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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.'"
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?
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"
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.
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
actually, this bill is discrimination against every other religion that's out there. So I'm amazed they will try to do this. A law against "discrimination of all religions" is different than a law against discrimination of a single religion. This would be laughed out of courts and overturned pretty fast if it ever passed and was challenged.
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.
What about the Flat Earthers? They deserve just as much respect as the ID mob.
I live ze unknown. I love ze unknown. I am ze unknown.
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.
Is it Ironic that you can't see how the second paragraph lumps you in with the people in the first paragraph?
As far I understand everything you complain about in the second paragraph are imaginary problems that don't actually exist:
Science hasn't broken faith with you. You've broken faith with it. You attack it based on rumors and innuendo.
You're falling into the same trap as the "morons" you dislike. You believe ridiculous fairy tales because that's what you want to believe, you either refuse to look at or consider the evidence that contradicts what you believe and you repeat lies to justify your erroneous conclusions.
Fanatically anti-fanatical
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.
Do you really feel that ANYTHING will make them rethink their views?
Yes. I've turned around a lot of folks on various woo topics by simply not acting like a dick. I even convinced some that the last Bush administration was really, really bad, and I didn't have yo call him Shrub or Dumbya or anything. Fancy that!
The moment you reduce any opposition to mindless robots and start name calling *you* have failed.
I like the world you live in - where all people change their opinions and beliefs once they learn new facts or contrary rational arguments. I really wish I lived there.
You do. The number of extremists on many issues is not as large as you think. Turn off the news channels and pundits and hyberbolic blogs for a while and go meet real people.
Why not hurl a few rocks their way?
Because it doesn't work, and you are now operating on a zero level of intellect. Any claim to intellectual superiority will be soundly and justifiably laughed at.
By that reasoning, we shouldn't be teaching our children anything in schools at all, and definitely not ever testing them. This isn't a question of having an open mind to competing theories. You are arguing that basic scientific rigor leads to a lack of scientific progress.
Assholes like you try to convolute nebulous mysticism with science and pretend that the two are somehow on equal footing, and the rest of us get stuck trying to keep our children from getting taught this festering pile of lies. Come talk to me about perspective and insight when you bring along a hypothesis that is both testable and not already empirically proven untrue. Until then, you aren't offering valid criticism, you are spewing worthless bullshit.