cosmic background radiation, we have now come to understand that there was, indeed, a beginning.
But, the simple fact is that Hebrew, Greek, and English literary traditions, alike, all demand many levels of understanding when contemplating important literary works (certainly including Biblical tracts: 1) literal, 2) metaphorical, 3) allegorical, 4) doctrinal, 5) spiritual, 6) poetical, 7) story-telling (see, for example, I Cor 2:6-16). If one has the slimmest appreciation for Hebrew, Greek, and English literary traditions, then he can understand King James’ instructions to his biblical translators to create a new English publication of the Bible, the KJV, with the dual object to combine elegance of translation with faithfulness to the text (see In The Beginning, by Alister McGrath). Your “analysis” would reduce any such effort to the literalness of a recipe card or a lab report, dismissing anything else as “myth.”
I asked if your college astronomy teacher ever speculated on the question could something be the cause of itself? You responded by asking, “You mean like God? He always seems to get that special exemption to the logic.”
No. You’re confusing the philosophical issue of First Cause with the theory of Spontaneous Generation. Science has generally rejected the theory of Spontaneous Generation, as it pertains to the generation of life, as not plausible. Even less plausible, then, must be the theory of the Spontaneous Generation of everything. The Old Ones long ago concluded that an infinite regress of cause was not plausible, and therefore logically concluded the existence of a First Clause (Plato’s God of the Beyond).
Scientists thought they had solved the problem of First Cause by positing an eternal universe, but now that seems not a likely supposition. Your astronomy teacher seems to have solved his problem by embracing the Judeo-Christian tradition, but he then seems to reverse himself by rejecting Holy Scripture as “myth,” trusting rather in the revealed glories of existence (or do I attribute too many of your thoughts as his?).
You are over-analyzing a simple statement. If the Bible says X and observation shows Y, then there is a conflict if you believe X literally. There is no problem if you believe it as you say "2) metaphorical, 3) allegorical, 4) doctrinal, 5) spiritual, 6) poetical, 7) story-telling." Some people believe the entire bible literally.
Science has generally rejected the theory of Spontaneous Generation, as it pertains to the generation of life,
You are confusing the issue of spontaneous generation of complete organisms with abiogenesis, which is being actively researched today with some quite interesting results.
Your astronomy teacher seems to have solved his problem by embracing the Judeo-Christian tradition, but he then seems to reverse himself by rejecting Holy Scripture as “myth,”
No, he just wasn't a Bible literalist.
(or do I attribute too many of your thoughts as his?).
No, you are attributing his thought as mine. I was just explaining someone else's position. He didn't go in depth enough with me that I can debate it in depth with you.
RE: The problem is that he let his work at ISU slide at a time when he should have been keeping it up. No matter how good you are, if you don’t do the work, you don’t get the job.
Again, it isn’t that he has done a poor job. All evidence points to the fact that he supports and believes in Intelligent Design.
And how do you know that the co-authorship was not based on his PRIMARY work ? Why do you assume that he just looked over his colleague’s shoulders.
As for his work while at ISU, I refer you to the ISU’s criteria for tenure itself:
According to the Promotion and Tenure Policy and Procedure put out by the ISU’s Department of Physics and Astronomy, (page 4):
‘Evaluation of research ability is based primarily upon published papers in refereed journals … . For promotion to associate professor, excellence sufficient to lead to a national or international reputation is required and would ordinarily be shown by the publication of approximately fifteen papers of good quality in refereed journals.’
Now, let’s see how many papers did refereed papers did Gonzalez author ( and no, I don’t accept your He-was-just-looking-over-the-shouler-of-his-colleague excuse. I will only accept it if you KNOW that he did just that for a fact).
As for entire history of academic output.... why NOT? Where in the tenure criteria did it say that you would only consider output WHILE AT ISU ? ( I read and re-read the page 4 criteria and I missed the ‘WHILE AT ISU’ phrase).
So, Dr Gonzalez’s international reputation is surely established by his post-doctoral and his 68 peer-reviewed journal articles (of which 21 have been while he was at ISU) exceed the 15 required by ISU by 350 per cent! (and YES, it should be his entire body of work because the tenure criteria did not tell us that it has to be while at ISU ). So, to repeat what you said : “So this is where the 350% comes from”. YES. SO ?
According to Chronicle of Higher Education reporter Richard Monastersky:
‘Data from a prestigious Smithsonian/NASA astrophysics database show that Gonzalez has the highest rating for citations to his work of anyone in his department: “Mr. Gonzalez has a normalized h-index of 13, the highest of the 10 astronomers in his department. The next closest was Lee Anne Willson, a university professor who had a normalized h-index of 9.”
The fact that Gonzalez—an Assistant Professor—is ranked higher than any other member of his department, including full professors like Willson, is incredible.
‘Even the originator of the h-index rating (physicist Jorge Hirsch) concedes the point: “Under normal circumstances, Mr. Gonzalez’s publication record would be stellar and would warrant his earning tenure at most universities, according to Mr. Hirsch.”
The Iowa State U. Astronomy department … big star is Lee Anne Willson, University Professor. A University Professor is a rank more prestigious than a full Professor. She is their star. Her top two papers are cited 99 and 86 times. And she has been at this for 33 years !!
Even Dr Robert J. Marks, Distinguished Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Baylor University comments:
‘I went to the Web of Science citation index which is the authority on citations. Only journal papers, not conference papers, are indexed. There are lots of Prof. Gonzalez’s papers listed. My jaw dropped when I saw one of his papers has 153 citations and 139 on another. I have sat on oodles of tenure committees at both a large private university and a state research university, chaired the university tenure committee, and have seen more tenure cases than the Pope has Cardinals. This is a LOT of citations for an assistant professor up for tenure. The number of citations varies with discipline and autocitations are included in the tally, but this is a LOT of citations for an Assistant Professor. A lot.’
You can continue belittling Gonzalez’s work or his inability to produce while at ISU, the facts show otherwise and people OUTSIDE the University who are not biased towards his personal beliefs ( like the scientists and scholars mentioned above ) attest tot he fact that he DESERVED tenure.
So why was he NOT granted tenure ?
One clear answer based on the evidence emerges : HIS SYMPATHY TOWARDS INTELLIGENT DESIGN.
If ISU were only honest enough to openly admit it ( when they first presented those concerns and then flip-flopped later ), I’d have no problems with it.
Just say this in your tenure policy (or to the same effect ) : “Anyone who is sympathetic to the Intelligent Design or Young Earth Creationist point of view as evidenced by his work, papers and publications CANNOT BE GRANTED TENURE.”
Now that would be honest.
I don't. I am giving you an examply of why first authorship is very important, while co-authorship is not rated as highly. If you want an example of the quality of his work while at ISU, how about this from the Chronicle of Higher Education:
Under normal circumstances, Mr. Gonzalez’s publication record would be stellar and would warrant his earning tenure at most universities, according to Mr. Hirsch [a scholar who analyzed the publication record]. But Mr. Gonzalez completed the best scholarship, as judged by his peers, while doing postdoctoral work at the University of Texas at Austin and at the University of Washington, where he received his Ph.D. His record has trailed off since then.Note the last statement, that tenure review "only deals with his work since he came to Iowa State." The Discovery Institute knows this yet continues to dishonestly spew the 350% number.“It looks like it slowed down considerably,” said Mr. Hirsch…. “It’s not clear that he started new things, or anything on his own, in the period he was an assistant professor at Iowa State.”
That pattern may have hurt his case. “Tenure review only deals with his work since he came to Iowa State,” said John McCarroll, a spokesman for the university.
The fact that Gonzalez—an Assistant Professor—is ranked higher than any other member of his department, including full professors like Willson, is incredible.
Yes, it is incredible. And now that you've tried to contract the criteria down to only publication rate to eliminate proven unfavorable performance, you try to expand it again in a favorable direction.
Hey, at least you didn't quote the DI's "91%" dishonesty again.
RE: And now that you’ve tried to contract the criteria down to only publication rate to eliminate proven unfavorable performance, you try to expand it again in a favorable direction.
That is EXACTLY MY POINT — It was NOT unfavorable performance.
Assuming that it was 66% in his department, the question is why did he belong to the 34% ? Did he deserve it ? NO.
You keep on harping about his work BEFORE he was at ISU, but that is EXACTLY MY POINT. The tenure criteria states :” publication of approximately fifteen papers of good quality in refereed journals”. It did NOT say while at ISU.
The so called spokesman for the University will of course make the statement he makes, otherwise, why be a spokesman? HE WAS HIRED TO SAY THESE.
So, nope, I am unconvinced that it was unrelated to his personal beliefs.
A Nature article who mentioned him describes Dr Gonzalez as ‘a deeply religious evangelical Christian’, and it says ‘his faith has shaped his views on science.
He considers himself a “sceptic” of Darwin, and says that his Christianity helps him to understand Earth’s position in the Universe. “Our location in the Galaxy, which is optimized for habitability, is also the best place for doing cosmology and stellar astrophysics in the Galaxy,” he says. In other words: “The Universe is designed for scientific discovery.”’
Dr Gonzalez has refrained from mentioning his religious beliefs in his teaching and peer-reviewed works, but his 2004 book The Privileged Planet: How Our Place in the Cosmos is Designed for Discovery, co-authored with Jay Richards of the Discovery Institute, includes many of his pro-design arguments.
AND *THAT* is the main reason ( which was stated before and then minimized later ) that he was denied tenure.
As any employer would, they also go on trend of work output to predict future performance. Counting his pre-ISU work as you would like then becomes extremely damning for him, since his output dropped significantly compared to his pre-ISU work.
See what I mean? No facts can get past the true believer.
Meanwhile, I am prepared to admit that such a case is possible and could be happening now with the subject of this thread. I am looking at Gonzalez only on the facts.
RE: As any employer would,
But would he be RIGHT? NO. Based on the evidence.
And I repeat -— the tenure criteria DID NOT MENTION work while at ISU. That was added as an excuse later.
And again — 68 peer-reviewed journal articles (of which 21 have been while he was at ISU) exceed the 15 required by ISU by 350 per cent!
I stand by what I believe to be the case — HOSTILITY TO ANYTHING SUGGESTIVE OF ALTERNATIVE IDEAS ( even while they were presented OUTSIDE his academic work ).
You stand by your bias towards the religious. Say hello to Al Sharpton next time you see him. You at least have one thing in common, susceptability to card pulling.
I don’t know. It strikes me rather difficult to over-analyze something as simple as “Thou shalt not steal.” Yet when critics of Judeo-Christian belief declare it a myth, they state it categorically, admitting no mitigation. That strikes me as, if anything, under-analysis. You left out 1). Things don’t work without it. Holy Scripture is loaded with literal meanings that cannot be ignored, many confirmed by Science itself. I don’t pretend expertise in either theology or science, yet even I understand that. The story of Jonah and the great fish (a favorite target of scripture scoffers) provides us a literal lesson in obedience, willingness of spirit, gratitude, repentance, compassion, and God’s patience and mercy, even if we do not understand how Jonah could spend three days in the belly of a great fish. The scoffers would have us focus on the great fish (watch the birdie) and declare the whole story a “myth.”
But, I think analysis not the motive of most Judeo-Christian critics. I think it, rather, to be Derrida deconstruction, focusing on the text isolated from the author’s intention and the literary tradition inspiring its structure. Deconstruction has become a popular weapon in politics, social debate, and various other intellectual issues. Deconstruction is focused equally on attacking Judeo-Christianity, indeed all Western Civilization. That must be understood, and cannot be ignored.
“If the Bible says X and observation shows Y, then there is a conflict if you believe X literally.”
Such as “In the beginning”? I was undisturbed when Science declared “the beginning” a myth, and felt no different when Science said, “Whoops! Guess there was a beginning.” Ever since Science has been trying to walk that faux pas back. It’s become kind of difficult to do. The cat’s out of the bag, but I’m sure Science will go on trying to explain what it really meant.
The Lord counsels patience. There’s a reason for this. Scripture scoffers counsel a rush to judgment. There’s a reason for that. Road kill represents the attempt to walk a line between the two.
“No, you are attributing his thought as mine.”
Not at all. I asked for clarification. You’ve clarified.
“I was just explaining someone else's position.”
To what end, if not as supportive of your own?
The cat's never out of the bag with science. Its nature is to constantly change with new information and analyses.
To what end, if not as supportive of your own?
To show that successful astronomers can be Christian. In fact, about half of scientists are religious, with most of them being Christian. Actual atheists, the group from which would spring your hard-core Christianity haters, are a minority, less than those who don't care about religion. While there do exist those in science who would punish someone for his beliefs, there is no larger anti-Christian conspiracy.
Besides, I do have the ability to support others. I'm not Catholic or Jewish, but at times I find myself defending them.
I see the problem here. Literalism in general is a slope, somebody gets to decide what is purely allegorical and what actually happened in history. I am talking about the people who actually believe that a guy spent three days in the belly of a great fish. The division is moved all the way over to history's side. My teacher treated Creation as allegory, not history. Others treat it as history, and we call them creationists.
I would agree with you . . . in the abstract. But let’s acknowledge that scientists are as susceptible to pretentiousness as any of us. With those scientists, sooner or later, the cat is always out of the bag. And this seems to occur because they believe that fact and theory has brought them to TRVTH. As you observe, it is the nature of Science to deal in hypothesis, theory and fact. It doesn’t deal in TRVTH. Rather it is a superior fact-finding methodology and, ironically, it was the happy inspiration of a Judeo-Christian culture that is now being threatened by people who seek to destroy it using that very same methodology.
Where ever Holy Scripture is declared to be simplistic and primitive, therefore mythical, for me a red flag goes up.
“In fact, about half of scientists are religious”
So it is rumored. But that number is subject to an array of issues: To whatever degree it is accurate, what is the significance of that fact? What does it contribute to resolving whether or not Holy Scripture is myth? Does it include only the “hard” sciences? Are ‘religious’ scientists distributed more or less evenly across the spectrum of sciences? What of preeminent scientists (such as Dawkins or Dennett) who declare no genuine scientist can be religious?
“Actual atheists, the group from which would spring your hard-core Christianity haters, are a minority”
What is the data for that assertion? Why would Agnostics not be included among the “hard-core Christianity haters”? I would think that an overwhelming majority of scientists would understand that scientifically they can assert no more than agnosticism.
“there is no larger anti-Christian conspiracy.”
I do not understand how you can say that. Every day we see contradicting evidence on this very forum.
Neither gives them standing to scientifically declare Holy Scripture a myth.
“My teacher treated Creation as allegory, not history.”
Yet we know that science has confirmed some of what is written in Holy Scripture. And your teacher cannot scientifically declare Creation neither as allegory nor history. Scientifically, it is subject to further discovery.
“Others treat it as history, and we call them creationists.”
Which kind? To which of the twenty or more categories of Creationism, besides the generic term itself, do you refer? And, which do you find offensive? Why do you choose not to focus your disapproval on that category, and instead choose to vilify a whole religious tradition?
Young Earth Creationism, Old Earth Creationism, Day-Age Creationism, Gap Creationism, ‘Evolution’ Creationism (whatever that is), Intelligent Design, Modern geocentrism Creationists, Omphalos hypothesis Creationists, Creation science Creationists, Gap Creationists, Progressive Creationists, Neo Creationists, Creation literalists, Evolution Theist Creationists, Micro-Evolutionary Creationism, Progressive Creationists, Flat Earther Creationists, “hard core” Creationists? Are all to be held in contempt?
I know of no Christian who does not hold as a fundamental tenet of belief that God is the creator of the Universe. Do you?
“no opinion or belief is sent to man from God contrary to natural knowledge.” (T. Aquinas, Of God and His Creatures, Book I, Chap. 7)
Then nobody has standing to declare it fact either.
Yet we know that science has confirmed some of what is written in Holy Scripture.
We see vague parallels that can be interpreted as such. But then we see that in many religions. In fact, drawing these parallels and getting you to see the connection is a tactic of cold-reader hucksters. The point is that if you want to see them, you will.
Which kind?
Take what I described and you apply the appropriate ones from your list. The point is that they exist.
I know of no Christian who does not hold as a fundamental tenet of belief that God is the creator of the Universe.
Back to the beginning, that's what my professor thought. He just didn't believe the literal creation.
“no opinion or belief is sent to man from God contrary to natural knowledge.”
"Science has proof without any certainty. Creationists have certainty without any proof." Ashley Montagu
And whenever someone tries to pass religion off as science, for me a red flag goes up. We all have our hangups.
What does it contribute to resolving whether or not Holy Scripture is myth?
It doesn't. It erases the myth that science is a cabal of atheists intent on destroying religion.
What of preeminent scientists (such as Dawkins or Dennett) who declare no genuine scientist can be religious?
I don't often agree with the likes of Dawkins who have for themselves essentially turned atheism into a quasi-religion.
Why would Agnostics not be included among the “hard-core Christianity haters”?
Because they're on the fence. In any case, atheist plus agnostic is still a minority.
I would think that an overwhelming majority of scientists would understand that scientifically they can assert no more than agnosticism.
Science is supposed to ignore the supernatural. People do have the ability to not inject their personal beliefs into the work they are doing.
I do not understand how you can say that. Every day we see contradicting evidence on this very forum.
Show me. Persecution complex is common in religions, even when that religion comprises the vast majority of a country's population. It helps solidarity among members.
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