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Post by unkleE on Feb 18, 2011 1:55:20 GMT
Gaskell has been confronted with the fact he quietly removed the damning sections of that essay sometime between that date and November 1997 and has not seen fit to explain the convenient editing in any way. That reeks of underhand manipulation of the record. If, as you claim, he simply changed his mind, why doesn’t he say that? The evidence is there in his quiet and convenient revisions and his lack of an explanation for them. Show me Gaskell saying “I changed my mind and I was wrong to endorse blatant Creationist propaganda” and you’ll have a case. I'll have a case?? I am simply taking things at face value, but I still have an open mind. You have a hypothesis that all is not as it seems, and that hypothesis is looking very thin. Let's summarise the evidence. 1. You say "Gaskell has been confronted". I haven't seen this, but I presume it's there or you wouldn't mention it. What is the reference? 2. Perhaps you can specify exactly how you allege he has changed his mind? Is it simply in his referencing an ID book or two that he has dropped from his reference list? 3. You have an expectation that he should clearly state that he has changed his mind. But on what basis do you have this expectation? Do you publicly announce when you have changed your mind? I didn't when I changed my mind about evolution, I think I would sound like a wanker if I did. Did James make a public announcement when he changed his mind about evolution? Did Jeff Schloss who Humphrey mentioned? I don't know, maybe some of them did. But I don't think so because few of us have Damascus road experiences, but we change our minds in small decisions that gradually add up. And our changed views come out in what we say and write. As his did in his changes to his public material. Your expectation here seems quite unreasonable. 4. You say he "has not seen fit to explain the convenient editing in any way", and you insinuate something underhand by the use of adjectives and phrases like "quiet", "keeping as quiet as possible" and "convenient". But do you know that he hasn't done this somewhere - to colleagues for example in private emails? You offer no evidence, just smear. 5. Against your hypothesis is the fact that several apparently independent sources (AAAS, NAS, Daily Tech) accept the genuineness of his position, and a colleague of 20 years states quite clearly that "He doesn’t discount or disbelieve evolution" . (Yes, she is a christian, but how far are you going to take your conspiracy theories?) Further, in his blog post, Gaskell quotes three other independent scientists (James Krupa & Sheldon Steiner of University of Kentucky, and Eugenie Scott of NCSE) who say they know nothing in his talks or lecture notes that were contrary to established evolutionary science. 6. Finally, you'll find this quote exactly the same in both versions of the paper: "This is probably a good place to state that I personally have no theological problem with the idea of God doing things in the ways described in modern theories of evolution (i.e., "theistic evolution")." Sure sounds like he was always a theistic evolutionist, just back then he was more open to reading ID than he later became! So, so far there is no evidence presented to support your hypothesis and some substantial evidence against it. Until there is some genuine evidence, you don't have an argument, just a prejudice. I am open to the facts - I am as critical of christians who are blind to facts as you are of atheists who do the same, but I simply haven't seen any facts. I suggest your first thought ( "I've weighed in on the Guardian site in defence of Gaskell, since he declares himself a theistic evolutionist.") is looking the right one unless contrary evidence turns up. So I'll leave you to it. I am more interested in the issue of prejudice and whether a christian or a sceptic of some aspects of science can thereby be considered unfit for a job they are qualified in.
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Post by timoneill on Feb 18, 2011 2:48:10 GMT
Tim Maybe this is an American thing but in the US we believe you have a right to your personal views and the right to associate with who you will. His views on biology did not affect his ability to do astronomy nor did his associations affect his ability to astronomy and that is all that matters. No, that isn’t “an American thing”, most western nations have that right. If you read the correspondence on why they made the decision they did, they considered a number of factors and his views on biology and, more importantly, his connections with the ID movement and endorsement of the faux-science of Creationism were legimiately considered, given that this role involved talking to the public about science. It was far from the only consideration but it was entirely relevant. And the context of the e-mail made it clear which “opinions” were being referred to – his support of ID etc. You’ve chosen to ignore that and conclude the problem was simply that he was a Christian. That makes no sense. Er, no – it’s based on some ludicrously naïve, ignorant and cartoonishly simplistic comments you made, where your sweeping generalisations based on nothing at all showed quite clearly that you have no idea how science as a discipline works. If scientists simply resisted all change and rejected all contrary evidence as a matter of course, as you claim, we would have no development in any scientific field, no adjustment of any theory or change in any understanding in science. That patently isn’t the case. What you’ve stated is nonsense when it comes to a description of what happens when scientists are confronted with contrary evidence. It is however a fairly accurate description of what happens when religious apologists are in the same situation. What I actually said was that it is likely, given the demographics of Kentucky, that many of the committee were themselves Christians. That is hardly “without an iota of evidence”. And the context of the e-mail makes it clear what specific “religious views” were being referred to. I like to keep context in mind rather than leaping to unwarranted conclusions. Having been involved in two court cases myself, I know for a fact that there are many reasons people settle even if they do think they have good case. I’m also fairly sure this is the case in the US as well, unless Americans are all pig-headed idiots. You might want to try using fewer sweeping generalisations. You seem to paint the whole world in black and white and use a very broad brush while doing so.
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Post by krkey1 on Feb 18, 2011 3:06:24 GMT
Well Tim I am going to leave it at this.
The university said they did it cause he was a Christian ( I think they ought to know why they did it). If they had wanted to do it because of pseudo science they had many ways they could have said that. If not, why not? Do you have some secret decoder that reveals to people when religious beliefs= intelligent design/creationism. If so would you share it.
And even if it was about ID/Creationism it is irrelevant. It has nothing to do with astronomy or blackholes.
All I see right now is an atheist defending prejudice against someone for having maverick views in an unrelated subject to the job in question and somehow thinks he knows more about why the university did not hire the person in question then the university itself.
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Post by timoneill on Feb 18, 2011 3:19:52 GMT
The evidence is there in his quiet and convenient revisions and his lack of an explanation for them. Show me Gaskell saying “I changed my mind and I was wrong to endorse blatant Creationist propaganda” and you’ll have a case. I'll have a case?? I am simply taking things at face value, but I still have an open mind. Sorry, but you’re trying to explain away his removal of the endorsement of Creationist and ID material by claiming he “changed his mind”. You have no evidence for that, you’re just trying to get him off a pointy and uncomfortable hook. Read his apologia on the blog you linked to in your first post. He mentions the Modern Astronomy, the Bible and Creation essay/lecture but doesn’t bother to mention its earlier version or any change in his thinking. And he is confronted by those changes in the second comment on that post and doesn’t come back to talk about any change of his mind. It still looks like he is trying to paint himself as a poor theistic evolutionist who has been misrepresented by wicked “gnu atheists”, while downplaying or ignoring evidence that he has endorsed blatant Creationist material and was involved in his local ID group. “Simply”? And he didn’t just “reference” them, he recommended them and called one (a notorious piece of Creationist crap) “even-handed” and “non-religious”. I have an expectation that you provide some evidence that he did. You’re the one making the claim. And yes, such a statement would not only be the kind of evidence we’d need but also precisely what we’d expect him to highlight in his defence. His lack of any such explanation for the strange and suspicious changes to his essay or for his association with an ID group means his “Oh, I am but a poor theistic evolutionist afflicted for my faith!” act rings more than a little hollow. Kind of weird that he was endorsing Creationist propaganda and working with his local ID group then, isn’t it? And “more open” to giving ringing endorsements to Of Pandas and People. Which is about the equivalent of saying that a historian was “more open” to endorsing Did Six Million Die? and that this doesn’t mean he has sympathies with Holocaust Denial and so should be taken on as a museum’s public outreach officer. I’ve posted a link to the summary of the reasons he didn’t get the job already and it’s quite clear that his previous associations with dubious Creationist/ID ideas were a factor, but far from the only one. To paint him, as some of the vociferous non-believers on Myers’ blog and the Guardian site did, as a YEC is ludicrous. But to pretend his endorsement of scientifically suspect and ideologically partisan movements of zero repute weren’t going to be a factor in his candidature for a public-facing science role (in Kentucky!) is absurd. This guy was not simply a theistic evolutionist persecuted by bad atheists for being a Christian. That idea is as dumb and over-simplified as the vociferous commenters’ caricature. As someone who makes a call on hiring decisions every day, I can see why they didn’t hire him. I wouldn’t have either.
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Post by timoneill on Feb 18, 2011 3:33:32 GMT
Well Tim I am going to leave it at this. Why do I get the funny feeling that isn’t true … Patent nonsense – the university said nothing of the sort. You’ve decided to read that into what they actually said, after conveniently ignoring the context that shows precisely which “religious beliefs” they did have a problem with. I’m going on the letter that summarised the various reasons for their quite reasonable decision and which makes it clear that “He is a Christian” wasn’t one of them. For a guy to work as adviser to his local ID advocacy group and then expect people not to worry about putting him in a position for the public representation of science is ludicrous enough, but to sue over this entirely reasonable decision is nuts. Still, in the US you can sue over slipping in spilled coffee, so perhaps it’s a cultural thing. And my assessment is not as “an atheist” (you seem to love that pigeon-holing along with sweeping genralisations), but as someone trying to be as fair as possible given the evidence and some partisan hooting and hollering on both sides. I’ve read the reasons they gave for their decision and he does not sound like “the best person for the job” at all. And that’s speaking as someone who makes those assessments for a living every day.
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Post by tertius on Feb 18, 2011 5:31:26 GMT
"Tim O'Neill Undogmatic Atheist Medievalist"
Sorry, but I have read this thread through carefully and in its entirety and one thing that is patently clear is that on this topic you Tim are in fact a dogmatist who is always right while anyone else wih a different point of view is wrong and possibly morally bankrupt... And you always have to have the last word, just to prove it.
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Post by timoneill on Feb 18, 2011 6:28:34 GMT
"Tim O'Neill Undogmatic Atheist Medievalist" Sorry, but I have read this thread through carefully and in its entirety and one thing that is patently clear is that on this topic you Tim are in fact a dogmatist who is always right ... Really? You've made this comment on a thread which began with me saying "I was under the impression X was true, but on considering more information, I now think Y". That doesn't sound "dogmatic" to me. I've changed my mind on this once and am open to doing so again. See above. And several of the people who have disagreed with me on this thread, like Unklee, Humphrey and James, are people I hold in high regard, respect greatly and think are top blokes. We disagree on this and we disagree on many other things. But I don't regard them as "possibly morally bankrupt". You seem to be new here. Try not to leap to absurd conclusions until you know the dramatis personae a little better. Yes, like I did on this thread. Ooops, no I let that one drop. Okay, how about this one? No, I let that one drop as well. Gosh, for a guy who always has to have the last word, I have this strange habit of ... letting others do so. Try not to leap to conclusions about people you don't know.
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Post by humphreyclarke on Feb 18, 2011 13:17:04 GMT
I see Tim's karma is down to zero again!
Again, I haven't considered the evidence in as much detail as UnkleE or Tim but my impression is that there isn't enough of a connection between Gaskell and the ID movement - and the bulk of the evidence for the connections that do exist come from some time back. That is significant because a number of Christians - most notably Jeff Schloss, but I'm sure there were others - were initially seduced by the ID movement and later distanced themselves from it towards the end of the last decade. Now it may be that Gaskell has sympathies with the IDers but he isn't exactly Michael Behe and he has stated his position as Theistic Evolution - plus his outreach work would have been in Astronomy not Biology.
Even then - say we were thinking of hiring the guy and we had those concerns about his religious beliefs - I'm sure we would never voice these concerns in a chain of incriminating email correspondence. I work in Corporate Sales and Marketing so I've only ever been on the periphery of hiring decisions but my impression is that if you are going to voice concerns that might be legally risky you have to have a pretty strong case and it just isn't there in my opinion (should have done it as an informal chat). The university really dropped the ball on this one.
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Post by timoneill on Feb 18, 2011 19:30:20 GMT
I see Tim's karma is down to zero again! Now it's up again. Like a bloody yo-yo. Or the Assyrian Empire. Maybe, but if you lie down with dogs ... If we read the e-mails about this decision again, they found the guy smart, interesting but hard to talk to because he didn't seem to listen well, and that he was if anything overqualified. The ID/Creationist stuff was a factor and I'd be happy to say perhaps they were overly cautious there, but if you're hiring for a public science PR role in a state that has a frigging museum featuring a diorama of Adam and Eve cavorting with dinosaurs while Yahweh watches from the sky, I'm going to cut them some slack there. Agreed on that. Something I drum into my managers is that they can't even write something in interview notes that they wouldn't be prepared to stand up and defend in a court of law. Even more bizarre was the fact that if was the hiring committee chair that leaked the committee's correspondence and encouraged Gaskell to sue. The whole thing was a mess.
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Post by gakuseidon on Feb 19, 2011 9:04:41 GMT
Krkey1, I think you need to be careful to separate out "theory of evolution" and "evolution". Evolution is as much a fact as anything; however, the theory of evolution -- the model that explains how evolution occurs -- is different. Some prominent evolutionists have questioned elements of the theory. But that in itself doesn't mean they believed that evolution didn't occur. The same people who would deny a man a job he is fully qualified for because of his views on a unrelated matter are hardly the people who can rationally critique their own views. I agree. It looks like Gaskell, though he had no problem with evolution, read some ID stuff and that probably made him think the theory was less clearcut than generally suspected. He thought he was being open-minded, I guess. Not the first time an expert in one field has fallen afoul of convincing writings in another. I understand the implications of having an employee being evangelical on ID, and if he were evangelising on the topic in 2010 then I can understand their reticence in employing him. But they didn't know that he was, nor did they appear to try to determine his current views on the topic to see how they differed from his views in 1997.
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Post by unkleE on Feb 19, 2011 10:59:29 GMT
Now that the dust has settled a little on issues relating to exactly what Gaskell's views are, I'd like to get back to the main reason I raised this matter. (BTW, I have started a thread on Intelligent Design to try to learn from people's perspective on it.) Even if we cannot agree on Gaskell's exact views and motivations, I think we can agree that issues are sometimes raised against scientists who are christians because of their faith, and an accusation may be made from the relatively mild "if you question established science you are disputing the scientific method and this should count against you" to the stronger "a deluded faithist cannot be a true scientist or they would not believe in God without scientific evidence". These sorts of comments have been made in the discussions on other blogs that I quoted at the beginning - for example: "You have no business teaching science if you believe in the supernatural and have a problem with people who don't." Another example is the way Francis Collins' appointment was criticised. I don't want to get into an argument about the details of such cases, still less a war of words, I want to discuss the underlying issue. What should be the attitude of academia to qualified scientists who hold what are seen as anti-scientific or supernatural views? Should belief in God disqualify anyone for any scientific post, should questioning aspects of evolution, should support for ID? On what principles should we base such a view? And if (as appears to be the case), even reasonable christians conclude differently to atheists, both reasonable and less so, what should we christians do about that? As I said before, I think this is an important matter and worth discussing thoughtfully. Thanks.
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Post by gakuseidon on Feb 19, 2011 12:12:58 GMT
Given that many scientists are also theists, I don't think there is necessarily a bias against theists. I think it was the combination of: 1. Gaskell referring to pro-ID books in his 1997 notes 2. Gaskell talking about his religion and science in the first place, marking him as "potentially evangelical" (whatever that means)
Imagine an outspoken political or social activist applying for a position that had high visibility. I think we'd see similar concerns. It's not their ability to do their job that is important, but the reflection on the image of the institution. The only question is whether Gaskell would have been bad from an image perspective. From what he's said I don't think so; but obviously the institution thought otherwise.
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Post by ignorantianescia on Feb 19, 2011 13:02:36 GMT
And if he was a Scientologist applying for a positon in a Psychology Department who had done some careful editing of an online essay to quietly remove his condemnation of modern psychiatry and books making crazy claims about psycho-pharmicology, would you still be defending him? Actually, I can see more of a case against the applicant in this example so I wouldn't consider the two analogous. Having been paranoid about psychiatry relates to psychology far more directly than ID to astronomy, not to say that ID's qualm with evolution appears to be IC and abiogenesis, which is quite a difference in range compared to, say, thinking psychiatrists are oppressing us. Even then, if the person who is applying claims not to hold these views, it seems unreasonable to hold them against him or her in my opinion so it would be discrimination nonetheless.
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Post by tertius on Feb 19, 2011 16:49:09 GMT
Tim O'Neill.
Be assured that while I may be new to commenting here, I have spent time reading this forum and in so doing have become familiar with the writing styles, positions and biases of a number of the regular here.
What I particularly noticed in your case was your self-description as an "undogmatic atheist medievalist". This left me quite bemused: do you mean your contributions on this forum are not dogmatic but rather examples of humility and rapprochement? To me they seem more like the writings of "a wry, dry, rather sarcastic, eccentric, silly, rather arrogant Irish-Australian atheist bastard... and prick" (to quote you from your interesting website)
This leads to the question of what exactly you mean by the term "undogmatic atheist medievalist"? Do you mean you are a medievalist devoid of dogma about the middle ages who happens to be an atheist? Surely not, for atheism is irrelevant to the study of medievalism (akin to the irrelevancy of an astronomer's views on biological evolution to his field of astronomy.)
So I assume you mean you are an "undogmatic atheist".
But what sort of creature is that?
Perhaps it is code for "polite atheist" or "weak atheist" or "civil atheist" or maybe even "atheist who thinks there 'could' be a god"? Really it does seem to be a non sequitur. Real atheists eat real meat surely, they take their atheism neat without equivocating about "lacking belief" in god. I am sure you are not that kind semantic game player.
Perhaps someone could start a thread (after all I am a novice here) discussing the etymology and nature of undogmatic atheism; and where you could explain your understanding of this beast and just how it plays out in the things you write at this forum.
Regards.
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Post by timoneill on Feb 19, 2011 21:42:05 GMT
What I particularly noticed in your case was your self-description as an "undogmatic atheist medievalist". This left me quite bemused: do you mean your contributions on this forum are not dogmatic but rather examples of humility and rapprochement? To me they seem more like the writings of "a wry, dry, rather sarcastic, eccentric, silly, rather arrogant Irish-Australian atheist bastard... and prick" Why, thank you. One who subscribes to what is otherwise known as "Fallibilistic Atheism", or "Soft Atheism" or "Weak Atheism" or " Negative Atheism" You can't have read too much of the previous discussions here. Despite theists constantly trying to box all atheists into the category of "Hard Atheism" (ie "There is no God!"), most of us fall outside that box. I realise Hard Atheism is easier to deal with, but that's beside the point. I'm a Soft Atheist. "Undogmatic Atheist" is simply a shorthand way of explaining that technical term. If you really want to discuss it further or need me to clarify my position you can start a thread if you want, though I doubt I can be bothered contributing to it beyond expanding on what I've said above. In my experience those threads usually degenerate into people shouting at me that either (a) I actually am an Hard Atheist and am just playing games or (b) that I can't "change" the definition of "atheism" away from what apologists would like it to mean, despite this more nuanced terminology being fairly standard. They also usually involve someone insisting that dictionary definitions are all that matter, despite dictionaries recording common usage, not technical definitions. It's not my fault that people don't use the term correctly.
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