Wormwood said:
I have been an adjunct at a local university for about 3 years. I think if they came to me and scolded me for my teaching and then I found I was no longer wanted to teach that class (and asked me to sign a paper that changed my teaching load without me knowing what the contract entailed), it would be hard to assume anything but what she assumes.
Thank you for acknowledging that she was assuming. That's quite a bit different than how the film depicted it, isn't it?
Well, when you have signed a three year contract, and the dean gets a complaint about your questioning of darwinism and he asks you to sign a new, altered, 1 year teaching load without explaining to you what you were signing...then yeah, one would have to question.
And the university spokesman said it had nothing to do with her views on ID creationism.
Either way, the situation ultimately devolves to a "he said-she said" type of argument.
Only on the question of why her contract wasn't renewed. But we do know that her claims of being "blacklisted to the point of not being able to work" are false. I guess you could argue that she'd just forgotten about teaching at NVCC, but that's a pretty bizarre stretch.
Obviously you wont believe her because you dont like her views.
I don't believe her because the facts directly contradict her claims. She wasn't fired, she wasn't blacklisted, she continued to work, and she did teach creationism.
That's not what I asked. I asked for some actual evidence for your claim that most people in her part-time, course-by-course position assume their contracts will be renewed.
Way to dodge the point with semantics.
Way to try and backpeddle from acknowledging that your support of her is based on assumption.
Ahh, there we go again. Darwinism is equal to plate tectonics. Uh huh. Creationism is akin to hocus pocus and voodoo. The fact that you think this way makes these conversations impossible. The point is that neither of these theories are the same as teaching gravity or DNA. Both are speculations based on the same evidence.
This is what's so bizarre about creationists (among other things). It's one thing for you guys to say you don't accept evolutionary theory, but to actually try and say it's nothing more than "speculation" that has the same scientific status as creationism? That's sooooooooooo detached from reality, it's difficult to respond to.
I mean, look through
THIS LIST of scientific organizations that have voiced their support of evolution and denounced creationism as pseudoscience. Not only that, look at all the discoveries and research results I've posted here that directly stem from evolutionary theory.
Now compare that to the absolute and complete lack of support for creationism from any scientific organization in the entire world, plus the absolute and complete lack of discoveries and scientific revelations that stem from creationism going back to at least the mid-1800's.
Do you understand my baffled reaction to your assertion that evolutionary theory and creationism are scientifically on par with each other?
Now, you would conclude (as would most in the universities) that the evidence we have most properly points to Darwinism as the most logical explanation, but some disagree.
So what? "Some disagree" that the earth moves. "Some disagree" that our politicians are human. Are you saying that every viewpoint that's held by "some" should be taught in university classrooms?
The point is that teachers are not allowed to disagree about the origin of species.
Sure you can. You just need to vet your arguments through the scientific community before you start teaching it in classrooms. That lead to the question you ignored: Are you honestly arguing that ID creationism should be allowed to bypass data collection, research, and peer review, and go straight to being taught in classrooms? If so, why?
I mean, a teacher can stand up and say, "Hey, now your history textbook says this about the rationale behind the start of the Civil War. However, some other historians disagree and feel that there were some other key factors that led to this war. I personally agree with these other sources and do not hold to this author's view for the following reasons...." This happens ALL THE TIME in the classroom. Professors ALWAYS have dissenting opinions from the norm based on their personal study and expertise.
That depends. Does the alternative explanation for the Civil War violate the fundamental operational framework of history? Has the alternative been overwhelmingly rejected by the historical community, even to the point of losing a court case?
Yet, no one can disagree with Darwin. This isnt about peer-reviews. It is about someone who teaches the same facts but has different conclusions about what led to those facts. You just cant seem to get your head around this concept.
How about you describe the process by which you think administrators should decide what is and isn't allowed to be taught?
Give me a break. Have you ever taken a college course before? Since when does every teacher teach everything exactly by the book and the consensus opinion on every topic? Um, never. I have never had a class where the professor says, "I and every true scholar holds to every point in this textbook and if they dont, they should not be allowed to teach." Pure nonsense.
Really? So a history teacher can teach that the holocaust was a hoax? A civics teacher can teach that government leaders are reptilian aliens? A cosmology teacher can teach that the earth is flat and doesn't move?
If not, then you really need to describe the process by which you think administrators should decide what is and isn't allowed to be taught. Otherwise you're just playing a dishonest game where you don't mind
your fringe beliefs being taught even though they've been overwhelmingly rejected by the experts in the field, but don't allow
other fringe beliefs the same consideration.
Yes, here you go again, crossing your imaginary line between life sciences and what we know of molecular biology and Darwin's imagined drawings of ooze turning into all living things. The two are not the same and you know it. You are intentionally overstating your case which makes these conversations pointless.
So your argument here is that evolutionary theory just isn't all that important in the life sciences. I'd like you to read through the following material from the National Academies of Sciences (the most prestigious scientific organization in the world) and explain why anyone should accept your unsupported assertion above over their highly-qualified position.
http://www.nas.edu/evolution/
Im not dodging, I am making a point you are ignoring. You claim she is a liar to discredit everything she says.
I've not merely "claimed" she is lying, I've
demonstrated where she has lied (she wasn't fired, she wasn't blacklisted to the point of not being able to work, and she taught creationism). As shown above, your rebuttal is to "assume" otherwise. Forgive me if I don't find that compelling.
However, her claim is that the university asked her to sign some paperwork about her contract (which was a 3 year contract) which restructured her contract to stop after the semester was ended (after she has been reprimanded for her rejection of Darwinism). She was not told that this is what the paperwork said and so (according to her) she was misled. So yes, her contract expired. But that is not really her point or argument.
Yes it was. Did you watch the movie?
"So we dont know if she is a liar. She's saying she was duped and it came on the heels of being reprimanded over the Darwinism content of her course...and the video simply says that she was reprimanded on the subject and then her teaching there came to an abrupt end. There is nothing that is a lie here..at least nothing you can prove."
No, no, no. The film directly said she was "fired", and was "blacklisted and unable to find a job anywhere". We know for a fact that she
wasn't fired and
she was able to find work at NVCC. Did you even watch the movie?
And how can "she was unable to find work
anywhere" be true if she was able to find work at NVCC?
"What we do know is 1. she was repremanded for teaching ID concepts in her course 2. her contract came to an abrupt end very shortly after this issue arose 3. she was not reinstated after that time."
And none of that constitutes being fired.
"she was unable to get new teaching jobs after this when previously this had not been a problem for her."
????????? Then how did she end up at NVCC? :wacko:
"Now, maybe its all a coincidence, but you dont know she is a liar. If anything, her statements have all been shown true and her belief is that these events all occurred due to her views about ID. Maybe her assumption is incorrect, but it seems HIGHLY unlikely due to the way things apparently unfolded with the contract, etc. But its just so much easier to call her a liar. Seems to be your MO for pretty much any person quoted who disagrees with you on this....you always go back to, "they are a documented liar!" Crocker, Behe, Meyer...on an on. So easy to dismiss them all...just call them liars. smh"
This is why I like working with kids. They see her claim she was blacklisted and unable to find work anywhere, compare that to the fact that she was able to find a job doing the exact same thing at another college, and reach the obvious, objective conclusion....she's lying. They don't process things in such an obviously tribal manner.
But just as you did above regarding the relative status of evolutionary theory and creationism within the scientific community, you've somehow managed to convince yourself that reality is the opposite of what it actually is.
