This isn't exactly breaking news, but it's making the rounds in the EvC community right now. There is a case in California right now, by which an avowed creationist is suing California State Unvieristy-Northridge for a wide array of things, all relating to the claim that he was fired for being a creationist. You can read the complaint here, if you like.
Anyway, the short version is this. Mark Armitage is a Young Earth Creationist who was, by all accounts, an excellent microscope technician. Despite having his undergraduate degree in education from Liberty University, and no accredited graduate work (he has a "Masters" in biology from the temporary college that had been set up by the Institute of Creation Research, which was never accredited), he still seems to be a smart guy with a good work ethic, and was very good at what he did, which was basically run the scanning electron microscope lab at CSUN.
Well, as a hobby, he went searching for dinosaur bones with some other creationists in the famous Hell Creek Formation (known for being a goldmine of late Cretaceous fossils), hoping to replicate the respectable (but controversial) work of scientists like Mary Higby Schweitzer, who first isolated apparent soft tissue from dinosaur fossils. They came across a Triceratops horn, trekked it back to California, and he studied it in his lab. Lo and behold, he found soft tissue.
He and a co-author published their findings in the reputable Acta Histochemica. I can't link the text here, but if you are on Facebook, you can join our EvC community page, where we have the text posted. Anyway, the article was well-written, positively-received by peers, and not written with any kind of religious or political slant. It simply presented the authors' findings and offered a discussion of the implications. They did not overstep. For a guy without any actual recognized scientific degree, it was very well done.
Well, somehow, this led to a series of (disputed) events that culminated in his firing. Here's where Goat goes off the reservation.
If the man was fired for being a creationist, this is a travesty. I certainly do not want creationism taught in public secondary schools (or private schools that accept vouchers). I do not want science-deniers to have control over public policy. If you don't accept global warming, I say, good for you, but I don't want you passing environmental laws. If you are an anti-vaxxer, I say, good for you, but I don't want you in charge of public health policy. And if you are a creationist, I say, good for you, but I don't want you teaching a captive audience in a public biology classroom. In other words, from a policy and legal perspective, I give great respect to established scientific thought, mostly because history has shown science to work.
But a university is a whole different setting. At college, students are not a captive audience, and, intellectually (if not legally) more importantly, they should be expected to be exposed to theories that challenge their assumptions. I want students in college to study things that push them to the limit. Firing someone from a university position for being a creationist is, to me, just as misguided as firing someone for being a socialist and teaching Das Kapital as reverently as one can. It might make us feel better to "protect" students from things that we think are wrong, but that's not the purpose of a university. The purpose of a university is to expand horizons, not restrict them.
Now, I don't know how good this guy's case really is. His complaint sounds convincing, but it's also the case that he was not in a tenure-track position. He was essentially a lab tech, nothing more. This case may get thrown out. Still, despite the fact that I disagree with him, I find it troubling from an intellectual point of view that he might have been fired from a university simply for holding incorrect beliefs. A vibrant university culture needs to include access to all beliefs - correct and incorrect, both.
Thoughts?
Anyway, the short version is this. Mark Armitage is a Young Earth Creationist who was, by all accounts, an excellent microscope technician. Despite having his undergraduate degree in education from Liberty University, and no accredited graduate work (he has a "Masters" in biology from the temporary college that had been set up by the Institute of Creation Research, which was never accredited), he still seems to be a smart guy with a good work ethic, and was very good at what he did, which was basically run the scanning electron microscope lab at CSUN.
Well, as a hobby, he went searching for dinosaur bones with some other creationists in the famous Hell Creek Formation (known for being a goldmine of late Cretaceous fossils), hoping to replicate the respectable (but controversial) work of scientists like Mary Higby Schweitzer, who first isolated apparent soft tissue from dinosaur fossils. They came across a Triceratops horn, trekked it back to California, and he studied it in his lab. Lo and behold, he found soft tissue.
He and a co-author published their findings in the reputable Acta Histochemica. I can't link the text here, but if you are on Facebook, you can join our EvC community page, where we have the text posted. Anyway, the article was well-written, positively-received by peers, and not written with any kind of religious or political slant. It simply presented the authors' findings and offered a discussion of the implications. They did not overstep. For a guy without any actual recognized scientific degree, it was very well done.
Well, somehow, this led to a series of (disputed) events that culminated in his firing. Here's where Goat goes off the reservation.
If the man was fired for being a creationist, this is a travesty. I certainly do not want creationism taught in public secondary schools (or private schools that accept vouchers). I do not want science-deniers to have control over public policy. If you don't accept global warming, I say, good for you, but I don't want you passing environmental laws. If you are an anti-vaxxer, I say, good for you, but I don't want you in charge of public health policy. And if you are a creationist, I say, good for you, but I don't want you teaching a captive audience in a public biology classroom. In other words, from a policy and legal perspective, I give great respect to established scientific thought, mostly because history has shown science to work.
But a university is a whole different setting. At college, students are not a captive audience, and, intellectually (if not legally) more importantly, they should be expected to be exposed to theories that challenge their assumptions. I want students in college to study things that push them to the limit. Firing someone from a university position for being a creationist is, to me, just as misguided as firing someone for being a socialist and teaching Das Kapital as reverently as one can. It might make us feel better to "protect" students from things that we think are wrong, but that's not the purpose of a university. The purpose of a university is to expand horizons, not restrict them.
Now, I don't know how good this guy's case really is. His complaint sounds convincing, but it's also the case that he was not in a tenure-track position. He was essentially a lab tech, nothing more. This case may get thrown out. Still, despite the fact that I disagree with him, I find it troubling from an intellectual point of view that he might have been fired from a university simply for holding incorrect beliefs. A vibrant university culture needs to include access to all beliefs - correct and incorrect, both.
Thoughts?
