Secular Humanism CelticBear’s Musings

"The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge." -Stephen Hawking"The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge." -Stephen Hawking
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Lying For Jesus–The Rocks Don’t

Posted by CelticBear on February 20th, 2007

OK, that’s a terrible title. Anyway….
Phil Plait at BadAstronomy has a post titled:
Should creationists be able to get PhDs in geoscience?
He explains the case of young-Earth Creationist Marcus Ross who is currently teaching biology at Jerry Falwell’s Liberty University, got his PhD by writing and defending a thesis about the 65 million year old mosasaurs. So, this young-Earthist basically committed fraud in order to get his PhD, and at the very least is hypocrite willing to lie and deceive in order to get ahead.

Phil links to a great article by Larry Moran at SANDWALK: Strolling with a Skeptical Biochemist. He discusses why this is an unconscionable event and how those who support Ross, like the Discovery Institute and bloggers at Uncommon Descent, are supporting underhanded and dishonorable deception and are working to undermine the efforts of real science.

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 20th, 2007 at 4:16 pm and is filed under RELIGION, SCIENCE, SKEPTICISM, SOCIAL and NEWS. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

  • Exactly!
  • It would like if I set out to get a PhD in European History, but I don't believe the Holocaust happened. I write my thesis about the horrendous genocide of the Jews during World War II, and discuss it in detail with the oral exam panel. I'm awarded the PhD, then begin teaching a university course called The Hoax of the Holocaust.
  • That snippet... OMG! I mean, I'm dumbstruck; gobsmacked. I guess I missed that part when I read that site or I'd have quoted it.
    How can a person call himself a "scientist" and completely misunderstand the very nature of the science behind medicine is the exact same method and and foundation behind anthropology?! They're not two different things!
    If you can't "believe" the science behind anthropology, you CAN'T believe medical science because of the same methodology!
    God! This is selective reasoning at its greatest! Cognitive dissonance, rationalization to defend an ideology at its worst!
  • It's the same issue with Discovery Institutes's bit-- er, lackey Michael Behe. A "working" biochemist who is the posterboy for Irreducible Complexity.

    As Phil Plait later explains in today's < href="http://www.badastronomy.com/bablog/2007/02/20/religion-and-phds/">Religion and PhDs, the student has to go through a very rigorous defense of their thesis in order to get the degree--so if the panel didn't know his disdain and lack of acceptance of the very science he supposedly used to create his thesis, he HAD to have lied and deceived and utterly misrepresent his understanding of science in order to fool the panel.
  • Just read the post linked to at Uncommon Descent, and found this comment very enlightening:

    "I understand the requirement to know consensus science but when it comes to anthropology, paleontology, or evolutionary biology there’s no practical need to believe the science. A doctor needs to know AND believe that medicines work otherwise people can be physically harmed. Engineers need to know AND believe how materials behave otherwise money and lives are lost. But what happens if an anthropologist knows something but believes otherwise and is wrong? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. No harm is done."
  • Oh my gosh, that is so wrong. I imagine throngs of Liberty students going around gloating that of course the Bible’s version is right! Dr. Ross said so, and he’s a PhD!!!

    The school cannot be faulted for awarding Mr. Ross the degree when he obviously committed deception. Mr. Ross should be held accountable for the deception.
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