Re: [asa] Can God Love Darwin, Too?

What about Baylor with Marks and Dembksi? Does Baylor have the right
to protect its good name? Even with Gonzalez, does his 'academic
freedom' somehow prevent others from expressing their worries as to
how their institutional name is being used for poor science?

Note that Gonzalez was not even mentioned in the petition although it
was Gonzalez's work that was causing ISU to be seen as an ID school.

<quote>Avalos helped spearhead a faculty petition urging "all faculty"
at ISU to "uphold the integrity of our university" by "reject[ing]
efforts to portray Intelligent Design as science." Avalos later
conceded to a local newspaper that Gonzalez was the key motive for the
petition.</quote>

and

<quote>One of those authors, Hector Avalos, told The Tribune at the
time he was concerned the growing prominence of Gonzalez's work was
beginning to market ISU as an "intelligent design school."</quote>

What I have found interesting is how academic persecution is so easily
claimed by ID in cases which suit their needs while they seem to
remain quiet on other similar cases.

On 9/11/07, Ted Davis <tdavis@messiah.edu> wrote:
> The story Pim links is important. The president of Olivet was in a tough
> spot, given the views of certain constituents (no school can survive if it
> just ignores its constituents), and I understand his decision in that light.
> Our president (not our current president) made a similar call many years
> ago, banning the use of the film, "The Last Temptation of Christ," in
> classes when important questions were raised over how it was being used in a
> couple of classes. I supported that decision. Obviously I am not close to
> the situation at Olivet, but I disturbed by the decision to remove Colling
> from teaching the general biology course. In the absence of further
> information (I stress that), this seems similar to what happened to Dean
> Kenyon, who was also moved out of teaching general biology when he became a
> critic of evolution. It's hard to know how to balance academic freedom with
> an institution's commitment to it's own understanding of truth.
>
> Going beyond anything in this story, I do not see much parallel here with
> the petition against Guillermo Gonzalez, who was not teaching ID in his
> courses. That one continues to be for me a black & white situation: the
> facts continue to suggest to me that Avalos was worried about Gonzalez' ties
> to conservative Christians, and sought to discredit him via a petition
> directed at Gonzalez' book, not his classroom teaching. Incidentally, I
> spoke not long ago with someone who signed that petition entirely without
> having knowledge of the context (I won't say more about that), someone who
> is not a theist but who has come to regret signing the petition, b/c this
> person now sees it as an unwarranted attack on Gonzalez' academic freedom.
>
> Ted
>
>

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Received on Tue Sep 11 11:35:54 2007