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This was posted on another forum in a thread about Ben Stein's decision not to speak at the University of Vermont. I asked the author if I could post it here and he agreed. There's a bit of thread context content, but most of it stands on its ow.
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Whereas the Discovery Institute itself does everything it can to feed the belief that well nigh everyone on the right are advocating the exact same restrictions, though on different subjects.
While I will leave the product endorsement part out (as that doesn't affect me in any way), I will say this about Ben Stein and his right-wing friends:
I am a systematist, which means that everything I do at work (and a lot of what I do outside of work as well) has to do with evolution in one way or another. I read articles and books on the subject. I do my own morphometrics, genetic analyses, morphological analyses, and so on. From time to time, when suitable courses are held at my university, I either take them (if they are PhD courses) or teach at them (if they are undergraduate courses). I travel all over the world to search for evidence to see if my hypotheses are valid or not. I communicate and meet with scientists from all over the world to learn new techniques, new analysis tools, or new data. As late as yesterday at lunch I held a seminar on my research at the Natural History Museum in London. I publish my findings in peer-reviewed scientific journals.
Ben Stein thinks I am lying. Ben Stein and the Discovery Institute and all the rest of that crowd are basically saying that every day, I commit fraud. Every time I take a PhD course, I am being lied to by a number of unrelated researchers in various fields from all over the world. Every time I teach a course in biology or discuss my findings with my colleagues in the field or with laymen outside my field, I am lying. Every time I use the funding I've got to travel to gather data from Australia, Japan, Vancouver, or wherever I go, I am embellishing that money to have a paid vacation in an exotic location where I watch birds I would never otherwise be able to afford to watch on what is --- in my case --- largely on tax money. Every time I run an analysis, every time I look at data, every time I sequence a gene, every time I measure the preantennal head length or count the setae on the vulval submargin of a bird louse, I am participating in, and perpetuating, a vast international conspiracy to keep Jesus out of the schools.
And it doesn't stop there either, of course. We're seven PhD students at our department, plus two post docs, one lecturer, three professors, and two professors emeritus, as well as a varying number of Bachelor and Master students and temporary researchers and guests of all kinds. They are all lying, as are the small group of oddly placed bird researchers in the ecology department downstairs, who are basically doing the same as we are. Naturally this extends to every single researcher across the globe who in some way works with evolution.
So what do they base this assertion that we are lying and committing fraud every waking hour on?
Not on actual evidence they got from studying the world. Not from experiments or even experimental data published by others. Not from biometrics, biogeography, geology, morphology, physiology, genetics, ecology, or any other established branch of science.
The belief that it is so, and that it must be so, and that it cannot possibly be any other way. These people are saying that I, and the entire biological community, are frauds, because that's what their parents taught them.
Of course, in the specific case of Ben Stein, it goes even further with his belief that science --- not only the biological sciences, but science --- leads to the holocaust and killing people, which puts another layer of affront to the issue. Not only am I a fraud, an embezzler, a liar, and a member of an enormous conspiracy to keep Jesus out of schools, I am also participating in, or enabling other people to participating in, the killing of people, simply because I do science.
Now, to be more specific. Is it irrational to try to keep this person speaking? Yes, it may very well be. Is it irrational not to want him to speak at a university, in front of the people he calls liars, frauds, embezzlers, and murderers? If he genuinely hold these beliefs, then he has no business speaking at a university. His business there would be to listen.
Does this have anything to do with some kind of political left-right distinction, as you so childishly proposed in your post? Definitely not. It doesn't matter if your political leanings are to the left or to the right: if you are a scientist, this man believes you are a murderer. If you work in the biological sciences, and some other related sciences, this man thinks you are a fraud, a liar, and an embezzler, in addition to being a murderer, based on what is essentially a whim.
Does the silencing of this kind of person --- not in general, but in the specific setting of a university --- have anything to do with politics? Not necessarily. I would say that it has more to do with the feeling that we do not want to be called liars, frauds, embezzlers, and murderers. It might be true in some cases, but rarely for the reasons Ben Stein and the Discovery Institute proposes. What we want is for them to provide the evidence that we are liars, frauds, embezzlers, and murderers, and if they can't do that, they have no business speaking in an academic forum.
--------------------------------
Whereas the Discovery Institute itself does everything it can to feed the belief that well nigh everyone on the right are advocating the exact same restrictions, though on different subjects.
While I will leave the product endorsement part out (as that doesn't affect me in any way), I will say this about Ben Stein and his right-wing friends:
I am a systematist, which means that everything I do at work (and a lot of what I do outside of work as well) has to do with evolution in one way or another. I read articles and books on the subject. I do my own morphometrics, genetic analyses, morphological analyses, and so on. From time to time, when suitable courses are held at my university, I either take them (if they are PhD courses) or teach at them (if they are undergraduate courses). I travel all over the world to search for evidence to see if my hypotheses are valid or not. I communicate and meet with scientists from all over the world to learn new techniques, new analysis tools, or new data. As late as yesterday at lunch I held a seminar on my research at the Natural History Museum in London. I publish my findings in peer-reviewed scientific journals.
Ben Stein thinks I am lying. Ben Stein and the Discovery Institute and all the rest of that crowd are basically saying that every day, I commit fraud. Every time I take a PhD course, I am being lied to by a number of unrelated researchers in various fields from all over the world. Every time I teach a course in biology or discuss my findings with my colleagues in the field or with laymen outside my field, I am lying. Every time I use the funding I've got to travel to gather data from Australia, Japan, Vancouver, or wherever I go, I am embellishing that money to have a paid vacation in an exotic location where I watch birds I would never otherwise be able to afford to watch on what is --- in my case --- largely on tax money. Every time I run an analysis, every time I look at data, every time I sequence a gene, every time I measure the preantennal head length or count the setae on the vulval submargin of a bird louse, I am participating in, and perpetuating, a vast international conspiracy to keep Jesus out of the schools.
And it doesn't stop there either, of course. We're seven PhD students at our department, plus two post docs, one lecturer, three professors, and two professors emeritus, as well as a varying number of Bachelor and Master students and temporary researchers and guests of all kinds. They are all lying, as are the small group of oddly placed bird researchers in the ecology department downstairs, who are basically doing the same as we are. Naturally this extends to every single researcher across the globe who in some way works with evolution.
So what do they base this assertion that we are lying and committing fraud every waking hour on?
Not on actual evidence they got from studying the world. Not from experiments or even experimental data published by others. Not from biometrics, biogeography, geology, morphology, physiology, genetics, ecology, or any other established branch of science.
The belief that it is so, and that it must be so, and that it cannot possibly be any other way. These people are saying that I, and the entire biological community, are frauds, because that's what their parents taught them.
Of course, in the specific case of Ben Stein, it goes even further with his belief that science --- not only the biological sciences, but science --- leads to the holocaust and killing people, which puts another layer of affront to the issue. Not only am I a fraud, an embezzler, a liar, and a member of an enormous conspiracy to keep Jesus out of schools, I am also participating in, or enabling other people to participating in, the killing of people, simply because I do science.
Now, to be more specific. Is it irrational to try to keep this person speaking? Yes, it may very well be. Is it irrational not to want him to speak at a university, in front of the people he calls liars, frauds, embezzlers, and murderers? If he genuinely hold these beliefs, then he has no business speaking at a university. His business there would be to listen.
Does this have anything to do with some kind of political left-right distinction, as you so childishly proposed in your post? Definitely not. It doesn't matter if your political leanings are to the left or to the right: if you are a scientist, this man believes you are a murderer. If you work in the biological sciences, and some other related sciences, this man thinks you are a fraud, a liar, and an embezzler, in addition to being a murderer, based on what is essentially a whim.
Does the silencing of this kind of person --- not in general, but in the specific setting of a university --- have anything to do with politics? Not necessarily. I would say that it has more to do with the feeling that we do not want to be called liars, frauds, embezzlers, and murderers. It might be true in some cases, but rarely for the reasons Ben Stein and the Discovery Institute proposes. What we want is for them to provide the evidence that we are liars, frauds, embezzlers, and murderers, and if they can't do that, they have no business speaking in an academic forum.
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