I found this very interesting article today stating that Rhode Island University gave a PhD in Geoscience to a Young Earth Creationist (YEC). A YEC is a person that goes against the mainstream scientific viewpoint and believes that everything the Bible says is correct and the Earth is about 6-10 thousand years old, not the 4.6 billion years old the scientific community has adopted.
Actually, not only was his thesis about geology, it was a paleontology degree studying mosasaurs. These animals lived over 65 million years ago during the Mesozoic (The Age of Dinosaurs) and could not have easily fit into the YEC viewpoint. It was stated very clearly by the PhD recipient that he did not believe the science that he was studying, nor the conclusions that he came to.
This leads to my question: can you get a degree in something you profoundly feel is wrong? Most scientists I know feel that Creationists are just wrong based on piles of evidence upon evidence that has been produced for several hundreds of years and, like the flat earth theory, this hopefully will fade into the past. But people are entitled to their own opinions and a society that forces what to believe is not the society Americans signed up for. So let them believe what they want to and I will believe what I want to and we will probably both argue and yell and try to convince the other is wrong but when is life not like that.
But I have a problem with this degree that was granted without any apparent problems to a person who essentially lied through his teeth to get it. What was his point in getting it anyway. He does not believe in what most geologists or paleontologists do, why place himself into that sort of scrutiny? Does he want to convert the masses? Maybe, but then why proclaim that everything we have done was right and then go "I was just lying about that". It makes him look like an idiot where his viewpoints seem to have even less clout than they would have had before.
Go to any SVP (Society of Vertebrate Paleontology) or GSA (Geological Society of America) meeting and present your actual findings and I can guarantee that they will pick apart any findings you have. But don't take that as a religious thing, it's a science thing. Trust me I know. I had 2 years of work taken apart in one finding. But you know what, science moves on and no matter what you think you know. It will turn out to be wrong in the long run.
So again, I pose the question, should a PhD be presented to someone who is making a mockery of the scientific community?
Some links for this story
http://sandwalk.blogspot.com/2007/02/what-is-science.html
http://www.badastronomy.com/bablog/2007/02/20/should-creationists-be-able-to-get-phds-in-geoscience/
http://trueancestor.typepad.com/true_ancestor/2007/02/can_a_student_p.html
Sunday, February 25, 2007
Friday, February 02, 2007
In the News: Global warming is definitely, most probably almost certainly human caused
So a new report came out today stating that global warming is likely the result of human activity. So what makes this report different from the many before it?
Nothing that I can tell.
I mean really. How many of these things need to come out before the US government will actually do anything. You know this report was primarily for the benefit of the US public since the rest of the world has grown up and accepted the earlier reports. The most profound international program, the Kyoto Protocol, has been panned by Bush, since it allowed too much leniency for developing nations even though we (the US) produces a vast majority of the CO2 entering the atmosphere.
One thing that I extremely dislike in the report is that they state the effects of global warming are not going to go away anytime soon. Eventually they state much further down the article that this does not mean we shouldn't do anything about it, and that if we do nothing the effects will get much worse. But what about the people that just read the first half of article? It's not like any of us hasn't done that before. It is my worry that this will lead people to the wrong conclusion; that to do nothing will be just as good, if not better than actually trying to stop this.
Anyway, that's my vent. Here is a link to a couple of the stories
Reuters
Associated Press
Live Science
Nothing that I can tell.
I mean really. How many of these things need to come out before the US government will actually do anything. You know this report was primarily for the benefit of the US public since the rest of the world has grown up and accepted the earlier reports. The most profound international program, the Kyoto Protocol, has been panned by Bush, since it allowed too much leniency for developing nations even though we (the US) produces a vast majority of the CO2 entering the atmosphere.
One thing that I extremely dislike in the report is that they state the effects of global warming are not going to go away anytime soon. Eventually they state much further down the article that this does not mean we shouldn't do anything about it, and that if we do nothing the effects will get much worse. But what about the people that just read the first half of article? It's not like any of us hasn't done that before. It is my worry that this will lead people to the wrong conclusion; that to do nothing will be just as good, if not better than actually trying to stop this.
Anyway, that's my vent. Here is a link to a couple of the stories
Reuters
Associated Press
Live Science