…and this is a 
Slackjawed creationist surprised at his own incompetence at a scientific job
Category: Creationism
Posted on: December 7, 2007 8:52 AM, by PZ Myers
I am so amused. A creationist lost his job at Woods Hole, and he was a zebrafish developmental biologist. Hey, I know a little bit about that!
The creationist, Nathaniel Abraham, briefly held a post-doctoral position under Mark Hahn at Woods Hole. Here's the creationist's side:
Nathaniel Abraham filed a lawsuit earlier this week in US District Court in Boston saying that the Cape Cod research center dismissed him in 2004 because of his Christian belief that the Bible presents a true account of human creation.
Abraham, who is seeking $500,000 in compensation for a violation of his civil rights, says in the suit that he lost his job as a postdoctoral researcher in a biology lab shortly after he told his superior that he did not accept evolution as scientific fact.
And here's the scientist's side:
But on Nov. 17, Hahn asked him to resign, pointing out in the letter that Abraham should have known of evolution's centrality to the project because it was evident from the job advertisement and grant proposal.
". . . You have indicated that you do not recognize the concept of biological evolution and you would not agree to include a full discussion of the evolutionary implications and interpretations of our research in any co-authored publications resulting from this work," Hahn 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."
The commission [the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination] dismissed his complaint earlier this year. The commission said Abraham was terminated because his request not to work on evolutionary aspects of the project would be challenging for Woods Hole because the research was based on evolutionary theories.
I would have fired the guy, too. Hahn studies a particular protein family in multiple species, not just zebrafish; he publishes papers with titles like "Unexpected diversity of aryl hydrocarbon receptors in non-mammalian vertebrates: insights from comparative genomics." He does modern developmental biology, which is so tightly wrapped up in evolutionary theory they're becoming indistinguishable. How do you go off to do a post-doc in a lab without first reading up on the work, getting excited about it all, and planning to invest yourself in it? Abraham had to have read and understood the prior work of the lab, or he shouldn't have taken the job on. Announcing that he didn't like evolution is comparable to showing up in a fish lab and announcing that he didn't like to get his hands wet. It's like taking a job as a stockbroker and denouncing capitalism and refusing to make a profit. It's like wanting to work as a carpenter but declaring a deep-seated fear of hammers and saws.
If he thinks he can get a half-mil for wrongful termination on this, I'm going to march down to the local fundie church and demand a job as youth pastor, which I will prosecute by explaining the absurdity of god-belief to the little kids in Sunday School, and then I'll sue when they fire me. This isn't simply firing someone for incidental, private beliefs—it's firing him for practices that actually conflict with the stated purpose of the job.
Abraham is now working at Liberty University, where all creationist poseurs who claim to be scientists go to die.
One other thing I have to point out about this article. It's written by Beth Daley of the Boston Globe, and she gets it mostly right. I noticed these subtle little snippets that represent the scientific position; they are from perfect, but they at least get a simple message to the reader.
The battle between science and creationism has reached the prestigious Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution…
We have to emphasize that point more. The creationists, both the outspoken biblical kind and the devious intelligent design kind, are eager to claim the mantle of science for their ideology. They don't get to have it. This really is a battle between science and religious mythology.
Evolution is a fundamental tenet of biology that species emerge because of genetic changes to organisms that, over time, favor their survival.
Yes, evolution is fundamental to biology. You can't do major areas of biological science without evolution; even those areas where you can grind away at a narrow problem without much consideration of theory are built on a foundation of evolutionary biology. I have to nitpick a little, though: "tenet" is not a particularly good word to use for a scientific theory (but scientists do use it in a casual way, so I can't be too cranky about it), and speciation is almost certainly not a product of selection, as the passage implies, but of other, literally non-Darwinian processes. But Ms Daley's heart is in the right place, so I'll let that slide for now.
Politics
Education & Careers
Comments
How the devil did he get hired in the first place?!?
Posted by: Diego | December 7, 2007 9:09 AM
Evolution is a fundamental tenet of biology that species emerge because of genetic changes to organisms that, over time, favor their survival.
See, we always knew your position on evolution made you a biological fundamentalist. PZ. :)
Posted by: NC Paul | December 7, 2007 9:11 AM
WHAT ABOUT ATHEISTS?
No Freedom Without Religion?
There's a gap in Mitt Romney's admirable call for tolerance.
Friday, December 7, 2007; Page A38
The Washington Post Editorial
RELIGIOUS liberty is, as Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney declared yesterday, "fundamental to America's greatness." With religious division inciting violence across the globe, he is right to celebrate America's tradition of religious tolerance. He's right, too, that no one should vote against him, or for him, because he is a Mormon. We only wish his empathy for religious minorities such as his own extended a bit further, to those who do not believe in God.
It is regrettable that 47 years after John F. Kennedy felt the need to promise voters that his Catholic faith would not dictate his conduct as president, Mr. Romney felt compelled to offer similar assurances that "no authorities of my church, or of any other church for that matter, will ever exert influence on presidential decisions." It's regrettable, too, that the skepticism and even hostility some voters feel toward Mormonism has been played upon by the man who has emerged as his chief rival in Iowa, former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee, who is running commercials that proclaim him to be a "Christian leader." That is why Mr. Romney felt the need to detail his creed: "I believe that Jesus Christ is the son of God and the savior of mankind." If, as Mr. Romney correctly says, the country's founders took care not to impose a religious test for any public office, a candidate's belief, or not, in the divinity of Christ ought to be irrelevant.
Where Mr. Romney most fell short, though, was in his failure to recognize that America is composed of citizens not only of different faiths but of no faith at all and that the genius of America is to treat them all with equal dignity. "Freedom requires religion, just as religion requires freedom," Mr. Romney said. But societies can be both secular and free. The magnificent cathedrals of Europe may be empty, as Mr. Romney said, but the democracies of Europe are thriving.
"Americans acknowledge that liberty is a gift of God, not an indulgence of government," Mr. Romney said. But not all Americans acknowledge that, and those who do not may be no less committed to the liberty that is the American ideal.
Posted by: The Sinaloa Cowboy | December 7, 2007 9:16 AM
Yeah, I'm with Diego. How the hell do you get a PhD in developmental biology or something close enough to it that your competitive for post-doc positions in developmental biology and not have your committee know about your issues with evolution? How in the hell did his letter writers not know he was a creationist? And if they did know, why on earth didn't they take him aside and suggest that perhaps this particular post-doc position might not be up his ally?
Posted by: Josh | December 7, 2007 9:19 AM
what # 1 said
then again, creationists are good at lying and his real purpose was probably to get into a prestigious job like woods hole and undermine it with creation science
remember, these people dont understand that creationist nonsense is not an alternative set of theories
Posted by: brightmoon | December 7, 2007 9:20 AM
I can't help wondering... the creationists who claim to be scientists, and honestly believe (hah) that they are... what do they actually do all day long? They already know the answer, after all. One would think that'd they'd soon get bored sitting around all day saying to each other "yes, God did it all... aren't we clever?".
Ah, I see what I did wrong there. I assumed honesty. Foolish of me.
Posted by: Ted D | December 7, 2007 9:22 AM
Posted by: Bobby | December 7, 2007 9:22 AM
There might be more to this story. Look at Abraham's qualifications: a Masters in biology, and a Ph.D. in philosophy? Those are terrible qualifications for post-doctoral work in a wet lab, and I'd be really reluctant to hire someone for benchwork who'd spent the last few years doing philosophy. The possibilities are that Abraham misrepresented his skill set, or, more likely, that he presented himself as someone who'd be useful in applying theory to the interpretation of the data. In which case his denial of evolution becomes even more egregiously outrageous and a violation of the work he was hired to do.
Posted by: PZ Myers | December 7, 2007 9:26 AM
A PhD in philosophy focuses my curiosity even more directly at what his letters could have possibly said to make him competitive.
Posted by: Josh | December 7, 2007 9:29 AM
My (completely uninformed) guess is that he deliberately set out to get hired and then fired, so he could be the next great martyr to the evilutionist conspiracy.
Posted by: dogrose | December 7, 2007 9:31 AM
Can anyone find him through pubmed?
Posted by: Sigmund | December 7, 2007 9:33 AM
Dembski and Berlinski, leading lights of the Discovery Institute, also have doctorates in philosophy. I hope this doesn't mean there's a fundamental problems with PhDs in Ph.
Posted by: Zeno | December 7, 2007 9:35 AM
Long time ago, as Ph.D. student in the Netherlands, I supervised an exchange student from Kent State. Her work was mediocre at best, and she refuse to take evolution into account, despite that we are an animal ecology lab where evolution is a central theme. Anyway, after three reports that I gave back to her with comments about the lack of evolution, she finally wrote something abysmally bad but including evolution. At that time, she had to go back, and I had to give her a grade. A C would have been already to much, but taking he low standards of her university in account (sorry but what where final year students coming to do research were less trained than our 1st years), I gave her a B. She threw a fit of immense proportions, claiming discrimination, unfair treatment etc. After a bit of time, I heard that her supervisor at Kent State had increased the grade to an A. That was the end of our lab of taking exchange students from Kent State.
Posted by: Kim van der Linde | December 7, 2007 9:38 AM
A PhD in Philosophy is enough to get you a berth at Wood's Hole?
Sweet! With my background in protein kinases and hamster biology, I'd be a shoe-in (as long as I'm not up against any particle physicists or solid-state chemists).
Posted by: NC Paul | December 7, 2007 9:38 AM
There's a PhD student in my department who regularly writes articles for the student press denouncing evolution. I've been told by other grad students to leave him alone because "it doesn't matter for the kind of work he does", and that I should "respect his beliefs". He's well-known to be brilliant, has full NSERC funding, and meanwhile writes in student press that believing in evolution and conservation biology are incompatible because evolution is all about survival of the fittest.
He studies cell biology and physiology... call me crazy here, but I think if you think a system was designed by a loving god, that's going to bias your expectations of that system. His supervisor tells me that "we just don't talk about it".
And to think...in a few years, he's going to have a PhD. With the number of publications and grants he has, he's going become faculty.
Posted by: katie | December 7, 2007 9:40 AM
Long time ago, as a Ph.D. student in the Netherlands, I supervised an exchange student from Kent State. Her work was mediocre at best, and she refused to take evolution into account (she was a hard-core creationist), despite that the lab was an animal ecology lab where evolution is a central theme. Anyway, after three reports that I gave back to her with comments about the lack of evolution, she finally wrote something abysmally bad but now including evolution. By that time, she had to go back to the US, and I had to give her a grade. A C would have been already to much, but taking the low standards of her university in account (sorry but what where final year students coming to do research were less trained than our 1st years), I gave her a B. She threw a fit of immense proportions, claiming discrimination, unfair treatment etc. After a bit of time, I heard that her supervisor at Kent State had increased her grade to an A. That was the end for our lab of taking exchange students from Kent State.
(should learn to hit the preview button ;-)
Posted by: Kim van der Linde | December 7, 2007 9:44 AM
Definitely something way out here.
A Ph.D. in philosophy doesn't sound very useful for analyzing data either. One would rather have someone with computer skills or mathematics. These days molecular evolution is usually a lot of number crunching of sequence data.
Abraham got a job and refused to do it. So what does he expect? This might have been a setup from the creos from the start.
The bigger mystery, how did he get hired?
Mark Hahn might have thought a bit about hiring a Ph.D. in philosophy when there are hordes of qualified Ph.D.s running around, especially in Mass. Or he didn't bother to check his references and CV which might have been "creative". Or he might have hired the guy as a favor for someone.
Alternatively, Abraham might have cooked his application materials thoroughly and was a convincing liar.
More questions than answers here. This is an iceberg, most of the story is hidden right now.
Posted by: raven | December 7, 2007 9:51 AM
"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."
Yeah, that's not going to be quote-mined by the DI anytime soon.
Posted by: Jason | December 7, 2007 9:54 AM
Not to be a conspiracy monger, but maybe Abraham, like with PZ's hypothetical Sunday school job, intentionally sought a position that he knew he'd be fired from so he could play the religious martyr. Considering IDists seem to now be focused on that PR tactic, what with the Expelled movie, would it really be beneath them to manufacture incidents like this?
Posted by: jpf | December 7, 2007 9:54 AM
speciation is almost certainly not a product of selection, as the passage implies
We could debate all day whether speciation is driven by selection -- for what it's worth, Coyne and Orr argue that selection is necessary for the reproductive isolation of two populations, even in allopatry (with experimental data to back it up). But the big problem is the central role the author claims for selection in all of evolution, not just speciation.
Posted by: RPM | December 7, 2007 9:56 AM
PZ wrote: Yes, evolution is fundamental to biology. You can't do major areas of biological science without evolution; even those areas where you can grind away at a narrow problem without much consideration of theory are built on a foundation of evolutionary biology. I have to nitpick a little, though: "tenet" is not a particularly good word to use for a scientific theory (but scientists do use it in a casual way, so I can't be too cranky about it), and speciation is almost certainly not a product of selection, as the passage implies, but of other, literally non-Darwinian processes. But Ms Daley's heart is in the right place, so I'll let that slide for now.
"Unfortunately, conflation of fact and theory in this regard is not limited to opponents of evolution. Some biologists make the inverse mistake of considering clear evidence of common descent as evidence that it occurred by natural selection. Certainly, one can propose that natural selection is responsible for any changes that show evidence of having been adaptive, but change through time (evolution as fact or path) does not, by itself, evince any particular mechanism (evolution as theory). Neither this failure to distinguish between fact or path and theory by scientists, nor that perpetuated by antievolutionists, is compatible with a proper understanding of the scientific definitions of these terms."
Evolution as Fact, Theory, and Path
Journal Evolution: Education and Outreach
Publisher Springer New York
ISSN 1936-6426 (Print) 1936-6434 (Online)
Issue Volume 1, Number 1 / January, 2008
DOI 10.1007/s12052-007-0001-z
Pages 46-52
SpringerLink Date Tuesday, November 27, 2007
T. Ryan Gregory Department of Integrative Biology, University of Guelph, Guelph, ON, N1G 2W1, Canada
Posted by: The Sinaloa Cowboy | December 7, 2007 9:58 AM
Could someone explain something to a lowly college dropout?
If his doctorate is in philosophy, how is it he's doing post-doctoral work in biology? Am I misunderstanding what "post-doctoral" means?
Posted by: Noobage | December 7, 2007 10:00 AM
Unfortunately, This guy shares a name with that 12 year old killer guy, so I can't find anything on this guy to try and back up any assertions. However, this feels like a total setup. Why bring this to anyone's attention if you genuinely felt you could do the work requested?
Also, the cynic in me thinks that it's nice of them to get a taste of their own medicine. Honestly, how many people want your perspective employer to know you're an Atheist, since that will figure prominently into their employment choice.
Posted by: Brendan S | December 7, 2007 10:08 AM
Oh, hi Kim! I hadn't heard of your experience with the Kent State exchange student before. That sounds like it was a real fiasco!
Posted by: Diego | December 7, 2007 10:08 AM
A creationist lied? What are the chances?
WWJD? Probably slap Abraham up side the head and say, "Duh!"
OEJ
Posted by: One Eyed Jack | December 7, 2007 10:09 AM
It's not that unusual for someone with an undergrad degree in one field and a PhD in a second one to find a postdoc in their first discipline. I just yesterday met someone who had an undergrad bio degree, did their a masters in physics and then a PhD in engineering and is currently working on his second postdoc in a vertebrate bio lab. A PhD in philosophy is a bit more unusual than that sort of track, but it's possible if there was something more to this guy's undergraduate work, I suppose. Perhaps he converted to Creationism after he'd done some good work in evolutionary bio as an undergraduate.
They key may be in the name and nationality here. He's Indian and his last name is Abraham. In my experience, Indians with biblical last names are usually Catholic. There's a sizable Catholic population in India that dates back to the time of Thomas who went and prostletyzed there. Perhaps some time after coming to the US, he converted to an evangelical sect. I wouldn't expect to find a lot of Catholics at Liberty University, after all. So maybe he had a good track record from before he underwent his conversion and parleyed that into a postdoc, intentionally hiding his Creationist leanings in a calculated attempt to cause trouble for a major research institution.
I fully expect to see more of this sort of thing in the future, frankly. In any case, WHOI is a top-notch research center as far as I know. I don't think they'd have given this jackass an opportunity without good reason to do so.
Posted by: Mike O'Risal | December 7, 2007 10:15 AM
A little further research, however, shows that Abraham has an odd pedigree even at the undergrad level. According to Liberty University's Bio/Chem Faculty Page, Abraham's undergrad degree is a Bachelor of Veterinary Science (BVS) from Tamilnadu Veterinary & Animal Sciences University. They don't mention what he got his MS and PhD in, of course, because one would assume that an associate professor of biology would have a doctorate in biology or a closely related field. It's just one more bit of deception on the part of the Creationists to put forth information in this sort of misleading way.
In fact, specific credentials aren't given for any of the faculty members on that page. Without further investigation, it wouldn't be possible to tell what any of them had doctorates in. I haven't done it, but I wouldn't be surprised if none or almost none of them had a PhD in biology or chemistry.
Posted by: Mike O'Risal | December 7, 2007 10:36 AM
Eh,
Jesus supposedly said he was the son of god. His honesty has alot to be desired too.
Posted by: Stevie_C | December 7, 2007 10:38 AM
I just received an email from a colleague reporting on the recent DOE study group on math and science (http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/summary/318/5856/1534). One quote stood out, which I will repeat here:
"At the same time, says panel chair Larry
Faulkner, a chemist and former University of
Texas president, the report will note that little
or no good data exist on several hot-button
issues. On choosing between a prescribed
math curriculum presented by the teacher and
one that incorporates what piques the interest
of students, Faulkner notes, "it's a matter of
religion, and it's important for the world to
know that."
WTF??
SG
Posted by: Science Goddess | December 7, 2007 10:46 AM
He has a PhD in biology. PhD=Philosophiae Doctor (doctor of philosophy).
Posted by: Edwin | December 7, 2007 10:47 AM
There's a sizable Catholic population in India that dates back to the time of Thomas who went and prostletyzed there.
No, the Thomasine church/Nestorians aren't Catholic at all... the remnants are Orthodox of one form or another. Roman Catholicism was introduced to India by the Portugese, in the 16th century, centered around Goa. Hence Dinesh D'Souza.
Being as Muslims and Jews have a presence in India, and Indian surnames are not as "stable" as Western surnames, the "Abraham" could be from any of the Levantine three, or, if he's a convert, then he could have changed his name, especially if his birth name implied a non-Christian diety or practice.
Posted by: Graculus | December 7, 2007 10:48 AM
When I was a PhD candidate (biomed) back in the 80's, a guy in my class was an evangelical and a creationist.
He wasn't a very good grad student, poor hands, slow and lazy and mostly just sort of uninspired. I'm pretty sure the faculty kept him on because he was otherwise a nice guy and, of course, a warm body.
At one time he told me point blank that his church sort of pushed him into a PhD program, and had plans for him to be so credentialed, so he could direct a science program for a college they were planning on starting.
He was just a pebble in a stream, just sort of giving himself up to the current.
I was, like, oh.mah.gawd! What a bunch of morons.
Posted by: me | December 7, 2007 10:53 AM
His right to believe a load of crap has been violated.
GOOD!
Posted by: CalGeorge | December 7, 2007 11:09 AM
"speciation is almost certainly not a product of selection, as the passage implies, but of other, literally non-Darwinian processes."
you got me confused. Can someone explain or indicate some good links for further reading ?
Posted by: negentropyeater | December 7, 2007 11:10 AM
That would be completely surprising! I mean, Liberty does have a track-record for high science standards. There are a bunch of people from my home-town who go there...I tried to convince them as much as I could that they shouldn't, but you know how arguing with fundamentalists is...fruitless. I was hoping that their college experience would possibly broaden their minds, but no, they are just going to close their minds and make them even smaller. I guess that's okay, less competition for me when it comes time to go to grad school I suppose.
Posted by: Robert Ward | December 7, 2007 11:12 AM
"Abraham is now working at Liberty University, where all creationist poseurs who claim to be scientists go to die."
This statement made me laugh :)
Posted by: Nick | December 7, 2007 11:15 AM
I did research at Woods Hole for a year and the place is a magnet for eccentric slightly off kilter weirdos. Most are very intelligent, but I can see how an impostor might have slipped through.
Posted by: caynazzo | December 7, 2007 11:19 AM
"I did research at Woods Hole for a year and the place is a magnet for eccentric slightly off kilter weirdos."
Like Hooper, from JAWS.
Posted by: Pablo | December 7, 2007 11:24 AM
Jonathan Wells was sent to the University of California to get a Ph.D. in biology by Rev. Moon so he would be 'credentialed.' According to faculty members who taught him and and served on his advisory committee he concealed his beliefs and goals during his studies at Berkeley.
Posted by: vhutchison | December 7, 2007 11:24 AM
It's looking like the reporter made a mistake: he apparently did do a biology Ph.D. on apoptosis in zebrafish.
Posted by: PZ Myers | December 7, 2007 11:26 AM
Philosophers sometimes overestimate the practical implications of their favorite philosophical theory. There are some attacks on evolution which come from the standpoint that "Darwinism" violates some sort of necessary tenet of epistemology or metaphysics. You can tell that it won't work before you even start!
Not really effective. As far as I know, there has never been a case where scientists were working happily with a model which made successful predictions, but had to throw it all out after someone ran up crying "Wait! Wait! Your theory contradicts philosophy! Hegel and Husserl already resolved all this!"
Really? Damn. And just when it looked like we were making progress. Thanks, Philosophy-Boy!
(Just speculating, but I could see a biology lab hoping that someone with a heavy degree in the Humanities might be more skilled in writing and communication than the rest of the science geeks.)
Posted by: Sastra, OM | December 7, 2007 11:35 AM
Re Comment #39:
Oh. Never mind.
Posted by: Sastra, OM | December 7, 2007 11:37 AM
I wonder how this person got to the job in the first place, didn't have to have demonstrated some level of understanding or education prior to being hired?
Posted by: Thadd | December 7, 2007 11:39 AM
What a splendid start of the weekend!
Ah, the famous graveyard of prehistoric Proboscideans have been identified. No doubt a locale of the lesser known relative to Deinotherium ("terrible creature"), Deo-not-here-ium ("terrible creationist").
Why, isn't the idea that everyone fits under a sufficiently large tenet?
Posted by: Torbjörn Larsson, OM | December 7, 2007 11:50 AM
According to the linked article:
Posted by: Dave M | December 7, 2007 11:55 AM
Although it seems to have been a misreporting in this particular case, it's not at all unheard of to do a post-doc in a different field than your PhD is--the idea is that by getting a PhD, you've demonstrated your ability to learn, synthesize, and carry out original research, so applying those same skills in a more-related or less-related field is a fairly well-trodden path.
Oh, I am *so* stealing that line!
Posted by: thalarctos | December 7, 2007 11:59 AM
Sastra again flashes that Molly-worthy style: let me echo her #41 on my own behalf.
Posted by: Dave M | December 7, 2007 12:01 PM
I couldn't find a vita for him, via Google, but I did find this in the SJU catalog:
Title: Role of programmed cell death in defining zebrafish development / Nathaniel Abraham.
Author: Abraham, Nathaniel.
Publisher: 2004.
Description: x, 201 leaves : ill. ; 29 cm.
So it was a PhD in Biology, and I can see how just on the basis of dissertation he might've gotten hired. From the date of the dissertation, it doesn't look as if he lasted very long (I didn't see anywhere when exactly he started at Wood's Hole).
dpr
Posted by: David Robin | December 7, 2007 12:10 PM
Help!
I need someone to help me with the utter despair I am feeling about America and my fellow citizens. Between this and the Romney post, I am so afraid. It seems that large enough groups of people are religious, more than happy to be ignorant of or even reject science, and fundamentally push us ever backward to the dark ages. Do we really need our own Inquisition and Crusades to take the edge off of Christianity in this country?
Am I the only one who wants to curl up fetal when I see what is going on with the general public?
Posted by: gex | December 7, 2007 12:18 PM
The Crusades are ongoing. But we still have a chance of stopping the Inquisition.
Posted by: Rey Fox | December 7, 2007 12:21 PM
a pubmed search reveals no publications from N Abraham related to his graduate work at St. John's. He is acknowledged on a paper from the lab, but his work was listed on as "in preparation". His graduate work at St John's was in a prominent lab in the field of Apoptosis.
Posted by: randy | December 7, 2007 12:24 PM
I spend much of my professional time defending colleges and universities from lawsuits by disgruntled prospective or former employees, often faculty types. How come I can't get cases like that?
Posted by: CJColucci | December 7, 2007 12:34 PM
Thank you, Edwin in #29, I thought I was going crazy here.
The article only said he has "a philosophy doctorate", i.e. he has a Ph.D., doesn't say in which discipline. The article did not say he has "a doctorate in philosophy", which I guess would imply philosophy as the discipline.
Posted by: Shining Raven | December 7, 2007 12:35 PM
That is really lame that the reporter didn't get it right that his Ph.D. is in biology. Maybe what happened is he called St. John's, spoke to a representative (as it is reported) but that was a student helper or something who said he had a "doctor of philosophy" degree (i.e., a Ph.D.), and it got misinterpreted as a doctorate in philosophy. The reporter should have asked for clarification to name the department which issued his degree and at least called that department to verify.
Posted by: cm | December 7, 2007 12:37 PM
No satire is safe from becoming a reality. I remember a headline from THE ONION some time ago: "Christian Scientist Pharmacist Refuses to Dispense Any Drugs." This one simply is: "Creation Scientist Refuses to Do Science."
Posted by: fardels bear | December 7, 2007 12:38 PM
I'd be very interested to find out who helped pay for his education.
Posted by: Amanda Marcotte | December 7, 2007 12:39 PM
Shining Raven #53 said:
The article only said he has "a philosophy doctorate", i.e. he has a Ph.D., doesn't say in which discipline. The article did not say he has "a doctorate in philosophy", which I guess would imply philosophy as the discipline.
Nobody uses the phrase "a philosophy doctorate" to mean a Ph.D. in general; it isn't a word combination I've ever heard. It just sounds like the reporter was unaccustomed to talking about Ph.D. degrees. It is quite reasonable for PZ to interpret this as a Ph.D. in philosophy. The reporter should have said he has a "doctor of philosophy degree" if he wanted to spell it out, but better he should have said he has a "Ph.D. in biology".
Posted by: cm | December 7, 2007 12:43 PM
What the creationists are doing with scientific PhD programs and research institutes is classic entryism. This is a well known tactic of political extremists.
They infiltrate mainstream institutions by becoming established members, seeking to exert influence and raise the stature of their cause. They do not advertise their extremist views, at least not at first. Communists engaged in entryism with labor unions and mainstream political organizations. In recent years neo-fascists have used entryist tactics with the anti-globalization movement ("Third Positionist" anti-imperialism) and anti-jihadism (witness the blog wars concerning Vlams Belang). And there are many other examples with a variety of extremist groups.
Entryists are like parasitoid larvae within the host organism. What they hope to do is emerge in mature form from the infected organization, which is left a husk of itself. The best immune defense against entryism is to identify and expel the entryists.
Posted by: Colugo | December 7, 2007 12:47 PM
Yeah, OK, he has a real doctorate, but wait: he gets fired from his only post-doc, and then gets hired at the Associate Professor level?? (note that the previously notorious Marcus Ross, who also has a PhD, is listed as Assistant Prof.).
That really makes my stomach hurt.
Posted by: Sven DiMilo | December 7, 2007 12:49 PM
p.s. AND with zero publications???!
p.p.s. while selection may not be necessary to cause speciation, it sure as hell can cause speciation.
Posted by: Sven DiMilo | December 7, 2007 12:53 PM
Prostitution comes in many forms, not just selling yourself for sex. This guy sold himself to get a science degree. He and that paleontology guy from URI are two peas of a pod - just do anything to get the science degree. I can't understand why Liberty U would even want someone like them - these are faculty that are proven frauds, who took up space in science classes, regurgitated whatever it took, but actually did not learn the science. These are charlatans, with no integrity, no character. It reflects poorly on the university. I guess honor and character are just outmoded these days.
Posted by: BC | December 7, 2007 12:54 PM
Science Citation Index shows no publications for Nathaniel Abraham at either St Johns or Woods Hole. Circumstances indicate that he would have worked with Dr. Richard A Lockshin in the Dept of Biology at St. Johns (who is easy to find in Citation Index).
Being fired for believing in evolution must look very good on CVs at Liberty.
Posted by: Les Lane | December 7, 2007 1:04 PM
BC (#50):
Sounds qualified for Liberty U to me.
Posted by: minimalist | December 7, 2007 1:05 PM
Graculus said:
Being as Muslims and Jews have a presence in India, and Indian surnames are not as "stable" as Western surnames,
That state in India, Tamilnadu, has the practice of naming children to proclaim one's political ideology or naming children after famous figures. The present Chief Minister of Tamilnadu, named his son Stalin, to affirm his communist leanings. That son is now heir apparent to the aging chief minister and might become the next CM. When you see news reports next year explaining how a guy named Stalin became the chief minister of an Indian state, remember, you read it here first!
My brother had a colleague named Abraham Lincoln, a hindu BTW and he said he had a brother named John F Kennedy! Both came to USA on IT jobs and had trouble getting taken seriously while ordering stuff by telephone or renting apartments.
Posted by: Ravilyn Sanders | December 7, 2007 1:09 PM
You just answered your own question there.
Posted by: raven | December 7, 2007 1:11 PM
Is there a betting pool on how long before Abraham gets introduced as a "former researcher at the prestigious Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute..."? The faithful will accept the statement at face value while plugging their ears and going, "Nahya, nahya, I can't hear you" when the rest of us go into low earth orbit.
Posted by: EoRaptor013 | December 7, 2007 1:24 PM
I wonder if this is going to appear in Expelled. I'm saying that we should watch for it (maybe one of the characters "in the dark" to avoid Michael Korn--oh no, seems we don't have those sorts, or extremely few at most), since it has to be one of the easiest take-downs possible.
What is important is that this is a good precedent for our side, though I don't suppose there was much question about how it would turn out. How is a person going to do evolutionary biology while denying evolution and biology, after all?
Same goes for Sternberg, and by analogy, for Gonzalez. How do you deny the rules of evidence and then complain that you're "not allowed to do science"? Sorry, science isn't a mosh pit, in which anyone can just go slamming into everyone and everything as your "research."
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/2kxyc7
Posted by: Glen Davidson | December 7, 2007 1:26 PM
Creationist in science settings tend not to be open. The parrot the right answers for the grades. I know a young earth creationist how got a graduate degree from a systematics lab, simply by doing enough work and saying the right things at the right time.
Posted by: bob | December 7, 2007 1:41 PM
That reminds me of that one guy who insinuates himself into getting a PhD by posing as a person interested in evolutionary science only to fly off his mask and reveal his true colors as a slanderous creationist who then attacks what he wrote down about Mosasaurs in his college papers the moment he gets his PhD.
Posted by: Crazyharp81602 | December 7, 2007 1:48 PM
Hi,
Just wanted to drop a note from my own experience. I used to work in government. I had a supervisor that detested the satanist evil of secular government. So, he became a fifth columnist, working to destroy the great satan from within. You could pick his chosen enforcement levels based solely on the stated religion of the violator. No, he wasn't respected. Kinda the same as the bushies about to hide in the civil service once the D is elected.
Posted by: Mold | December 7, 2007 2:09 PM
One of my favorite "subversive within the system" stories was told by scientist Lucy Hall. Instead of being another "creationist tries to get biology degree" situation, this one is "New Ager tries to get chemistry degree." She writes:
My plan of attack was pure and simple: subversion. And I planned this subversion very craftily, at least for a thirteen-year-old. Along with my desire to save the world through such Higher Truths, I also wanted to save the world by becoming a doctor. Except I was going to be a real doctor. I'd look like an ordinary doctor on the outside because I'd go to medical school and take all those narrow-minded, materialistic, rigid, uncaring, unenlightened, and unpleasant medical science classes. But inside, I would be an expert in the real ways of healing, open-minded, organic, spiritual, human, enlightened, empowering, and infinitely better. I was sure the blandishments of the Establishment wouldn't affect me, since I knew the Truth, and couldn't possibly fall for any materialistic lies. And, once I had a conventional MD degree under my belt as camouflage, I could attack the bastions of materialistic medicine directly from within, and subvert it for its own good in spite of itself.
Seeing as Ms. Hall is at a website called "Godless Science" -- and the talk is titled "Why I Am Not a New Ager" -- that clearly didn't happen.
You can read the rest of it at:
http://www.godless.org/sci/whynot2.html
Posted by: Sastra, OM | December 7, 2007 2:30 PM
It's like taking a job as a stockbroker and denouncing capitalism and refusing to make a profit.
So you and me had the same broker, huh? Oh well, I hope you got out of it better off than me.
Posted by: Mooser | December 7, 2007 2:48 PM
Okay, I've picked up a copy of Abraham's complaint in the Federal District court and the following are the crucial factual allegations:
The big "ifs" (and a very big "ifs" they are) these facts would seem to turn on are whether he was actually doing satisfactory work before it was learned he denied evolution, either because he was able to separate his beliefs from his work or because his work really doesn't involve theory, and whether, after it was learned he denied evolution, there was some sort of reasonable accomodation that could have been made for his religion.
If so, the lab could be in trouble on this. I tend to think not because the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination (probably pretty liberal on the subject of religious freedom) found there was a "lack of probable cause" (a pretty low standard of evidence) that discrimination had taken place.
Posted by: John Pieret | December 7, 2007 2:55 PM
[sarcasm on]Cool, where can I find a job as an associate professor without a single publication. I do have a bunch, so should I aim for a full professorship immediately?[sarcasm off]
Serious, I am happy to get an assistant professorship somewhere in the coming years.
Posted by: Kim van der Linde | December 7, 2007 2:56 PM
Sure the lab could possibly be in trouble if the plaintiff is telling the truth, but the defendant wrote this to him:
If he is telling the truth, he almost certainly has cause to dismiss him. There are a whole lot of questions raised even by plaintiff's point #20:
Just what, according to the plaintiff, would "warrant" the use of evolutionary concepts? For many of them, the warrant would have to be within the region of "microevolution," an am