Question: should the following statement get a science professor ousted from teaching?
the presence of a creative deity in the universe is clearly a scientific hypothesis. Indeed, it is hard to imagine a more momentous hypothesis in all of science.
Richard Dawkins
And for exploring aspects of this most momentous hypothesis in all of science, Dr. Crocker was removed from teaching at George Mason.
As reported by Casey Luskin at www.EvolutionNews.org
there are cases documenting genuine discrimination against scientists who support intelligent design (ID). One of those incidents took place at George Mason University (GMU), where Caroline Crocker was ousted from teaching biology because she challenged to neo-Darwinian evolution and favorably mentioned ID in the classroom. Dr. Crocker later appeared in Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed, but now many more details about Caroline Crocker’s story are revealed in her new autobiographical book, Free to Think: Why Scientific Integrity Matters.
…
Crocker challenged evolution in the classroom, she was recognized as an outstanding teacher. At the very time Crocker was told by her Department Head that she would be disciplined for challenging Darwin, she received a performance review from her Provost that called her teaching “outstanding” as “evidenced by unusually high student rankings”! The Provost even praised her, saying, “This kind of teaching quality is essential for this vital educational program, and we’re very grateful for your successful efforts.”Such statements hardly describe a teacher who would otherwise be expected to soon lose her job. Yet Crocker did subsequently lose her job, and we know exactly why. As Crocker documents in her book, her administrators didn’t want her challenging Darwin.
Notes:
1. Ben Stein’s endorsement:
“A chilling true life story of how free speech and free inquiry rights have simply vanished in a large swath of the academic community. This story would be depressing in a 1950’s Iron Curtain country. Unfortunately, it’s a contemporary American story and far more upsetting for that reason. This shutdown of the search for truth is not something that could happen. It DID happen.”
2. visit: www.FreeToThinkNow.com
3. Here is an 8-minute video documentary on Coral Ridge Hour describing Dr. Crocker. It also highlights attorney Edward Sisson of Arnold and Porter recounting how he was forced by George Mason to drop Caroline Crocker as his client when he was representing her against George Mason:
Intelligent Design Controversy.
4. formally speaking ID is less ambitous than searching for a creative deity, it searches for a creative intelligence. But even if Dr. Crocker were guilty of hypothesizing a creative Deity versus a mere intelligence, would that justify her ouster?
Why is it that all scientific theories and hypotheses are open to interpretation and revision except Darwin’s?
I’m genuinely curious about this matter. Any scientific hypothesis or theory should be open to debate at any time. But question Darwin and the first thing you hear is generally an ad hominem attack (“You’re just stupid creationists/IDiots!”).
Richard Conn Henry pointed out in the Prestigous Scientific Journal Nature the possibility of God’s existence. This happened a few weeks after Crocker’s ouster in 2005.
See:
The Quantum Enigma of Consciousness and the Identity of the Designer
If on scientific grounds, God’s existence is hypothesized, why should ID, which makes a more modest claim, be rejected as a scientific hypothesis?
So Dawkins said this:
“the presence of a creative deity in the universe is clearly a scientific hypothesis. Indeed, it is hard to imagine a more momentous hypothesis in all of science.” Richard Dawkins
It sometimes amazes me that Darwinists can have such vivid imaginations so as to dream up all sorts of unsubstantiated conjectures for evolution, and yet they lack the minimal level of imagination needed to envision the unchecked levels of chaos that would be visited upon the universe if reality had not in fact been ordered by the mind of God.
To me this order that we find imposed on the universe is no small wonder,, for example exactly why should the space-time that I experience always give me the correct value of pi and not some other value that is at variance with other people’s measurement for pi? There is absolutely no reason to a-priori expect such consistency for measurements if the universe were actually the result of mindless chaos as the atheists insist:
notes:
The Known Universe – Dec. 2009 – very cool video (please note the centrality of the earth in the universe)
http://www.metacafe.com/watch/4240304/
Proverbs 8:26-27
While as yet He had not made the earth or the fields, or the primeval dust of the world. When He prepared the heavens, I was there, when He drew a circle on the face of the deep,
Mathematics is the language with which God has written the universe.
Galileo Galilei
The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics in the Natural Sciences – Eugene Wigner
Excerpt: The miracle of the appropriateness of the language of mathematics for the formulation of the laws of physics is a wonderful gift which we neither understand nor deserve. We should be grateful for it and hope that it will remain valid in future research and that it will extend, for better or for worse, to our pleasure, even though perhaps also to our bafflement, to wide branches of learning.
http://www.dartmouth.edu/~matc.....igner.html
The Underlying Mathematical Foundation Of The Universe -Walter Bradley – video
http://www.metacafe.com/watch/4491491
The book is available at Amazon also.
It is currently ranked:
ID is not the same as creationism, but I’m arguing, even on the assumption Dr. Crocker explored the hypothesis of a creative deity, is this not a scientific hypothesis according to Dawkins?
Anyway, here is a summary of the book by one reviewer from Amazon:
One thing I’ve never understood about the Crocker case – why wasn’t she cell biology in a cell biology class anyway?
Scordova,
It seems to me that a lot of people are having a problem differentiating between the two.
Maybe you could write an essay outlining the fundamental difference between that pair? They look like Siamese twins to me, but that may of course be entirely my own fault.
Cabal:
You know or should know that the UD Weak Argument Correctives — and many other sources — demolish precisely this common, rhetorically loaded, agenda driven false allegation that has been assiduously spread by those with obvious axes to grind, starting with Ms Barbara Forrest of the New Orleans [Secular] Humanist Association.
GEM of TKI
That is a good objection, and I’m in the middle of writing a post to clarify. But briefly:
There is surely a relationship between creationism and ID. I will state it thusly:
alternatively
Which leads to the contrapositive statement
Thus creationists do have a stake in ID being true, but the converse is not necessarily true.
It is INNACURATE to say:
or the equally INACCURATE statement
From these considerations we can see ID is not equivalent to creationism, but the two have a relationship to one another as I described above.
One other forumulation that distinguishes the two is likened to the issue of the Great Pyramids of Egypt or the Faces on Mount Rushmore.
Intelligent Design asserts an answer to the question: “Was the object (say the Pyramids, or Mount Rushmore faces) designed”. Recall the definition of ID is :
Once the question of Design is tentatively answered in the affirmative, this leads to other questions:
Those question are the forensic reconstruction of the history of the artifact. With respect to biology, creationism hypothesizes answers to WHO, WHAT, WHERE, WHEN, HOW.
ID is used to answer the question of WHETHER something is designed, and it can be used to help answer the WHAT question too.
Not everyone will agree with the way I compartmentalized ID and creationism, but when I posed the question to Stephen Meyer last year he said creationism asserts a particular chronology. That agrees with my conception as well, and I elaborated above some of the other ways to see the distinction.
Darwin attempted to falsify the hypothesis of special creation, but even had he done so, it would not have falsified intelligent design.
One can see he did not necessarily think falsification of special creation necessarily falsified ID (which is exactly what I claim):
It should be noted, ID is not limited to biological arguments of special creation. Darwin seemed cognizant of that. Special creation could be false, but ID could still be true. That is how Darwin saw it and that is a correct distinction between ID and special creation.
With respect to Dr. Crocker and creationism, she is undecided as far as I know. In fact she asked me once to explain creationism to her. Some churches have barred her from speaking because she does not consider herself a creationist. I sincerely think she is undecided on the matter.
How many christians are also creationists I wonder? The theory of evolution is often portrayed as anti-christian, or athiest, but I guess that’s only by christians who believe in creationism.
My view is there is nothing pro or anti religion in TE. It simply doesn’t concern itself with that question (similarly with the question of morality).
There must be vast numbers of christians in the world (including I assume most catholics) who fully support TE. I think perhaps other than the the US (and maybe some African countries) the majority of christians in the world don’t accept creationism? (But could be wrong).
Not to belittle any of the hardships that ID advocates, such as Dr. Crocker and company, have unjustly faced in academic America, but this video reminded me that there are people in the world who pay, and have paid, a far more heavy price for standing up for the truth:
Experiencing Jesus Christ – Francis Chan – video
http://www.metacafe.com/watch/4928919
zeroseven,
Creationism is a large tent. If we want to talk about Biblical Creationism, we are referring to the Genesis account of creation.
Scientific Creationism attempts to find a scientific basis for the Genesis account of creation. There are a number of “sub camps” in Scientific Creationism, including Young Earth and Old Earth Creationism.
ID does not attempt to find a scientific basis for the Genesis accounts of creation, and therefore, cannot be considered Scientific Creationism. However, within Scientific Creationism, there are proponents who refer to the same arguments against Darwinian Evolution, and I think this is where the confusion stems.
There are Christians in the ID camp, as well as in the TE camp, who would be considered Biblical Creationists from a theological and not a scientific perspective.
I don’t know Crocker’s stance on Biblical Creationism, but I think it’s clear by her own admission that she is not a Scientific Creationist.
zeroseven,
So I think you would be correct that a great many (I don’t think I could back up saying a “vast majority”) of Christians do not fall under Scientific Creationism.
However, I think it’s safe to say that a vast majority of Christians do accept Biblical Creationism, including many who accept TE.