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Texas Bill Outlaws Discrimination Against Creationists In Academia
ndogg writes "There is a Texas bill, HB 2454, proposed by Republican State Rep. Bill Zedler, that will outlaw discrimination against creationists in colleges and universities. More specifically, it says, 'An institution of higher education may not discriminate against or penalize in any manner, especially with regard to employment or academic support, a faculty member or student based on the faculty member's or student's conduct of research relating to the theory of intelligent design or other alternate theories of the origination and development of organisms.'"
We can still laught a them loudly right ?
If you outlaw evolution, only outlaws will evolve.
They can submit their papers for peer review, just like everyone else. Or does "Scientific Scrutiny" count as "Discrimination" these days?
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
So your biology department is not allowed to bias decisions when hiring against potential faculty members who don't believe in the basic tenets of biology?
Final year thesis on the origin of man - "God did it."
Can we encourage Texas to consider secession?
Almost all my professors believed in God. They thought the Initial Singularity, big bang, expansion, evolution of stars, and all of it was part of his design.
My AC stalker: " I personally agree with your posts most of the time, but that won't keep me from modding you troll"
link to the original article instead of the... um, "slightly" biased blog
my karma will be here long after I'm gone
Since you can't possibly prove or disprove it... open end.
Wrong.
Creationism is not falsifiable. Therefore, it cannot be considered a scientific theory. And *that's* the end of it.
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
conduct of research relating to the theory of intelligent design or other alternate theories of the origination and development of organisms.'"
That's a big loss.
So politicians now define what an "alternate theory" is? Sorry, but ID is not a "theory". It's hogwash, bullshit, dumbfuck, nonsense, insanity or any of a selection of similar terms. It is not even a theory, and definitely not a scientific theory.
To cut a long discussion short, it lacks an important part: Falsifiability.
If creationists want to have their delusions discussed by honest people, they have to make one concession first, and that is the willingness to be convinced that it's all hogwash, bullshit, nonsense, you get it. They need to say "my theory proposes X and Y, and it forbids Z. If Z can be shown to be true, my theory is a piece of crap and I'll stop plastering it everywhere and brainwishing my kids into believing it."
Science is full of faults and bad theories - but it has an uncanny ability to rid itself of them. Creationism (in both its pure form and it's ID camouflage) has been debunked hundreds of times, practically every time a real scientists so much as takes a good look. And yet it's still thrown around, largely unchanged. That is not science, that is fanatism.
And by regulating science not on the ground of proper scientific conduct, but on grounds of ideology, those politicians have just delivered an excellent proof that they are not to be trusted with truth, facts, knowledge or in fact anything, least of all running the place.
When will we have our Tharir place to rid ourselves of this caste of no-gooders who have turned everything that was once good about our democracy against us and are driven by nothing but greed and power?
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
This story makes me think of David Horowitz and his skewed take on academic freedom. I encourage everyone to read or listen to him debate prof. Peter Steinberger of Reed College in which Steinberger explains precisely why approaches like this go directly against the principles of academic freedom: http://www.studentsforacademicfreedom.org/news/2210/ReedCollegeSteinbergerDebate082806.htm
Audio version here: http://www.reed.edu/reed_magazine/winter06/columns/noc/steinberger.html
I dont think you know what affirmative action is, and calling an entire party "hypocrites" based on one man's opinions is quite absurd.
It is discrimination against women! You should give them a drug test and then fake the results.
which is totally what she said
I can't believe that I am quoting this website .. but I think you should try telling your point of view to these scientists for a start.
(a) All of the scientists on that list are long dead. This is not a coincidence. Science ... um ... evolves, and what Bacon or Newton believed about a universe about which they knew far less than we do today is irrelevant to the modern practice of science. We take what is useful from their work -- which is a great deal, to be sure -- and discard that which time has shown not to be useful -- which is also a great deal.
(b) In the specific case of Einstein, religion's been trying to claim the guy for a long time, but he made it quite clear in a number of statements toward the end of his life that he wasn't having any. The fact that fundamentalist types have to twist his words and deliberately ignore most of what he said about the subject to make their point is a clear sign of intellectual bankruptcy.
(c) Religion != creationism. There always have been, are, and most likely always will be a great many religious scientists doing good scientific work. In order to do this, they must be willing to accept the logical conclusions of the evidence available to them, and if those conclusions conflict with their beliefs, modify their beliefs accordingly. People who can't do this -- which, given the overwhelming evidence for evolution, means at this point pretty much all creationists -- are incapable of doing actual science.
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
I'm conflicted on this...
On the one hand, if there was no news about this bill, then it *might* just die off. Special interest groups often propose outlandish bills to generate publicity. Suddenly their cause gets millions more people aware. They very well might be a fringe group, but .05% of 300M people is still a large group.
On the other hand, it's very easy for special interest groups to push bills through because of the lack of scrutiny. No one else may care, so rather than fighting a seemingly innocuous addendum, politicians just OK it.
It be interesting if thousands of people suddenly wrote their Congress folk and representatives suggesting that similar provisions in the law be afforded to followers of the FSM. After all, if the existing anti-discrimination law is not sufficient and creationists are being harassed, then certainly the followers of the FSM should also get protection.
To be sure, discrimination is the whole point of academia, that is discrimination on basis of academic merit. People who cannot show academic rigour are vigorously discriminated against (e.g. they will not get tenure, they will not get their articles published in the mainstream journals, and they will not get recognition). Only in that way are shoddy work and pseudo-science kept at bay. Most of the time.
And yes, that's all very "elitist" because Joe Sixpack simply no more capable of judging is someone is or is not academically capable than he is of analysing a mathematical proof, a statistical test, a laboratory result, or judging if a medical diagnosis is right. If Joe Sixpack were so clued-up he'd be hired as a researcher or a professional. Only he isn't, for excellent reasons.
As Creationism lacks all and any academic merit, it is no more than reasonable to be able to refuse people who subscribe to it from joining the Biology faculty.
Despite its name, "Evolution Theory" is not a mere "theory". On the contrary. There is both an enormous existing body of solid and well-documented evidence for Evolution Theory, and it is corroborated on a continuous basis by just about every on-going field research (from bacteria to beetles to birds to elephants and all kind of plant life). This makes it a *well-tested* and *well-verified* theory, which is why it is at the basis of contemporary Biology.
It wouldn't be a problem is a creationist joined a liberal arts faculty, the maths faculty, or the civil engineering department. Those academic fields are sufficiently fare removed from creationism that they will not be impacted.
But for those who would join the Biology faculty the standard is somewhat higher: they must first show that they know in detail that they know what they are talking about (as in passing exams). After that, if they wish to dispute the foundations of the subject area they wish to don a mantle of authority on, they must first *disprove* with specificity what they dispute, in a scientifically acceptable way. For example in the course of their PhD research.
Then and only then can they be admitted (and they usually will be).
All this is needed to ensure that no *religious* arguments creep into the debate, because religion has no overlap with science and should not be confused with it.
Most of the world gets this, only the US (well certain groups within the US) is in the unique position that it starts blurring the line again centuries after the separation between Church and State and the decoupling of Theology from the Sciences during the Renaissance. It is interesting to note that in this the US finds itself in the company of Islamic Extremists, who too wish to assert the authority of their particular interpretation of word of their particular deity as paramount over reason, dispute, or evidence.
Forrest Mims is a creationist.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forrest_Mims
I read his engineering notebooks and built circuits out of them. I will be forever grateful to him for that. It was the most fun I ever had in science, and I learned a lot of useful stuff.
It blew me away when I found out that a guy that smart and cool was a creationist. But there are a lot of engineers who believe in Bible-belt creationism.
If Mims were proposed to teach an engineering course, there's no doubt that he's qualified. If he were to teach a biology course, maybe not. If he were to teach a general science course, I don't know.
But that's a decision for the department to make, not the Texas legislature.
This doesn't prevent us from laughing at creationists.
So would you not hire Einstein because he said, "God does not play dice with the universe"
That's called quote mining, and is a quick sign that the rest of your post is pointless stupidity. Einstein had a tendency to use poetic statements to attempt to illustrate principles he was trying to communicate.
He also said:
About God, I cannot accept any concept based on the authority of the Church. As long as I can remember, I have resented mass indocrination. I do not believe in the fear of life, in the fear of death, in blind faith. I cannot prove to you that there is no personal God, but if I were to speak of him, I would be a liar. I do not believe in the God of theology who rewards good and punishes evil. My God created laws that take care of that. His universe is not ruled by wishful thinking, but by immutable laws.
That sounds pretty much like he falls into the category of "not a creationist", no matter how much you quote-mine and misrepresent things. The same applies to the rest, so yes, you are a dumbass, but it's mostly because you use either poorly researched or deliberately misleading statements to attempt to prop up a failed point.