Saturday, March 5, 2011

An asshole for Jeebus disgraces the university he works for.

I wrote the following comment at What is Intelligent Design?:

Michael Behe is an interesting character. He’s one of the few actual scientists in the Intelligent Design movement. He works in biochemistry and has tenure at Lehigh University in Pennsylvania (and the rest of his department have all signed a letter that basically says they disagree with him and please don’t judge Lehigh on Behe.)

It would be more accurate to call it the Magic movement.

The biology department of Lehigh University has a good reason to be ashamed of Behe, a pathological liar for Jeebus. They say “please don’t judge Lehigh on Behe” but still any intelligent student is not likely to go anywhere near a university that has a science denier who teaches science.

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Lehigh's biology department published the following statement about Behe (one of the Christian Creationist Discovery Institute's assholes). Notice that the biologists at Lehigh are calling Behe a liar.

Lehigh University Department of Biological Sciences

Department Position on Evolution and "Intelligent Design"

The faculty in the Department of Biological Sciences is committed to the highest standards of scientific integrity and academic function. This commitment carries with it unwavering support for academic freedom and the free exchange of ideas. It also demands the utmost respect for the scientific method, integrity in the conduct of research, and recognition that the validity of any scientific model comes only as a result of rational hypothesis testing, sound experimentation, and findings that can be replicated by others.

The department faculty, then, are unequivocal in their support of evolutionary theory, which has its roots in the seminal work of Charles Darwin and has been supported by findings accumulated over 140 years. The sole dissenter from this position, Prof. Michael Behe, is a well-known proponent of "intelligent design." While we respect Prof. Behe's right to express his views, they are his alone and are in no way endorsed by the department. It is our collective position that intelligent design has no basis in science, has not been tested experimentally, and should not be regarded as scientific.

1 comment:

  1. Contrary to popular belief, it *is* possible to oust a tenured faculty member. At the very least they could take all his courses away from him and change the locks on his office door. Let him run out his "tenure" in the philosophy or religion departments. Sure, they're not the only ones that tolerate bullshit, but he isn't up to the task of postmodern feminist literary theory. They use big words.

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