Boston.com recently reported about a creationist scientist who was fired from his position as a marine biologist at the highly respected Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Rhode Island because he was a creationist. There is a lawsuit pending to determine if this is a case of religious discrimination but there were some interesting quotes I took from the article. These belie another motive besides religious discrimination.
Hahn's lab, according to its website, studies how aquatic animals respond to chemical contaminants by examining ". . . mechanisms from a comparative/evolutionary perspective."
Isn’t that interesting? I actually did a double-take when I read that. So, Hahn’s lab, while they are examining the evidence, are admittedly doing so from an evolutionary perspective. That’s a bias if I ever heard one.
But the article goes on:
Hahn [the senior scientist at Woods Hole] wrote in the letter, which the commission provided to the Globe. "This position is incompatible with the work as proposed to NIH and with my own vision of how it should be carried out and interpreted." [emphasis added]
Wow! So, Mark Hahn already has a vision of how the work should be interpreted. He fired a creationist because he obviously doesn’t want to hear how the evidence might support a divine creation. He only wants the evidence interpreted according to his bias of evolutionism. Indeed, the entire crux of Woods Hole’s case is that a creationist cannot do the job because they only want an evolutionary perspective. I can't wait to hear this argued in court. Scientists will have to swear their bias under oath!
The evidence is what it is. Contrary to that old saying, facts do not speak for themselves - they must be interpreted. If someone assumes evolution is true, then he’ll interpret the facts accordingly. Keep that in mind when people go on and on about all this “evidence” for evolution. What they're telling you is not evidence but their interpretation of the evidence - an interpretation biased toward evolution.
I don’t mind the bias so much; I’ll admit I’m biased. It’s the blatant hypocrisy that annoys me. So don’t hand me any ‘holier than thou’ speech about always being skeptical and true scientific inquiry. Your bias is showing!
As you can tell, Robert, I'm reading up on your older posts. Good stuff!
ReplyDeleteI have yet to meet an atheist or evolutionist who is able to admit to a bias towards naturalism, therefore being likely to interpret all evidence through that paradigm. It's this same weird flavor of self-righteousness and pride that precludes materialists from even criticizing each other's views. I sometimes think it really is a blindness, a way of thinking that goes like this, "It's not a bias because we know it's true. How could there be such a thing as bias when it comes to something that is so obviously true?" Their faith goes very deep, indeed.
On the other hand, I have no shortage of Christian friends who will admit that of course they are biased towards creationism and against evolution. That isn't to say there aren't small-minded Christians who refuse to even consider other evidence. I suppose I just tend to be drawn more to open-minded, humble people.
Todd,
ReplyDeleteI'm glad you've been visiting and commenting. Your comments on my old posts have prompted me to reread some of them. It's sort of nostalgic.
I feel like my blog has come a long way in the years since I started it. You didn't see the cheap Blogger template I was using back when I wrote these older posts. I also hardly ever had any pictures. It took a while to get into the groove.
Now that I'm getting some traffic on my blog, I'm thinking about digging out some of these older posts, polishing them up a little, and using them again now that people are more likely to read them.
BTW, can I ask how you found my blog?
Finally, feel free to cut, paste anything you find here. Put it on Facebook, comments on other blogs, or anywhere people need to hear it. Copyright isn't something I worry about; I need help getting the word out.
God bless!!
RKBentley
I'm trying to remember how I found your blog. I can't exactly remember the search terms I plugged into Google, but I was looking for an interesting blog that discussed evolution and atheism.
ReplyDelete