John Patterson is one of the Iowa State faculty currently opposing ID and Guillermo Gonzalez (go here). Patterson, an avowed atheist, has a history of censoring ideas inconsistent with his atheism. As one of my colleagues reports:
The current controversy at Iowa State Univ. about
Guillermo Gonzalez has a precedent involving the ISU
emeritus professor of engineering John (Jack) Patterson.
About 20 years ago, Patterson proposed giving
ISU professors the power to fail students who disagreed
with Darwinian evolution — whatever the students’
actual performance in science courses.In other words, if a biology student earned an “A” in
his or her work, but nevertheless rejected Darwinism,
professors should be allowed to flunk him.One summary of Patterson’s proposal and its
reception by the ISU community at the time
is available here:http://www.apologeticspress.org/rr/pdfs/0212res.pdf
Ken Frazier, the editor of Skeptical Inquirer, also
covered the situation in a series of articles (see
e.g., “Science and Creationism at Iowa State,” Skeptical
Inquirer vol 4 no 2). The ISU student paper also
covered the controversy.I don’t know if Patterson has changed his views
about his proposal in the intervening two decades.
It would be interesting to ask him.
So, John, have the last 20 years made you more or less of a bigot?