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JPL Employee's Firing Wasn't Due To Intelligent Design Advocacy, Says Judge
SternisheFan writes with an update to a story from earlier this year about a lawsuit in which David Coppedge alleged he was fired from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory for his advocacy of Intelligent Design. Now, a judge has ruled that Coppedge was legitimately dismissed for performance reasons. From the article:
"n 2009, he apparently got a bit aggressive about promoting these ideas at work, leading one employee to complain. The resulting investigation found that he had also aggressively promoted his opinion on California's gay marriage ban, and had attempted to get JPL's holiday party renamed to 'Christmas party.' ... Coppedge was warned about his behavior at work, but he felt it was an infringement of his religious freedom, so he sued. Shortly after, as part of a set of cutbacks on the Cassini staff, he was fired. In court, Coppedge and his lawyer portrayed him as being targeted for promoting an idea that is, to put it mildly, not popular with scientists. But JPL's legal team introduced evidence that his aggressive promotion of it at work was part of a pattern of bad interactions with his fellow employees that dated back at least five years earlier."
An advocate of Intelligent Design who wasn't competent to work in a scientific organization? I'm SHOCKED!
OK, your sarcasm is on point, but... I wonder... Think about this: is it possible that the level of aggressive misbehavior exhibited by this person was fueled by cognitive dissonance? Was he trying to convince his coworkers or himself?
(Either way, firing him was the right thing to do and he deserves whatever mockery and sarcasm we can dish out.)
But Einstein was not a fanatic trying to force his believes on others. Religion is fine if kept polite. The bible states 'neither cast ye your pearls before swine'. Dont waste your time on those not willing to listen. Freedom of religion is fine, freedom of speech is great. You dont walk into the center of the opposing opinion and start shoving your ideas down their throats and expect open arms and high fives. Bible thumpers can be a bit nuts, but atheists can be equally nuts. JPL justly fired a nut.
Let's suppose that somebody at JPL was promoting atheism, complained that the Christmas party should be renamed to the Holiday party, and suggested that California allow gay marriage. Would that be offensive as well? Be careful about piling on with "serves him right" when somebody is fired for what amounts to political incorrectness in the workplace. Without more detail I am skeptical of the accusations that he was "too aggressive" with this stuff or that it was a serious dereliction of his job. In my experience, many atheists are offended even by any public display of personal religious belief and practice, or any religious people engaging in discussion with others about it. They think religious people should be forced to maintain an appearance of secular belief when in public places, which is actually absurd and offensive in its own way.
As a religious person who works professionally with a diverse bunch of colleagues, I have experienced offensive pushing of personal beliefs from atheists much more often than from religious colleagues. And frankly, it's my habit to just smile and get along. I don't think my colleagues should be fired for promoting atheism, gay marriage, abortion, or what have you.
Never doubt the ability that people have to compartmentalize their thinking. You can actually have a lot of technical skills, and even a lot of science knowledge, yet hold fairly bizarre views that are directly contradicted by the evidence that you know. It's kinda hard to do if you actually have to use the principles that directly contradict your beliefs (i.e., you usually won't find young-earth creationists doing research in evolutionary biology), but most scientific fields are broad enough that you can easily specialize in something that won't threaten your bizarre beliefs.
Also, could a religious organization not fire someone who is promoting ideas contrary to the church? Why should a secular organization have to tolerate religious fanaticism if a religious organization does not have to tolerate other views?
Im still not really clear why anyone should care about the religious beliefs of Newton or Einstein.
The way I see it is that someone with a personal belief will try to get a measure of authority by earning a degree in a related field of science.
Remember that getting a degree does NOT mean that you agree with the material. Only that you have mastered the material.
Then they write books about their beliefs and make sure that their degree(s) are included in their author bio.
Maybe they'll find a job with some real research firm or something. But that is a bit difficult after their first book is published and anyone looks up their name on Google.
When religious people try to back up their (bogus) scientific arguments, they like to cite religious scientists as if it the existence of scientists who are religious makes the arguments more compelling. "Famous scientist X was religious, so shouldn't you accept my religiously-motivated supposedly scientific arguments too?" It's basically an argument by authority.
It's irrelevant, of course.
I think it's a lot more likely that he was simply a aggressive, socially awkward guy who simply didn't know when to shut the fuck up about the things he was really "into". Not that much of a departure from fairly typical geek behavior, he just happened to be into a "hobby" that rubbed a lot of his fellow geeks the wrong way and they were less patient with.
I have no sympathy for the guy, but I work with people like this who get nutty over their pet issues and drive me up the wall too - every one of you reading this probably know someone like this as well - and if you don't, you're probably the one everybody else in your workplace thinks of.
The "War on Christmas" is actually a war on inclusive society. It exists only in the minds of people who feel persecuted if they aren't allowed force their ways on everyone else.
Also, I would be willing to wager that the people screaming loudest about the (imagined) incorporation of Sharia into US law are the same people who are demanding loudest to have US law to force *their* religious scruples on the rest of us.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Alchemy and occultism in Newton's sense meant "I'm a scientist but I don't know what science is." He wanted to understand the world, even though the methods for doing so weren't worked out very well yet. In an era when we didn't have any clue how causality actually worked, sometimes that meant entertaining bizarre notions which we know only in hindsight were superstitious.
Bio questions? Ask me to start a Q&A journal. Computer analogies available for most topics!
Einstein rejected the label atheist, which he associated with certainty regarding God's nonexistence.
even so 'short' a time ago as this, people were threatened (death threats and other, uhm, career-limiting things) if they did not go along with the mainstream religion.
you cannot go by what someone says, if they felt fear for what might happen if they were honest.
only very brave folks would dare admit that they were athiest.
and back then, it was extremely uncommon to 'fess up' about your true feelings on this subject.
--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
What makes you think a "present-day scientist" in any less superstitious than any other human? What makes you think the conclusions being reached today are not in fact stupid and wrong?
The scientific method.