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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!
Not really....
In other words, he had been acting like an asshole at work for years, and when cuts came around, they decided to get rid of an asshole. Guess what? If you act like an asshole at work, you MIGHT GET FIRED.
If you don't adapt......
There are still people out there who believe Einstein was religious?
-- All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. -- Edmund Burke
Einstein wasn't religious. In fact he did not believe in a god. Religious people like to pull select quotes from him to make him appear to be religious, to use as an argument from authority against atheists, but there is a detailed letter that he wrote in which he categorically denied believing in god.
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.
"In a letter to Beatrice Frohlich, 17 December 1952 Einstein stated, "The idea of a personal God is quite alien to me and seems even naïve." [8] Eric Gutkind sent a copy of his book "Choose Life: The Biblical Call To Revolt" [9] to Einstein in 1954. Einstein sent Gutkind a letter in response and wrote, "The word God is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weaknesses, the Bible a collection of honourable, but still primitive legends. No interpretation no matter how subtle can (for me) change this. These subtilised interpretations are highly manifold according to their nature and have almost nothing to do with the original text."
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious_views_of_Albert_Einstein#section_2
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.
Let's assume that he is even right for a moment on all his issues. He is in an environment of people who really don't like any of these positions; yet he keeps bringing them up and pushing them in others' faces. Can you imagine what this tool was like to work with on normal issues?
I suspect he was fired for not being able to read others and play well with others. In an engineering/science world this would be quite an accomplishment to stand out by having poor social skills.
I know a parent at a private school who was equally religious about her health-food lifestyle and was always pushing it down people's throats. The other parents suddenly had important texts to send when she showed up. Where she crossed the line was when she began to try an enforce her view on the other kids arguing it was unfair to her kids to have to see them eating junk food like milk, wheat based bread, and cheese. The school asked her not to enroll the next year.
There are people who don't understand boundaries and they can create a poisonous atmosphere.
It is like fat people being angry when skinny people eat donuts. Fat people aren't the problem, donuts aren't the problem, it is the fat people imposing on the skinny that is the problem.
According to Prince Hubertus, Einstein said, "In view of such harmony in the cosmos which I, with my limited human mind, am able to recognize, there are yet people who say there is no God. But what really makes me angry is that they quote me for the support of such views." [16]
Einstein had previously explored the belief that man could not understand the nature of God. In an interview published in 1930 in G. S. Viereck's book Glimpses of the Great, Einstein, in response to a question about whether or not he believed in God, explained: Your question [about God] is the most difficult in the world. It is not a question I can answer simply with yes or no. I am not an Atheist. I do not know if I can define myself as a Pantheist. The problem involved is too vast for our limited minds. May I not reply with a parable? The human mind, no matter how highly trained, cannot grasp the universe. We are in the position of a little child, entering a huge library whose walls are covered to the ceiling with books in many different tongues. The child knows that someone must have written those books. It does not know who or how. It does not understand the languages in which they are written. The child notes a definite plan in the arrangement of the books, a mysterious order, which it does not comprehend, but only dimly suspects. That, it seems to me, is the attitude of the human mind, even the greatest and most cultured, toward God. We see a universe marvelously arranged, obeying certain laws, but we understand the laws only dimly. Our limited minds cannot grasp the mysterious force that sways the constellations. I am fascinated by Spinoza's Pantheism. I admire even more his contributions to modern thought. Spinoza is the greatest of modern philosophers, because he is the first philosopher who deals with the soul and the body as one, not as two separate things. [17]
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious_views_of_Albert_Einstein#section_2
That makes sense because you already share the same beliefs as your "religious colleagues". So why would the "personal beliefs" be "offensive" to you?
Since you do not share the same beliefs as the "atheists" then their beliefs are more "offensive" to you when they interject them.
Are they being an asshole about it? Because those don't seem like work-related subjects.
You don't seem to be understanding the situation.
It isn't the nature of the beliefs.
It is the asshole pushing them in an asshole'ish fashion and INSISTING that his "freedom" is more important than anyone else's freedom to NOT have his religious beliefs inflicted upon them AT WORK.
It is interested that practicing and promoting Christian sharia law while accepting taxpayer handouts is acceptable, even mandatory, by the wing nut right, and considered protected speech, but any other religious law is considered illegal activity. Case in point. We have holiday parties because some don't want taxpayer money to be used to indoctrinate their kids into the some Christian ideal that physical gifts, not love or the acceptance of the savior is the critical parts of Christmas. We see this in the fact that many Christians want Christmas sales, not holiday sales, to cement the connection between manufactured secular good and a very important, at least to some, Christian festival. This promotion is to such a point that many have called such separation between religion and the money changes a 'war on Christmas.' It seems simple enough to say we don't like sharia law, and it is cause for termination to promote it, but obviously if one is Christian wasting taxpayer money to annoy your workers is a god given and constitutional right.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
Yes, Christians post his picture and a quote about knowing God on facebook all the time.
Made-up quote you mean.
Like all pain, suffering is a signal that something isn't right
Im still not really clear why anyone should care about the religious beliefs of Newton or Einstein.
This, ever so much.
I personally do not believe in a god.
My workplace however is full of religious people, primarily christian I believe.
My boss, whom is self-adamantly religious, is one of the nicest, kind and generous people I've had the pleasure of meeting. My boss is also the founder and one of three owners of the company.
Other than as side effects, the fact he is religious has never once come up. The fact that I am not has never once come up.
He has mentioned in conversation details that indicate he is, such as "a friend from church" and such. He has never once pushed anything religious on me or anyone else that I'm aware of.
In fact I have no idea if he is even aware of my own beliefs.
Recently I spoke with him about hiring another person for my department. He took my requirements list and went to make a posting on a job site.
The next day he came back with a resume, saying this was a friend from church he's known for some time who he wanted me to consider.
This was the first time religion was ever discussed between us, and then it was only to state flat out that I shouldn't base my hiring decisions on the fact this is his friend, or that he is from his church. I should base it on nothing but his qualifications just as with any other resume sent in.
What matters about a person is not what religion they are, if any, but if they are the kind of person that does not force their ideals on others.
People who can't take the hint that you don't want to talk about a subject, and especially so after being told, are the problem. People who force whatever ideal they have on others out of context are the problem.
As you say, the ones that are nuts.
I too have had the displeasure of knowing such an atheist, which might have been a little worse as he assumed I would be a kendered spirit and help push his arguments or something.
I couldn't stand being around him any more than the religious nuts who do the same thing.
It really shouldn't be this hard to keep your personal crap personal, and can't understand why so many people feel such a strong need to piss off others and make them hate your cause by proxy of your poor behavior. It's like enticing someone with pain and stabbing instead of cookies and chocolate. But they can't grasp all humans are not clones and do not believe the same things.
The world would be such a better place if we could round up all the nuts and fling them off into the sun :/
They tolerate Behe at Lehigh University. He does his job, and does not misuse his academic position to further his private aims within the confines of the University. Firing him because of his belief in ID would be wrong.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
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 work with a guy who through the years has slowly shown his beliefs. We often have cigarette breaks together and talk about whatever. He knows that I'm really interested in science and archaeology and one day he says "So did you hear they found Noah's Arc?" My blood boiled at this statement alone. A couple Korean evangelicals had claimed to have found the Arc. There wasn't even strong evidence that this could be the Arc but here he goes claiming it is Noah's freaking arc... I corrected him, probably with some visible agitation. Then he came back with "Yeah, well wouldn't that be cool if it was Noah's Arc?" I replied "not really," that isn't what I believe in so it wouldn't be pretty cool for me. What I will give you is that it would be amazing, not just that they found it but that every animal on earth was in fact put on one boat by God's orders, that would be amazing." My response pissed him off too, he paused and his cheeks flushed.
After a few moments we started talking about his dog, who I agree is probably one of the most awesome dogs around...
So I do think he's pretty loony for believing in a literal interpretation of Noah's Arc. I thought he had a greater capacity for critical thinking but oh well that's my opinion and my belief. What matters is that was the moment he found out what I believe and I found out what he believes. From that point forward we both dropped it, we haven't talked about religion again. That is how you handle situations like this. If the non work-related conversation causes conflict at work, that conversation better not happen again. Why can't more people do this?
Without a doubt. I lost one job because my boss was a Catholic nut job. He decided once he found out I was gay that I wasn't needed anymore. Of course couched in terms of performance.
Religion is like a penis. It's okay to have one, play with it, show it to people if they wanna see it, but you just can't whip it out in public and start cramming it down peoples' throats...
Fairly certain Einstein never said he knew God on Facebook.
What I think what religious people don't get is that the non-religious people don't care what Einstein's views on religious were, because they don't need constant confirmation of their beliefs. Not running into god(s) every single day of their lives is enough.
Help I am stuck in a signature factory!
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.
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That's just cuz God unfriended him after Einstein stopped showing up for his Farm.
Einstein wasn't religious at all. He did believe in God, but his notion of the deity was pretty abstract.
Aside from that detail, I agree with your post. I'd even go one step further: many atheists like to label themselves "skeptics", a label which once described critical examination of fringe science, but which now is simply an excuse for bigoted, ad hominem attacks on anybody or anything that doesn't align with the prejudices of said "skeptic." Basically a fancy word for trolling.
I should add that I myself am an atheist, but one that respects the beliefs of the religious. I can name many religious people who are intelligent, tolerant, and open-minded.
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."
Atheism ! = Religion
"The hands that help are better far than lips that pray." - Robert Ingersoll (1833-1899)
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.