<p>A</a> first-hand report of Nathaniel Jeanson's lecture in Boston : Pharyngula </p>
<p>Food for thought on the value of graduate education.</p>
<p>Thanks for the link.</p>
<p>My housemate’s old freshman roommate at Harvard doesn’t believe in evolution. The only thing we could do was to shake our heads sadly and think, Then why the hell would you go to a school that offers a degree in evolutionary biology?</p>
<p>Heck, I took a class last semester at Harvard on Understanding Darwinism, and a few kids in my section appeared not to believe in macro-evolution. And an even larger number felt that ID should be taught side-by-side with evolution in classrooms. The rest of us (and TF) were absolutely dumbfounded. Of course, most of us were humanities or social science concentrators, but still!</p>
<p>Although I’m far from a defender of creationism, I always laugh at so called scholars who ***** and moan about the lack of academic freedom, then get bent out of shape when someone throws out a view they don’t espouse. But then again, when it comes to academia, the pettiness is often so high because the stakes are so very low.</p>
<p>I oppose teaching creationism as science but I also oppose closing off academic debates just because we don’t agree with them. This jackass from Pharyngula would obviously be happy if anyone with an opposing view to his would never be allowed to speak so he could continue living happily, beating off in the mirror while he simultaneously pats himself on the back.</p>
<p>People don’t hate creationism/ID because it is a view they don’t personally hold. They hate it because creationists are trying to call their myth science and teach it as such in schools. I don’t think many people would really care all that much if creationists didn’t try to teach their nonsense in Biology.</p>
<p>EDIT: Don’t know who the jackass from Pharyngula but creationism vs. evolution isn’t an academic debate. Evolution is a fact, creationism is a belief. That’s it.</p>
<p>Woo, BBS pride. Yeah. 
I’m aggravated (and surprised) that this guy graduated from my program – and from a high-powered lab, too.</p>
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I’m a regular reader of Pharyngula, and I don’t think this is a really accurate characterization of PZ Myers – I think I’m speaking fairly when I say that he welcomes opposing views, but he has no problem mocking them mercilessly if they’re wrong.</p>
<p>If someone wants to give the guy a mic so he can explain his views, so be it. It might spark a debate, or it might further marginalize his viewpoint. My problem is with self congratulatory dweebs like PZ Myers who make it their mission to silence anyone who has a view that challenges their own version of history, biology, or evolution. PZ Myers is equally disdainful of those who believe in God, even though the belief in the existence of a supreme being probably requires much less faith than it does to deny one. This guy’s a tool, plain and simple, and people like him are just as bad as creationists in my book–they don’t care about knowledge or debate, they care about promoting their own views, period.</p>
<p>Isn’t that the point of having a blog?</p>
<p>I agree with Mollie on PZ Meyers. I have heard him speak when he was in Toronto speaking at a CFI event. He is just not very nice to obviously STUPID things. Unlike many “nice” people, he is sick of being nice. Of course he was probably very welcome here because there are way more atheists here than in most parts of the USA, I’d imagine. </p>
<p>“PZ Myers is equally disdainful of those who believe in God, even though the belief in the existence of a supreme being probably requires much less faith than it does to deny one.”
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAH. OH MAN. I am NOT going to get started on this. YES… it takes MUCH more faith to DENY the existance of a flying teapot around the sun than it does to believe in one.</p>
<p>PZ has just had it with people like that and rehashing the same stuff over and over. He might as well amuse those who think-alike. There’s a difference between academic freedom and a serious debate, like a scientific debate, and a debate that’s “scientific”, except that one argument is just based on faith with no data to prove it. There are tons of controversies in science that will get resolved when we find out more evidence, this isn’t one of them. </p>
<p>Also, I don’t get why people are surprised by this guy graduating from Harvard. It is not like you need to believe in anything to defend your thesis. Francis Collins, while he believes in evolution, sometimes doesn’t seem far off either… and he is what, head of NIH or some wing of NIH now? PZ talked about this in the lecture… you can’t screen people for belief in x or y. The most you can do is teach and make them write tests and HOPE that after the process they learn something vs. just memorize and regurgitate.</p>
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<p>I too am a regular reader of the Pharyngula blog, and I agree with this characterization of its author. I have met PZ Myers in person, on the campus of my alma mater when Richard Dawkins spoke there earlier this year, and he (and Dawkins) are quite good at hearing people out, but then responding to the substance of what people say. People who do their homework fare best in disagreeing with scholars of biological evolution.</p>
<p>I can’t tell if this was the case with your housemate’s roommate, but I’d guess many hardcore creationists get a PhD in evolutionary biology to make themselves more credible. As in “I have a PhD in evolutionary biology and yet I am here not believing in evolution, so clearly it must not be true.”</p>
<p>What a bitter article.</p>
<p>safetypin,</p>
<p>You and PZ seem to be cut from the same clothe. I’m happy to hear that you got to attend the Toronto circle jerk in person. I’m sure it was a gratifying experience.</p>
<p>For everyone else:</p>
<p>I strongly believe that the greatness of western thought was built primarily on people choosing to say “Hey, I think your ideas are ridiculous but I’ll allow you to voice them” as opposed to “Your ideas are garbage, so I’m going to write a snide, petty, and totally juvenile letter of complaint to your program director.”</p>
<p>Asking for people’s ideas, as crazy as they may be, to be censored is the first step towards a place I don’t particularly want society to go.</p>
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<p>You evidently haven’t heard about the kind of letters that have been written to PZ’s boss. I don’t think PZ writes letters to people’s program directors to cause anyone to lose a job or to stop speaking in public, and maybe not for any purpose at all. If he did write a letter to a director of a graduate program in biology, it might be to ask how the program makes sure that it is teaching biology effectively and accurately, which is definitely an issue PZ cares about.</p>
<p>"As I mentioned, I came home and wrote an email to Dr. Dulac, the Chair of the Dept. of Molecular and Cellular Biology at Harvard. I’m absolutely appalled that this young man, who disavows a century and a half of empirical data and repudiates the basic principles of science, was given a PhD by one of the most prestigious universities in the country. First Kurt Wise, now this kid. As I told Dr. Levin, “One is an anomaly. Two is already becoming a habit!”</p>
<p>I don’t know if this was PZ or someone else but this type of response is far from anything relating to concern about a biology program’s particular teaching style.</p>
<p>Face it, there are people out there who go around smugly congratulating themselves on having it all figured out while at the same time trampling on the free speech rights of others. They can dress it up and call it whatever they want, but at the end of the day, these people don’t want to give a public forum to anything other than their own bitter worldview.</p>
<p>The blog entry (and email to Catherine Dulac) were written by the guest author, who attended the lecture.</p>
<p>How does it trample on the free speech rights of others to have a blog and to post your personal opinions there? Anyone who disagrees with PZ or his views is welcome to post there, or to start his/her own competing blog.</p>
<p>My understanding was that that article had been written by PZ Myers. The fact that it wasn’t is good news for him because it’s a horrible, close minded and, as another poster noted, bitter piece.</p>
<p>Starting up a blog and writing whatever you want on it is your business. I have no problem with that. Attempting to block students with different views than your own, no matter how wild you may think those views may be, from attending a certain grad program is regressive and wrong, period. That’s certainly not the way to insure that academic debate continues in this country.</p>
<p>My problem with Myers and (much, much moreso) people like Dawkins is that they don’t see their worldview as one opinion amongst many. They see it as the only acceptable view and cling to it with a fanaticism that rivals that shown by the horribly misguided Evangelical right and other groups who trumpet their view of a six thousand year old earth. I’m not saying Myers and Dawkins have their science wrong (although their arguments for the nonexistence of God are any many cases beyond half baked) but they are certainly far from welcoming of views that may be different from their own.</p>
<p>Scientists in general tend to be less than forgiving of belief systems that are factually incorrect. It’s one thing to be a molecular/cell biologist and believe in God, but quite another to be a molecular/cell biologist and believe that the world was created in six literal days around six thousand years ago. </p>
<p>There is no legitimate scientific debate about whether evolution happened, and I think it’s perfectly reasonable for molecular biology PhD programs to expect their students to understand this. I think it’s something like a Holocaust denier graduating from a top history program having written a thesis on the history of Judaism in the 20th century. It’s not just wrong, it’s wrong in a way that’s relevant to the mission of that particular PhD program.</p>
<p>…at any rate, Catherine Dulac is not actually this guy’s department head. He was in my program, BBS, and Professor Dulac heads the MCB program in Cambridge. So the guest author was writing an email to complain to a scientist at the university who is an acquaintance of his – again, something I see as his right.</p>
<p>You forfeited all legitimacy when you likened challenging evolution, a frivolous but largely danger free pseudo-academic pursuit, to denying the horrors of the Holocaust. Please do yourself a favor and either find a better analogy or just admit that you were way off base.</p>