…and this is a 
This was predictable. As I mentioned, there was a lecture by a Scientist with a Ph.D. in Science from Harvard on Sunday, by a fellow named Dr Nathaniel Jeanson, which is part of a fairly typical trend nowadays: the devout creationist who grinds his way through a graduate program to earn an advanced degree so he can disregard everything he learned to wave his title like a victory flag and pretend to an authority he does not have. Other well-known examples are Jonathan Wells and Marcus Ross — their degrees are meaningless since they clearly prioritize the trappings of authority over the substance of knowledge.
So Jeff Eyges attended and sent in a summary. It's no surprise: Jeanson has this fancy degree, but his talk was all straight out of the quaint old 1960s "Scientific Creationism" handbook, full of bogus arguments and obfuscatory handwaving over science the speaker doesn't understand.
As I told Catherine Dulac, his former dept. head at Harvard, it was an hour-long spectacle of misinformation, half-truths and what appeared to be deliberate obfuscation. Most of this (probably all of it) you've heard before. He began by contrasting Evolutionary Theory and Creationism. Evolution, he said, admits only naturalistic explanations, discounts eyewitness testimony (i.e., the Bible) and insists upon uniformitarianism. Naturally, he sees these as weaknesses.
He then listed the similarities; strangely he listed speciation (I thought they didn't even like the word) under "Microevolution". He then pulled out what I imagine was the most nihilistic quote by a scientist (regrettably, I didn't write down the name) he could find, to the effect that evolution demonstrates that there is no purpose to life, no ethics, no free will, etc. He did say that not all atheists have this view, but, of course, it was calculated to appeal to the Christians in the audience; they gasped and shook their heads appropriately (I should mention that the event was sponsored by an evangelical church; yes, we have a few in Boston!). They were primed.
He then began to weave tortuous arguments from geology and astronomy, disciplines in which he apparently has no training and upon which he isn't qualified to draw (I'm not sure he's qualified to draw upon biology). Astronomy - the galaxies are positioned at discrete distances from the Earth, in all directions, which is what you'd expect to see if we were at the center. Geology - the basalt layer on the sea floor, coupled with the ion exchange cycle, only allows for an age of 62 million years. The mud flow process allows for only 12 million years. The inconsistency shows the unreliability of the evolutionary model. Radiometric dating is, of course, unreliable as well. For uranium to decay into lead takes 1.5 billion years, however, helium retention (apparently, zircon crystals containing lead that decayed from uranium have also contained helium; YEC's claim that over millions of years, the helium would have escaped) would indicate an age of 6,000 years. Not only does this demonstrate the inconsistency of the old-Earth model, but it serves to validate the chronology of the young-Earth model (because, of course, when the methodology supports our a priori conclusions, we accept it!).
He then dealt with the geological strata. He talked about layers in the area around Mt. St. Helens, along with peat, as a possible precursor of oil, at the bottom of a lake that has since formed, and opined that similar activity with greater force, multiplied many times, occurred during the Flood. He quoted one of his new colleagues at ICR (he quoted them quite a bit, actually) as saying that the Earth doesn't look old; it looks flooded!
He then got around to Biology. According to him, biologists admit that abiogenesis is the "worst" problem as regards evolution. Also (and you can hear this coming) - there are few, if any, transitional forms, and they've been looking for decades. (I was surprised he even allowed for the possibility of "a few"; I'm not sure what he meant.) Finally, of course - irreducible complexity. He drew upon his own doctoral work on calcium regulation in the blood, as well as bacterial flagella and blood clotting. Naturally, he neglected to mention the refutations of IR that have been in circulation since before Dover.
Then he got into some very weird territory. He gave a brief description, for the sake of the lay churchgoers, of DNA, RNA and proteins, and then put up a chart giving the degree of similarity in Cytochrome C sequencing between organisms, expressed as percentages. He drew attention to the fact that the degree of similarity between yeast (for example) and humans is the same as that between yeast and plants, and that this is true across the board for all organisms. David Levin, a professor of Molecular Biology from Boston University was there, and, as both you and he subsequently explained to me, Cytochrome C is an extremely old gene, and we would therefore expect the sequences to be the same for all organisms. The strange thing is that each organism had a different figure assigned to it - yeast was 39% similar to all other organisms; others had different figures - so I really don't understand what he was trying to say. He then plotted the figures on pyramids, and said something along the lines of requiring geometric shapes of increasingly higher dimensions to express it properly. I told Dr. Levin, "I couldn't understand what that was all about." He told me it was deliberate obfuscation, and I said, "Thanks, that's what I thought!" As I said, it was all very strange.
Jeanson ended by attempting to use his take on creation "science" as justification for his conservative Christian theology - the evidence points to a creation made specifically for us; the reasonable response is one of gratitude and praising the creator, who is then within his rights to manifest just wrath over our not praising him and expressing gratitude. Although I'm 52 and have been observing it all of my life, the fact that they don't see this as a projection of their own damaged egos and a product of their pathologically low self-esteem still floors me.
There was a half-hour lunch break, then an hour-long Q & A. Most of the church folk had left, but a few remained, along with several scientists and science-oriented people. Dr. Levin began by bringing up the genomic data, describing it as a problem in logic for which the only answer is common descent. Jeanson claimed to be unfamiliar with the data! (I'd think even an undergraduate Biology student would be familiar with it at this point; I'm hard-pressed to understand how a recent PhD grad - from Harvard, no less - doesn't know about it.) Levin offered to get up and give a five minute presentation; Jeanson wasn't interested. The chimpanzee genome came up as well; Jeanson said he thought it was based upon the human data and incomplete at that; Levin told him that wasn't the case, that we have the complete genome and have had it for some time. He also mentioned tree ring dendrology, that we have specimens going back 11,000 years. Again, Jeanson said he wasn't familiar with it. He ended up saying that a good deal; apparently, there wasn't too much data with which he was familiar! At that point, a man stood up, agitated, said he was a doctor and that he'd been a Christian for thirty years, that he converted because of the "differing opinions" about evolutionary theory, and started going off the deep end about the inconsistencies in carbon dating and how it related to tree ring dendrology. Dr. Levin, who was a model of patience and restraint, told him that it was irrelevant; the tree ring data is used to calibrate carbon dating, but is obviously independent of it.
Other people brought up similar issues, forcing Jeanson to back down on a couple of points. One fellow challenged him on irreducible complexity, and got him to admit it's really just a semantic device, that it doesn't serve as evidence for creation. The fellow asked, "Then why include it in your talk?" Jeanson had no answer. He was also pressed about the Cytochrome C similarities, and acknowledged that it actually did support common ancestry. A young woman noted that he had no problem questioning the opinions of scientists, but that he seemed unwilling to question the Bible, which was written by poorly educated men 2,500 - 3,000 years ago. He replied that he'd studied the Bible extensively, had found it to be reliable and consistent, and that when he'd thought he'd found an inconsistency, it turned out to be the result of his own "wrong thinking" (His mental processes would appear to mimic the scientific process, in that they seem to be self-correcting!). He also began using the word "paradigm" repeatedly, which made me think of Marcus Ross; it's the term he uses to sidestep his critics. In fact, that's what the Q & A consisted largely of - Jeanson avoiding direct confrontation and claiming ignorance of data. My perception was that the whole thing was making him uncomfortable, but I'd hate to think that in five years, no one at Harvard confronted him.
There were numerous challenges, and, toward the end, the Christians started to get a little feisty as they felt increasingly threatened - Bible quotes, atheism leads to Nazism, that sort of thing. All in all, though, it was rather tame. As we were leaving, Dr. Levin was engaged by a couple of fundies. They said God created the trees with rings to make it look as though they were old; he suggested that made God a deceiver. No, no, he's given you free will; you have a choice... the same tired apologetics. On the one hand, God hides himself enough so that we have to have faith, on the other, he gives us enough evidence so that we are without excuse and he's justified in holding us "accountable". And, of course, it doesn't matter whether or not we think it's "fair" - he's God; he can do whatever he likes! It's like arguing with very stubborn, developmentally challenged children (which, as I suggest from time to time on Pharyngula and Ed Brayton's blog, is how I feel they should be treated).
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!"
There is another account from the Boston Atheists. Jeanson is same ol', same ol'.
Yet more reports: the Boston Skeptics and Aaron Golas summarize the talk, and you can download a recording.
This is exactly what we need everytime one of these frauds speaks: a mob of skeptics to descend upon it and shred it publicly and on the web.
Politics
Comments
Posted by: Richard Eis | August 17, 2009 9:45 AM
-there are few, if any, transitional forms, and they've been looking for decades.-
Exactly how many do we need? noooo come back with those goal posts.
Posted by: me | August 17, 2009 9:48 AM
the trick is to bring up your concerns about these young people ask you to write a letter of recommendation to grad school
Such as...
"X was a competent experimentalist in the lab except for the times when he'd pray for an assay to work, rather than roll up his sleeves and try to deduce which component went bad..."
Posted by: Zeno | August 17, 2009 9:48 AM
According to the comically wrong-headed Conservapedia entry on President Obama, "[T]he Islamic doctrine of taqiyya encourages adherents to deny they are Muslim if it advances the cause of Islam." Do we now have a cohort of polemicists practicing a "creationist taqiyya" where they pretend to be practicing science and the scientific method only to advance the cause of Biblical literalism? The fundies haven't been able to defeat science, so now they must infiltrate it.
Their entire graduate careers must be one long sin of bearing false witness.
Posted by: felixthecat
|
August 17, 2009 9:50 AM
"It's like arguing with very stubborn, developmentally challenged children"
Hmmm...retarded stubborn children? That is pretty good. Maybe I should change my "paradigm". I usually just think of them as either brain dead or willfully stupid, and that is how I have come to treat them.
Posted by: Jessica | August 17, 2009 9:53 AM
Hi everyone! My name is Jessica and I attended the evening lecture. I have WMA files of the lecture itself, and the QnA that followed (two separate recordings). I will post a link here later on today for anyone who is interested to hear them first-hand.
Posted by: John | August 17, 2009 9:59 AM
@5: That would be great, I look foward to hearing the Q&A especially.
Posted by: alopiasmag
|
August 17, 2009 9:59 AM
Would it be possible to ask Harvard (or better yet, the association that licenses these professors) to revoke the degree? As a Dentist, if I do "malpractice" or do procedures to ill or hurt patients, my license is revoked.
In this case, these "PhD's" cause an ill to society's educational future.
Posted by: JV | August 17, 2009 10:03 AM
Too bad there isn't a way to revoke a PhD. I am not advocating witch hunts. However, if someone comes out spouting a load of crap antithetical to the theories and hypotheses they've supposedly studied, shouldn't the rest of the academy (or at least members of their discipline) be able to vote them out? It's plain they haven't learned anything.
What was his adviser thinking?
Posted by: jkhdfk | August 17, 2009 10:08 AM
"It's like arguing with very stubborn, developmentally challenged children."
or, say, deluded (i.e. mentally ill) adults.
this is all a (i would say public, but i'm not sure i should go there) mental health issue.
what we should be doing is supporting efforts to find a cure. perhaps surgery, perhaps drugs, perhaps some sort of intensive therapy.
what is certain is that we should all be looking for a way forward for these poor unfortunates (oooh, it's like the victorian era all over!). they need our help, not our scorn.
Posted by: Auric | August 17, 2009 10:08 AM
Once is happenstance, twice is coincidence, three times is enemy action.
Posted by: DSpohn | August 17, 2009 10:09 AM
Someone should have called him out on his astronomy. He obviously knows nothing about astronomy and does not care to check his assertions. Typical fundie behavior.
Posted by: Reginald Selkirk | August 17, 2009 10:10 AM
Erm, and who exactly was the eyewitness to Creation Week? Adam and Eve weren't created until the last work day of the week.Posted by: Jessica | August 17, 2009 10:10 AM
@7, hah! The guy would probably cry. He whined repeatedly about how creation myths were discriminated against in the sciences because they won't even be considered.
The whole thing was just a really good reminder why you can't take these crack-pots seriously. Any scrutiny at all reveals that they have a hidden agenda, and that agenda is to protect their unfounded beliefs from reason. They have no desire to know anything, only to find the occasional traces of data that *might* support their inane claims, at the expense of saying that better minds than theirs must be wrong.
For godsake, the guy called the bible an "eyewitness testimony". When asked why other historical accounts don't line up with all of its claims, he pointed to the fact that a game of telephone that spans millennia is likely to produce *some* inaccuracies.
HMMMMMMMMMMMMM!!
Posted by: Christophe Thill | August 17, 2009 10:10 AM
"eyewitness testimony (i.e., the Bible)"
Oh, come on!!!
"He replied that he'd studied the Bible extensively, had found it to be reliable and consistent, and that when he'd thought he'd found an inconsistency, it turned out to be the result of his own "wrong thinking" "
Whereas, when he misunderstands science, it's a result of... what exactly?
Posted by: emote_control | August 17, 2009 10:11 AM
If Harvard does not feel that giving a doctoral degree to a man who obviously has no knowledge of biology does not devalue their reputation and their degrees, then perhaps the rest of us should make it clear.
I think that anyone on a hiring committee or interviewing for postdoctoral positions should make it known to Harvard--or any school that is giving degrees to these charlatans, for that matter--that they will be scrutinized at a much higher standard than other graduates. Not blacklisting, exactly. Just putting them through the wringer a bit in order to send the message that a Harvard degree is now questionable.
Posted by: Thomas Winwood | August 17, 2009 10:11 AM
"Day four in the Big Biologist house; PZ Myers and Richard Dawkins are in the pedaloe, Ken Ham is in the diary room."
Posted by: James Brown | August 17, 2009 10:11 AM
I don't understand it.
He managed a PhD in science but doesn't believe what he was schooled in. If I didn't believe the Pythagorean theorem was correct how could I have completed a course in Trigonometry? I could not.
He must be made of sterner stuff.
Posted by: felixthecat
|
August 17, 2009 10:11 AM
Even if a perfectly legitimate PhD were to be revoked, one could always get another somehow. The senior professors in my doctoral program would hand out PhDs to diplomats who made "donations". The dissertations they produced were badly written, even stupid, and none of these guys ever attended a single class. And yes, this was an accredited university with a good reputation. Money talks. Worse comes to worst, their is always Hovind's alma mater.
Posted by: SteveF
|
August 17, 2009 10:12 AM
He then listed the similarities; strangely he listed speciation (I thought they didn't even like the word) under "Microevolution".
Actually, YECs generally accept speciation these days. In fact they accept lots of speciation - they need hyper speciation to generate post flood diversity. They couple it with nebulous terms like pre-programmed adaptability.
To be fair, the YECs have generally increased in sophistication considerably from the old Morris and Gish days. They've had to accept certain aspects of evolutionary biology, like speciation, because the evidence is so fucking obvious. They've just tried to co-opt it into their own "Creation Model". Some YECs even accept macroevolution nowadays, the horse transitional series being an example. Within a "kind" of course.
Obviously there's plently of obvious evidence that they still ignore, but hey you can't have everything.
Posted by: Stellar Moose | August 17, 2009 10:12 AM
"Astronomy - the galaxies are positioned at discrete distances from the Earth, in all directions, which is what you'd expect to see if we were at the center."
...bloody hell.
I suppose the life of a charlatan is a lucrative one indeed.
Posted by: Eye of Horus
|
August 17, 2009 10:12 AM
@8
The problem with that is just because they later start talking rubbish, it doesn't mean their original thesis was! Also it could potentially lead to people being voted 'out' for having hypotheses not necessarily part of mainstream scientific thought, but aren't something that can be completely discounted e.g a lecturer at my university investigates panspermia (the idea that life came from another planet).
While often it may be obvious that a person probably shouldn't have a phd (like in this case), it might not always be that clear cut, and could actually potentially be dangerous if people were thrown out for having slightly crazy ideas! Already some people argue that the current grant giving system is not ideal and prevents people with less accepted theories/ideas gaining money for their research & deciding who can keep their phd and who can't could lead to the same problem.
Posted by: Mike Haubrich, FCD | August 17, 2009 10:12 AM
Yes, when one sources The Bible as "eyewitness testimony," I wonder who was taking notes before Adam was formed out of the clay.
Sounds more like "hearsay" to me. And what part of Genesis is written in The First Person Singular by the person recording the data?
Posted by: Heliopolitan | August 17, 2009 10:15 AM
There is a discussion on creationists with PhDs over on the BBC Blog by William Crawley (Northern Ireland - we get a fair share of these fruitcakes over here too). Please come along and join in the fun!
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/ni/2009/08/some_creationists_have_been_do.html
Posted by: Christophe Thill | August 17, 2009 10:16 AM
"He whined repeatedly about how creation myths were discriminated against in the sciences because they won't even be considered."
He must love Velikovsky's books, then.
And if myths and folklore are good science, then he must be a firm believer in the Yeti, Loch Ness monster and other legendary creatures.
Posted by: Zachary Bos | August 17, 2009 10:18 AM
Rebecca Watson and the Boston Skeptics went to the evening session of the same lecture; I imagine they heard much the same hogwash as we got in the morning.
One of our Boston Atheists members wrote his own long first-hand account of the goings-on, at http://bostonatheists.blogspot.com/2009/08/report-on-nathaniel-jeansons.html.
Posted by: Chris Caprette | August 17, 2009 10:18 AM
#'s 7&8 on revoking PhDs: What would be the threshold for revocation? One stupid comment? A single out of character remark? A pattern of consistently crackpot ideas? There is a continuum of stupidity and no clear line of demarcation.
Instead, there needs to be better quality control in granting the degrees, and possibly a better job informing people outside of academia about what those degrees mean (although this may not be practical). I don't know what that douchebag's dissertation covered. It was likely so narrowly specialized as to avoid him having to look beyond his blinders. Candidacy exams usually are broad and consist of an eclectic mix of questions that would catch a creobot, but some programs no longer give their students candidacy exams and the defense consists entirely of questions specific to the topic of their dissertations. A creobot can get through such a program as easily as any other student.
Posted by: Reginald Selkirk | August 17, 2009 10:18 AM
This sounds similar to content in Of Pandas and People chapter 6, which is apparently taken from Denton's Evolution: A Theory in Crisis chapter 12. If so, it makes no sense. It attacks a straw man "Great Chain of Being" version of evolution, in which the phylogenetic tree of common ancestry is misunderstood.Posted by: JV | August 17, 2009 10:18 AM
"Day four in the Big Biologist house; PZ Myers and Richard Dawkins are in the pedaloe, Ken Ham is in the diary room."
Heh. If only it were that simple. I might actually watch TV to catch that reality show.
Posted by: Roel | August 17, 2009 10:21 AM
At Chris Caprette #26,
There is a threshold for granting PhD's. Why should the threshold for revoking them be different?
Posted by: Dr. Bryan Grieg Fry | August 17, 2009 10:24 AM
"X was a competent experimentalist in the lab except for the times when he'd pray for an assay to work,
ahhhhh come on, that is totally unfair. I cannot count the number of times I did that during grad school!! 'ohhhh pleeaaasee pleeeeeeeeeassssssssse work this bloody time!!'
"rather than roll up his sleeves and try to deduce which component went bad..."
:: sigh :: yes, you got me there, inevitably that was the only solution (but accompanied by more pleading!! ;p )
Posted by: martian | August 17, 2009 10:25 AM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ET1-_PeExMs
enjoy it godless heathens
Posted by: daedalus2u | August 17, 2009 10:27 AM
I was at the evening talk and Nathaniel Jeanson is just another liar for Jesus. He deliberately distorted every “fact” he used to base his reasoning on.
I did get the pastor of the church to admit that the Bible was not an “eye-witness” account. Adam did not write his autobiography. The pastor even said that Moses probably wrote the first several books of the OT, and that Moses wasn’t around during creation or during the other events that pre-dated his life, so he couldn’t be an eye-witness to them. The best that could be said is that God told Moses to write it this way, which at best makes it hearsay evidence and not admissible in a court of law.
He suggested that the radioactive decay of uranium was faster in the past, that billions of years of uranium decay had been compressed into 6,000 years. When asked about what does astronomy say about radioactive decay from regions of the universe 6,000 light years away, he said that was an ongoing project of his colleagues at the Creation Institute and he couldn’t talk about it further.
I got into a discussion with Jeanson after his talk about his use of the cytochrome c data. He took a table showing differences in cytochrome c sequences and was surprised that extant yeast was ~39% different than other extant organisms. He didn’t want to look at the sequences the way that evolutionary theory predicts they should be related, via the common ancestor. That would predict that extant yeast would have very similar differences to all extant animals because the common ancestor of both (and from which all of them inherited their ancestral cytochrome c sequence) was so long ago.
When I explained to him that the correct way to look at it was by comparing common ancestors and not by comparing extant organisms, he was unwilling to go there. He said he didn’t want to look at it that way, to which I replied that the only reason he didn’t look at it that way was because he didn’t want to look at it that way because he was unable to accept the conclusion that the correct way of data analysis showed. I said he only wanted to dispute a straw man idea of evolution, not real evolution. That when entire genomes are looked at, each and every sequence of each and every sequenced organism fits into the phylogenetic tree that evolution predicts. I then said that hundreds of whole genomes had been sequenced with tens of thousands of genes each, and they all fit exactly where evolution predicts them to fit.
Posted by: inkling | August 17, 2009 10:27 AM
"It's like arguing with very stubborn, developmentally challenged children"
Anyone else feel insulted on behalf of developmentally challenged children? They have way more potential than creationists...
Posted by: The Science Pundit
|
August 17, 2009 10:31 AM
You should do what I did: become a minister in the ULC. Now I can wave around my "degree" as I argue against religion. :-P
Posted by: recovering catholic | August 17, 2009 10:31 AM
Jeanson and others like him are prostitutes, clear and simple. There's a lot of money to be made these days by making the talk circuit and publishing books (M&K) that kowtow to those desparate to be kept stupid, or whose best interests are to keep others stupid (KH).
Posted by: SmilingSkeptic | August 17, 2009 10:38 AM
Wow. That sounds like one very long and frustrating evening.
Posted by: waldteufel | August 17, 2009 10:39 AM
Looks like a Ph.D. from Harvard is evolving into birdcage lining . . . .
Posted by: Rev. BigDumbChimp | August 17, 2009 10:40 AM
Way ahead of ya ;)
Posted by: Josh | August 17, 2009 10:43 AM
As I sort of queried here:
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2009/08/boston_land_ofcreationists.php#comment-1850084
what exactly do people think that Harvard should have done/should do with folks like Jeanson? Do we want the secular portions of the Academy to contemplate the same practices that schools of divinity engage in?
Is it okay to let someone study geology at Yale if they're open about being a YEC? Or is it not okay? How about a flat-earther?
Conversely, should I be barred from studying for an MDiv if I think it's all mythology?
In short, does being allowed to study a topic at the graduate level require that you subscribe to it? Should you be able to study evolution without accepting that the theory is valid?
Posted by: jcaps | August 17, 2009 10:44 AM
"... Finally, of course - irreducible complexity."
Drink !
Posted by: SEF | August 17, 2009 10:45 AM
That should be "substance and methodology of knowledge", PZ. How you know being easily as important as what you know. In lieu of the real thing, the creationists have a lot of stuff-I-made-up-just-now-for-temporary-convenience (a sort of free-will version of "knowledge") as well as stuff-my-pastor-told-me (the authoritarian kind of "knowledge") among their falsehoods.
Posted by: E.V. | August 17, 2009 10:45 AM
How many cereal box tops did it take? Did you get the holy secret decoder ring too?Posted by: raven | August 17, 2009 10:46 AM
This is not the first time or the last that some fundie games the system and gets a Ph.D. It is no big deal.
In terms of scientist numbers, there are roughly 1/2 million to 1 million life science and related fields in the USA. The number of Ph.D. level creationists is what, 5, 10, 50? Insignificant.
They are kooky religious fanatics who freely admit their agenda and motivations. We in the USA are familiar with people trying to sell us stuff. Advertising is pervasive and Jeanson is just an obvious religious huckster.
This doesn't even qualify as a tempest in a teapot. Jeanson's main interest is as a freak. Someone with a Harvard Ph.D. who promptly forgot everything he learned who lies a lot for religious reasons.
Says volumes that the religion requires its adherents to be stupid, ignorant, and lie a lot.
Posted by: me | August 17, 2009 10:50 AM
@30
there is praying and then there is Praying
the guy I'm talking about Prayed and literally thought that was going to help him get the mutant plasmids he was unsuccessfully attempting to create.
Posted by: Reginald Selkirk | August 17, 2009 10:50 AM
Yup, that sounds just like Of Pandas and People chapter 6, or Evolution: A Theory in Crisis chapter 12. I wonder which one was his source. Cogent criticism of this is easy to find. Denton for some reason was very fond of Venn diagrams, which he used to obscure the naturally tree-like nature of the data. I have heard that Denton rejected his claims in a later book and switched to cosmological fine-tuning, but I have not bothered to read his later book.Posted by: JefFlyingV | August 17, 2009 10:51 AM
Will Collins be hiring this new PHD for the NIH? At least Jeanson will be window dressing for the ICR, they have another PHD that has no interest in science. In comparison, how seriously is Velikovsky (Belikovsky) taken these days, if ever?
Posted by: Ranson | August 17, 2009 10:52 AM
@recovering catholic
Hey Now! Don't go sullying the good name of prostitutes by throwing these guys in the mix. Prostitutes are honest about what kind of business they're in.
Posted by: Dr. Bryan Grieg Fry | August 17, 2009 10:55 AM
@44 lab based creationism :)
Posted by: Steve13 | August 17, 2009 10:56 AM
Hey I just got my "The Good News" magazine thingy that was being advertised on the top banner. I'm in South Africa so everyone else must have got it by now.
Posted by: JV | August 17, 2009 10:56 AM
In short, does being allowed to study a topic at the graduate level require that you subscribe to it?
No. Being open and tolerant to the study of new ideas and discussion with those who hold opposing views is a good thing. It forces you to question your own beliefs, build better arguments, and sometimes change your mind (though it would take a heated discussion full of lightning bolts with the invisible sky wizard himself to get me to throw out evolutionary theory). Somehow, I don't think that this guy was open and tolerant though. Probably just regurgitated his textbook on the exam.
Should you be able to study evolution without accepting that the theory is valid?
Yes.
However getting a PhD in a discipline that is underpinned by evolutionary theory without accepting that theory as valid? Oh hell no.
Posted by: jimmiraybob | August 17, 2009 10:57 AM
...so I really don't understand what he was trying to say.
Neither did the credulous Christians in the audience. All they knew is that he was speaking the TRUTH.
Posted by: Bernard Bumner | August 17, 2009 10:58 AM
The threshold is based on the quality and novelty of the work, and is indirectly related to the ability of the candidate (which is only really assessed by the requirement that it is their work, and that they are able to defend it in a viva). In theory, being able to complete a Ph.D. should indicate that the candidate is worthy.
I'm not sure that revoking them on the basis that they no longer agree with the premise of the Ph.D. or some aspect of scientific consensus is really feasible or right - how do you set a standard which is fair? How do you avoid simply censoring people for dissent?
In this case, possibly there is intentional or unintentional intellectual dishonesty involved, possibly the guy simply never had to confront the question of evolution with any real rigour. Should that disbar him from holding a Ph.D.? That sounds like dangerous behaviour to me, and I think it would be a positive boon to the poor-discriminated-against, creationists. Not a good idea.
I don't think that scientific endeavour is going to collapse, simply because a few loons manage to bluff their way through a Ph.D.
Posted by: Guillermito | August 17, 2009 10:59 AM
I was at the evening lecture, for its entertainment value. It's not every day that you can have a creationist crazy talk in Boston. Much better to see that with your own eyes than just reading about it on the internet. I work in the same building than this guy, but never met him.
Apart from the standard young earth arguments that Jeanson didn't really feel comfortable with (the most funny being his explanation of why Earth is at the center of the Universe), I wanted to see how he would talk about his own PhD research. And to me, it appears that it's a beautiful example of evolution at work. He introduced the quite complex calcium regulation network in humans, tried to fit it as another example of Behe irreducible complexity with the typically stupid argument that everything would have to mutate at once for it to evolve, and then said he studied it in a mouse model, with mutants and such. The fact that almost the same molecular network exists in mouse and humans points quite strongly to a common ancestor to any biologist, but he didn't seem to notice this amusing fact.
Anyway. Most of the questions were from skeptics or scientists, but some were as convoluted as the talk itself. I think we scientists (me included - I didn't ask any question) should learn to be a bit better at confronting the fundamentalist crazies. Someone who looked like an middle-age professor got emotional when he asked something like "To accept your point about astronomy, we would have to throw away a century of research about physics, including many Nobel Prizes. Do you think you're smarter than Einstein ?". Another good question was about the fact that we actually have a time machine to look at what happened in the Universe 6000 years ago (and much more). It's called light. Point a telescope to a star that is 6000 light-years away, and you will see it as it was then.
So, a funny experience and a first time for me. I'm still not sure if we should just laugh at them, or take them seriously and argue scientifically in return, because that may give them credibility, just like if that was a usual scientific conflict about some disputed hypothesis. It's not.
By the way, Jeanson now works for the Institute of Creationist Research. Not a big loss for science.
Posted by: Rebelest | August 17, 2009 10:59 AM
Dr. PZ Myers wrote:
We had one of these types in Memphis, Tennessee this past weekend, Dr. Brad Harrub.
http://www.bradharrub.com/Site/About_Me.html
He presented a series of "lectures" in which he trashed atheism (I still say there is no such thing as atheism-it's just us atheists-the fact that, collectively, we have no belief in deities, doesn't an ideology make) in a "lecture" entitled "Atheism's Attack on America," evolution in a couple of "lectures," one entitled "The Dinosaur Dilemma" and another entitled "Was Darwin Wrong?" and touted the relevance and correctness of a biblical worldview in a series of "lectures": first was "Is Genesis Myth?"; second was "A Medical Examination of the Crucifixion" and lastly "The Scientific Accuracy of the Bible."
This series of "lectures" took place over three days-Friday through Sunday at a local Church of Christ congregation. Some members of the Memphis Freethought Alliance attended and vigorously challenged his misleading and inaccurate accounts. This guy is able to make a nice living by "touring" Church of Christ congregations (35-40/yr) at $1500.00 per/"lecture."
Posted by: raven | August 17, 2009 11:01 AM
As anyone should know Jeanson's talk was mostly just rehashed creationist material, some centuries old, a little updated to make it sound sciencey. Plus the Gish Gallop, stringing together large numbers of lies. Lying is quick, refuting those lies with facts and data takes far longer.
The creationists have been at this for over a century. One more Liar for jesus isn't going to make any difference.
Xianity is losing adherents at 1-2 million/year in the USA. The S. Baptists claim that 7 out of every 10 kids will leave the churches after age 18. If the stats continue, Jeanson is riding a very dead horse to nowhere.
Posted by: Troy | August 17, 2009 11:02 AM
LOL, this is amazing.
I thought Harvard was suppose to be a proper university(not like Liberty "University")
And this guy doesn't even know the basic stuff that even I know and I only had biology in high school.
Does this mean that even the islands of proper education in US are being eroded now?
Posted by: Kevin Gallagher | August 17, 2009 11:04 AM
I'd just like to thank Jeff for this brilliantly written piece. I was hoping there'd be someone there that could give a full account and obviously, as always, the Pharyngula regulars did not disappoint!
Posted by: Celtic_Evolution | August 17, 2009 11:05 AM
Josh makes (another) excellent point at #39.
I'm not sure I understand all this "Harvard bashing"... the University, as a whole, bears no responsability for the actions of any of its graduates in a situation like this one. As PZ pointed out in the previous post, attaining a degree from any institution does not shield one from the insane trappings of life-long indoctrination. One can have a high level of intelligence in a very narrow field of expertise and yet still hold beliefs that defy logic. (I know a handful of MIT grads, having grown up across the bridge from Cambridge, MA and I can tell you that a few of them, while complete geniuses in their chosen fields, hold some fairly batshit crazy conspiracy theories).
Now, if Jeanson acquired his Ph.D. using the nonsense he spewed at this lecture as a platform, then there would be justification in questioning the standards of Harvard's Ph.D. program.
Posted by: pough | August 17, 2009 11:08 AM
Discrete distances, eh? That sounds like it's very meaningful. I'm not so knowledgeable on astronomy, though, so I'm not sure what it means or what other scenarios are possible. Can there be non-discrete distances?
Posted by: Kevin Gallagher | August 17, 2009 11:10 AM
In response to #59 I don't think that it's Harvard people are getting at. It just seems to me that if someone is going to study for a Phd, surely they must give themselves away at one point? How good a liar do you have to be to just 'fake it'. Because that seems to be what were talking about isn't it? These people are going through the motions and coming out the other side having learned nothing, what a waste of valuable time and what a worry that there isn't some sort of process that catches these people out. I'm not saying I could do it better, but i'd assume Harvard could.
Or at least, I'd hope Harvard could.
Posted by: Kevin Gallagher | August 17, 2009 11:12 AM
I meant #58 sorry. I was distracted with trying to find the hash key on my Keyboard... :D
Posted by: ERV | August 17, 2009 11:15 AM
Maybe Im being all 'Beautiful Mind', seeing connections where there are none-- but I just think its odd that Creationists recently stole, then imitated 'Inner Life of a Cell', produced with Harvards MCB department, and now there is a Creationist kid graduating from Harvards MCB department?
Insider, or no connection? Hmm...
Posted by: raven | August 17, 2009 11:18 AM
Intelligent Design seems to be dying. The Dishonesty Institute just hired 3 YECs and has moved from cargo cult science to straight god babbling.
Dembski talks less and less about destroying the Enlightement and science, less about his nonexistent pseuodscience of complexity, and more just straight out god babble.
Jeanson is a YEC heading to the ICR? I guess for people pushing fundie cultist religious pseudoscience, the days of trying to pretend it is science are over.
Posted by: Glen Davidson
|
August 17, 2009 11:19 AM
You can see him studying away at college, seeing evidence for evolution, and pulling out his demolished canards again and again to "prove" to himself that evolution is wrong and we must have been created.
Check everything by your prejudices, and you never have to deal honestly with the evidence.
Glen Davidson
http://tinyurl.com/mxaa3p
Posted by: Sastra | August 17, 2009 11:20 AM
Jeff Eyges wrote:
It's like arguing with very stubborn, developmentally challenged children (which, as I suggest from time to time on Pharyngula and Ed Brayton's blog, is how I feel they should be treated).
It has been suggested by some neurologists and psychologists that religious beliefs seem to involve different parts of the brain than ordinary analytical beliefs, and that they may be part of earlier, more primitive systems of thought formation from our childhood. That could explain why they're so immune to reason and disconfirmation.
I wish I could remember where I read the article, but there was some sort of study I think which tracked how the brain responded to different statements. For a believer, a statement like "God exists" wasn't processed like factual statements such as "There are penguins in Antarctica" or "my father works in an office." Instead, areas of the brain lit up in the same way they lit up for "I love my mother" or "my father loves me." They are literally confusing claims of fact, with claims of emotion.
That might be one reason they seem to be so child-like to us. Young children have this tendency to confuse feelings about facts with the facts themselves, but normally grow out of it as they mature. Apparently, a religious belief system can foster it, retaining it for specific areas involving faith and belief. This is possibly why it feels so natural and normal to them. It is natural and normal for all of us -- at three.
Posted by: Stellar Moose | August 17, 2009 11:21 AM
What if he's just running a con? If he doesn't actually believe what he's peddling, then that would have made it far more easier to progress through graduate studies at Harvard.
Posted by: Darren Garrison | August 17, 2009 11:25 AM
"A Ph.D can't be revoked..."
So, he is like a tenured professor:
http://assets.comics.com/dyn/str_strip/000000000/00000000/0000000/200000/90000/2000/100/292150/292150.full.gif
Posted by: Jason | August 17, 2009 11:26 AM
As a recent creationist, I used to love the Harvard PhDs refuting evolution.
And it still sort of works.
I haven't studied biology since high school and evolution was not taught with much accuracy. But even I have been presented and forced to accept the obvious conclusion of common descent. Me, an engineer (heck, as an engineer I'm supposed to be primed to be a creationist!). So how, HOW can someone study for nine to ten years in biology (at least five years at Harvard!) and not recognize common descent? I don't get it. Is it really more complicated then I thought? Are the ERVs NOT found in orthogonal locations in a nested hierarchy? Are you evil atheist-pagans-satan worshipers lying about all this, as I was taught for years that you would...
WTF, a PhD from Harvard!!!
What does one do when they are hired by ICR? What does it even mean to work for them? Are you paid to do research? Write books? Do lectures? Where does ICR make its money in order to pay for these PhDs to work for them?
Posted by: Bjoern Brembs | August 17, 2009 11:27 AM
I know Dr. Dulac personally. Next time I see her, I'll mention it. Maybe at the Neuroscience conference this October?
Posted by: Josh | August 17, 2009 11:29 AM
Okay, then how do we prevent it from happening?
Based on the rest of what you wrote in #50, it seems that you wouldn't really be in favor of screening applicants out based on their beliefs during the admission process to the program? Or would you at, say, the MS or PhD level?
Do you think that some measure of "acceptance" of the theories underpinning the discipline in question should be part of the qualifying exams?
You're perhaps envisioning something like the following?
Committee member: "Okay, John, now let's move away from your proposed dissertation topic and on to some general questioning. You're working on Cretaceous biogeography. Please, then, describe to me the data that support the hypothesis of seafloor spreading as delineated by the Mid-Atlantic Ridge system."
John so describes.
Committee member: "Okay, describe to me your understanding of the confidence levels around those data. What are the stronger data? What are the weaker data? And why?"
John so describes.
Committee member: "Okay, now explain to me how this hypothesis fits into the overall framework of the Theory of Plate Tectonics."
John so explains.
Committee member: "John, do you accept that the seafloor is really spreading at the Mid-Atlantic Ridge?"
John: "No. I know what the hypothesis states and I know what the data are. But it's bullshit. You're interpreting the data wrong. I'm not sure how, but there is a mistake. The only time that the seafloor has ever moved was just after the Noachian Flood during the time when the continent broke into the seperate continents that we have today. Those are my religious beliefs. The data do not agree with them, but whenever geological data conflict with the Bible, it's the data which are wrong, or are at least being read wrong. The Bible is not wrong*."
How does the committee legally fail this candidate? He answered all of the data questions correctly. He understands the strengths and weaknesses of the data supporting the hypothesis of seafloor spreading. He understands how it fits into the Theory of Plate Tectonics. He just doesn't believe that any of it actually happens.
How do we fail him, unless there is some clause in the admissions process by which he agrees to accept that what he is taught is, well, true**?
*You might think that this scenario is proposterous, but I recently argued with a YEC that, while lacking geological training, did believe essentially what John does here.
**Scientifically true; little t.
Posted by: jennyxyzzy | August 17, 2009 11:30 AM
I don't think you can really stop this type of person from getting a PhD. On the other hand, to stop this type of abuse, it would be nice if thesis defenses were recorded and made part of the public record of the candidate's thesis. That way, when a candidate such as Jeanson presents themself, questions about basic evolution could be asked, with, as a catch it all "and do you believe that to be true?" If the candidate answers in the negative, they can be asked to explain themself - all religion-inspired responses to scientific questions are reasonable grounds to deny a science PhD. If the candidate responds that they do believe the answers on evolution that they have just given, it'll be on the public record. Liars such as Jeanson can have their own words quoted back at them at meetings such as this one, at least in part destroying the credibility of their degree, because now everyone in the audience will now that the candidate lied to get the degree.
Posted by: Coryat | August 17, 2009 11:32 AM
The strange thing is that each organism had a different figure assigned to it - yeast was 39% similar to all other organisms; others had different figures - so I really don't understand what he was trying to say. He then plotted the figures on pyramids, and said something along the lines of requiring geometric shapes of increasingly higher dimensions to express it properly.
Geometric shapes eh? Sounds like Pivar balloon-animal theory to me! : )
Posted by: raven | August 17, 2009 11:33 AM
If that had happened, the earth would be a very hot molten sphere. It is well known that radioactive decay releases heat. This is what keeps the interior of the earth hot today. Power reactors and nuclear explosives.
He is just lying and not worrying about the fact that they are old and clumsy lies. Routine lying for jesus.
Posted by: gman | August 17, 2009 11:33 AM
Can a biologist or geneticist help me? I am perpetually confused by the micro evolution vs macro evolution argument as employed by creationists.
Here's how I understand it:
1. Evolution is genetic change over time.
2. Micro-evolution (changes at one allele or a few alleles) is possible and has been observed.
3. But speciation requires numerous genetic changes at numerous alleles.
4. Micro evolution can't support these sorts of changes; only macro evolution (changes at many alleles) can.
5. But macro evolution is impossible.
6. Therefore speciation is impossible under evolution.
The obvious problem I see here is that macro evolution can occur in two ways:
1. By huge one-generational leaps ("saltation" leading to "hopeful monsters"). This has been more or less banned as a realistic mechanism of change by almost every evolutionist since Darwin, who would have counted it as a failure to have appealed to saltation. But it seems to assumed as the only mechanism of speciation by those creationists who sometimes imply that evolution must have involved the existence of chimeras such as "fish-cows", for example.
2. As the additive product of small incremental changes brought about by micro-evolution.
Since evolutionists don't appeal to (1) they have to appeal to (2). And (speaking as a philosopher, not a geneticist) (2) looks entirely plausible to me. What mechanism could there be to prevent micro evolutionary changes from accumulating over many generations into macro changes?
"Sorry, species X, you've had quite enough micro-evolution over the last 500 generations. Stop it right now!"
It seems to me the micro/macro distinction is like a toy gun: it might frighten a few unwary people, but it's really quite harmless.
Can anyone help me refine my understanding of this issue?
Posted by: steve | August 17, 2009 11:34 AM
Sam Harris was involved in a study in this area:
Douglas PK, SB Harris, & MS Cohen (2009). Naïve Bayes Classification of Belief verses Disbelief using Event Related Neuroimaging Data. Abstract presented at the 15th Annual Meeting of the Organization for Human Brain Mapping. San Francisco (June 19).
Interpretation: Belief and disbelief differ from uncertainty in that both provide information that can subsequently inform behavior and emotion. The mechanism underlying this difference appears to involve the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) and the caudate. While many areas of higher cognition are likely involved in assessing the truth-value of linguistic propositions, the final acceptance of a statement as “true,” or its rejection as “false,” seems to rely on more primitive, hedonic processing in the medial prefrontal cortex and the anterior insula. Truth may be beauty, and beauty truth, in more than a metaphorical sense, and false propositions might actually disgust us.
See 'http://www.samharris.org/site/full_text/annals-of-neurology-functional-neuroimaging-of-belief-disbelief-and-uncerta/' as well.
Posted by: BlueIndependent | August 17, 2009 11:35 AM
I can understand the frustration that Harvard has graduated a moron with an important piece of paper he can wave around. But, as history and real life so often point out, it is not necessarily an educational institution's fault that an individual enters their throng with ill ends in mind. There is no law stating that person X with view Y should enter Yale and exit several years later as an adherent of view Z instead. Ideologues like Jeanson can play the part long enough to get the prestige, and then afterward do whatever they please. We know the motive and intent. And, Jeanson may even take to going about saying he lived like an atheist at a liberal school (to claim he knows what the other side is truly like), learned their science and their thinking, took what little was useful, turned it on its head for "truth" (Jesus), and is now a godly man trying to save god's kingdom with his bare hands.
It must also be stated that many of history's brightest minds believed in rank idiocy when speaking on matters outside of their profession. Indeed, many of the brightest said many horrible things about the field they practiced in every day. Racist biologists who made pronouncements and weighted commentary that Blacks/Jews/Asians were biologicaly different than whites. One of the inventors of the transistor espoused eugenics openly. Now, there is still a difference here because the work of many of these earlier talents, many of whom had graduated from Ivy League schools, succeeded in spite of their views. Jeanson on the other hand has thus far done no work yet holds stupid views that very nearly guarantee he will never produce anything worthwhile. Unfortunately this latter fact probably will not affect his financial status, and may in fact improve it, since he now has a built-in "lecture" circuit in every city, town, and village dotting the countryside.
My guess is Mr. Jeanson will do all of his work outside the prying eyes of the scientific method, and surface from time to time to publicly attempt to slay the actual do-gooders in an auditorium in front of cheap apologetic crowds.
Posted by: charley | August 17, 2009 11:36 AM
A stealth YEC completing a Harvard PhD Biology program demonstrates the breathtaking capacity for dishonesty that fundamentalist Christians possess. There is simply no limit to the deception they can stomach.
Posted by: Troy | August 17, 2009 11:39 AM
A few more cases like this and PhD from Harvard will mean nothing anymore...
Posted by: Freidenker | August 17, 2009 11:39 AM
Regarding Cytochrome C - from what I learnt in textbooks, we assume CytC is old *because* it is extremely conserved, not the other way around. Saying it's "old because it's conserved" would be circular, since the reason we say it's old is because it's conserved in the first place. This is, of course, not a problem if you accept the enormous pile of evidence that for evolution (and in other cases, there are corroborating data for "the age of genes").
I think the explanation given was a contracted one, but perhaps it isn't. Other than the assumption (completely justified, of course) that evolution is true and all species share a common ancestor (and a huge pile of 'em would need CytC just the way it is) - there is no evidence that we use to suggest CytC is ancient.
I mean, how the hell could we do that? CytC doesn't fossilize, it's a very basic metabolite, and I can't imagine with my scanty biochemistry knowledge how anything fossilized (or otherwise) can pinpoint to the existence of CytC, and definitely not for a conserved sequence!
Just sayin', it's okay not to know *everything* about evolution, and it's also great fun to rely on something as reliable to predict stuff we can't tell for sure.
Posted by: Glen Davidson
|
August 17, 2009 11:40 AM
Yes, and then they complain that we can't account for all of the helium that would result from billions of years of decay occurring over, well, billions of years--supposedly it couldn't escape into space.
But hey, billions of years of helium produced during a year or two 4000 or 5000 years ago isn't a problem--baby Jesus carried it away or something, I guess.
Needless to say, if there had been such a huge pulse of helium produced thousands of years ago, our atmosphere would have a great deal more helium in it now than it does--unless a miracle disposed of it.
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/
Posted by: Aaron | August 17, 2009 11:40 AM
Oh no, there are recordings of the Q&A? Spare me... I was at the evening lecture, and I completely botched my questions on cytochrome c. I think I redeemed myself a bit talking to him afterward, though, for what that's worth.
Posted by: jennyxyzzy | August 17, 2009 11:40 AM
@Josh #70
Actually, I think you can reject someone if they start presenting Flood geology in a thesis defence. Just don't ask about religion itself. Ask the candidate to explain their point of view, how they are interpreting the data etc. Their answers must, by definition, be at odds with current scientific understanding, which is legitimate grounds to reject the candidate. Obviously care must be taken, but the candidate must either lie, or diverge into non-scientific thinking, there is no third option available. And as I proposed at #71, if you make thesis defences part of the public record of the thesis, at least you will be able to counter the person by using their own words.
Posted by: BlueIndependent | August 17, 2009 11:43 AM
And that I think is perhaps the funniest thing about people like Jeanson. They basically paid all that money to an Ivy League school to earn what amounts to a speaking certificate. They could have simply gone through a public speaking program, spent so much less getting certified, and then picked up the god garbage and commenced spouting it so much more cheaply. Is that not a backward admission by creobot conservatives that schools like Harvard have a reputation for a reason? Who knew conservatives had so much faith in liberal education!
Posted by: Jessica | August 17, 2009 11:44 AM
Hey everyone! WMA files are being uploaded right now and will be available in a few minutes here:
http://w74.org/ij/
VN520027 is the lecture, and 28 is the QnA. The lecture begins with the pastor's deluded message (that's not the Harvard guy) which leads into the presentation. It should be all there.
Enjoy!
Posted by: Walton | August 17, 2009 11:44 AM
Although I'm an ex-Christian, I never had any sympathy whatsoever with young-earth creationism even when I was an active believer. I find it hard to fathom how anyone can honestly believe in an idea which directly contradicts mountains of well-established scientific data. It's a very strange kind of warped thinking. (Admittedly, here in the UK there are comparatively few YECs; I don't think I've ever met one.)
Posted by: drew | August 17, 2009 11:45 AM
"How does the committee legally fail this candidate? He answered all of the data questions correctly. He understands the strengths and weaknesses of the data supporting the hypothesis of seafloor spreading. He understands how it fits into the Theory of Plate Tectonics. He just doesn't believe that any of it actually happens.
How do we fail him, unless there is some clause in the admissions process by which he agrees to accept that what he is taught is, well, true**? "
Part of an advanced degree is not only knowing information but being able to apply data to a coherent frame work and reason out conclusions from that data, even, no especially, if it doesn't end up the way you thought it would.
In this case, the fact that the candidate completely disregards all the data because of a pre-conceived notion that he "knows" to be true, indicates that he is not able to fulfill the primary obligations of a scientist, and that is perfect grounds for denying a degree. Actually it is perfect grounds for denying candidacy, let alone the degree. It's one of those things that should be in the oral prelims.
Posted by: LuchinG | August 17, 2009 11:45 AM
If they can have a Harvard PHD in Science and still not believe in darwinism, ¿why are they against to teaching it schools? "Real believers" would just ignore the information.
(By the way, creationists are begining to appear here in Lima; the funny thing is that, as long as I know, darwinism is not being teached in our schools.)
Posted by: Bad Albert | August 17, 2009 11:46 AM
Let's not overlook other possibilities for "Dr." Jeanson's deliberate deception of his degree and the public. Maybe he just wants to keep from getting written out of his father's will.
Seriously though, I'm curious about one thing. If his degree is only 2 month's old, shouldn't he have some brand new arguments about the "fragile state of evolutionary thinking" based on the latest findings? Instead he's still making all the old arguments.
Posted by: Blake Stacey
|
August 17, 2009 11:48 AM
It would be, if it weren't bullshit. Sounds like Jeanson picked up some garbled versions of the "quantized redshifts" claim which was going around cosmological circles several years ago, before large-scale redshift surveys like 2dF debunked it.
Posted by: Tulse | August 17, 2009 11:50 AM
The process of getting a PhD is essentially job training -- in addition to learning the specific theoretical and empirical content of the field, it is also learning how to do the process of science in one's given field, and, crucially, understanding how the methodology of science is related to making conclusions about reality. If a student refuses to accept that the methodology works, that it is the way those in the field come to conclusions about the nature of the physical world, then it doesn't really matter if they have memorized all the facts -- they still have not learned what they were being taught in their PhD, and thus do not meet the criteria for the degree.
Posted by: BlueIndependent | August 17, 2009 11:53 AM
@82:
True, but that's assuming said creobot doctoral pretender doesn't simply take on a worthwhile project to get the degree, and then become a turncoat afterward. They will play the part as long as they have to. Flying under the radar probably stokes their subconcious need to feel like they are infiltrating and tearing down the enemy. I'm sure there are plenty of these people willing to undergo a couple years of hard work on a real problem if at the end they earn that Ivy League recognition.
Posted by: Troy | August 17, 2009 11:55 AM
I think you people greatly underestimate the huge damage this kind of thing causes.
Posted by: dean | August 17, 2009 11:55 AM
"billions of years of helium produced during a year or two 4000 or 5000 years ago isn't a problem--baby Jesus carried it away or something"
No, he inhaled it - don't you know that records show that jesus always spoke in a very high-pitched voice? Of course, inhaling all that helium was planned, since it made his ascent to heaven rather easy.
Posted by: Reginald Selkirk | August 17, 2009 11:56 AM
it would cause the angels to fly!QED.
Posted by: Ancient Greek Lady | August 17, 2009 12:00 PM
Darren Garrison: Attaining a Ph.D. is *not at all* identical to attaining tenure. Earning a doctorate is merely the *minimal* qualification for even *competing against other qualified candidates* to be hired for a tenure-track position at a college or university. The Ph.D. is, in reality, the easy part, relatively speaking. Then there are six years during which an assistant professor must pass muster in research (peer-review publication), teaching and service to the university. There are, basically, two long-haul efforts. Earning a doctorate just allows one to step up and try for the second incredibly hard long-haul that begins with getting hired and can lead to tenure. More Ph.D.'s are produced than can find academic positions in most all disciplines. A crack-pot creationist Ph.D., like this guy, won't make the second long-haul, and this guy now could only be hired at an evangelical "university." You don't need to take back Ph.D.'s. They turn into meaningless pieces of paper in the hands of a person like this.
Posted by: Alyson Miers | August 17, 2009 12:06 PM
Astronomy - the galaxies are positioned at discrete distances from the Earth, in all directions, which is what you'd expect to see if we were at the center.
IANAA, and even I can say to this: NO.
Aside from the preposterousness of measuring galaxies' distances from the Earth, as opposed to the galaxy in which the Earth is situated, and even assuming that "discrete distances" means something: NO. A bacterium sitting on a grain of sand might feel like it's in the center of the beach if all it can see are more grains of sand in all directions, but when its grain of sand is no different from the billion other grains of sand on that beach, its position is meaningless.
And here I thought we heathens were supposed to be the arrogant ones.
Posted by: MrFire | August 17, 2009 12:06 PM
It was Will Provine, the poor bastard who has been quote-mined to death by all types of creotards, not to mention the shitstein of a movie known as Expelled:
Origins and Research, Vol 16 (1)Posted by: JBlilie | August 17, 2009 12:07 PM
The best corrective is public shaming. Rock on PZ (and those who attended, questioned, recorded, and reported.)
Posted by: BlueIndependent | August 17, 2009 12:08 PM
"The process of getting a PhD is essentially job training -- in addition to learning the specific theoretical and empirical content of the field, it is also learning how to do the process of science in one's given field, and, crucially, understanding how the methodology of science is related to making conclusions about reality..."
This would be incorrect. Doctoral programs are about conducting research in a given field. They are NOT about job training. Actual job training doesn't come until one is interning or has begun their first position after graduating. College degree programs are about instructing on theory and practice. This does not mean job training because no two jobs are identical first of all, and second of all it is really difficult to prepare any one person for exactly one job. I work in the training industry and there is no such thing as a college graduate at any level walking into a job anywhere and not having some amount of ramp time to integrate and learn their role. Education is about theory and general application. Specifics come after. Now, for scientific endeavors, you are more correct, but still not totally correct.
"...If a student refuses to accept that the methodology works, that it is the way those in the field come to conclusions about the nature of the physical world, then it doesn't really matter if they have memorized all the facts -- they still have not learned what they were being taught in their PhD, and thus do not meet the criteria for the degree."
Jeanson can understand (or feign to understand) the methodology all day long. He doesn't have to believe in it or accept it. He can't be forced to accept it save through the industry promoting best practice and and critiquing the work of its members. The only way Jeanson can be "legally" forced out is if his work is shown to be a farud in public. Forcing someone out during the doctoral process that is meeting the benchmarks of his/her panel and is producing work that has been judged by committee to be correct, whether they believe abject bullshit or not, inserts a very bad predcedent into education, and, less importantly, would also confirm conservative stereotypes of honest education. But even without conservatives in the picture, it would be a bad idea. Once that step is taken, you're on the road to Lysenkoism, whether you started at an evidence-based point or not.
What you are expressing is anger at the situation. I can understand that, but it's not how life really works.
Posted by: drew | August 17, 2009 12:09 PM
basically yes. number 1 can occur and be carried on usually in plants that often can self fertilize. In fact whole genome duplications in plants have been observed that result in quadriploidy and are stable. In animals however these sorts of events seem to be extremely rare because the resultant offspring of such a mutation would probably be so different from others of its species that it would have no way to breed and so it would be a dead end
number 2 is of course the most widely accepted idea. Often geographic isolations end up contributing to divergence of two populations into separate species...after a few mutations there's no reason they couldn't interbreed, but if divided by some sort of barrier, differences will add up and eventually they will be so far apart (genetically or structurally, for example size changes to the point that if the two populations come together they may be genetically compatible but they just physically can't mate) they no longer can.
Posted by: raven | August 17, 2009 12:15 PM
Well said. Jeanson has already trashed his degree, his credibility outside fundieland, and his scientific career is over.
His doing and what he wanted.
Game theory and evolution theory predicts that cooperative systems will pick up cheaters and parasites. Jeanson just cheated and parasitized the system for his and the cultist's purposes.
Way it goes. It happened before and it will again. Just deal with it and don't blow it out of proportion.
FWIW, this isn't quite a victim free antisocial act. It costs society a lot to train a science Ph.D. Society pays the price because it benefits more in the long run from science, the basis of our civilization. Jeanson was a dead end waste.. He also took up a spot at Harvard that could have gone to someone who would actually use their biological training to advance science and humankind. Every system has its inefficiencies.
Posted by: reverted | August 17, 2009 12:16 PM
The whole "appearance of age, but not actual age" thing (God's a deceiver, etc.) is called the Omphalos Hypothesis. (And, I would not be a bit surprised if those regurgitating it did not even know THAT much.)
The next time they try to claim it's all a balancing act to fairly give us free will, just point-out to them that God communed directly with Adam and Eve and THEY still made choices against him just fine (despite their being perfect, which seemingly should make them even LESS inclined to do so). So, the whole staying-hidden/deception for-free-will thing fails on every count.
I also rather like Rabbi Natan Slifkin's (some of whose works have been banned by several Haredi rabbis) response to this ridiculous 'hypothesis': "God essentially created two conflicting accounts of Creation: one in nature, and one in the Torah. How can it be determined which is the real story, and which is the fake designed to mislead us? One could equally propose that it is nature which presents the real story, and that the Torah was devised by God to test us with a fake history! One has to be able to rely on God's truthfulness if religion is to function. Or, to put it another way—if God went to enormous lengths to convince us that the world is billions of years old, who are we to disagree?"
(I would add that the trustworthiness of ANY human creation, including every book (i.e. the Bible), should be more doubted than ANY natural occurrence, simply _because_ humans were involved. We know we can, and do, intentionally deceive; nature does not. So, I concur with Slifkin's main points, but disagree with "equally".)
Need I even mention Last Thursdayism?
Posted by: John Pieret | August 17, 2009 12:16 PM
Could that quote be from William Provine of Cornell?:
http://bevets.com/equotesp5.htm#wprovine1
(Caution, that's a creationist site.)
Posted by: Chris Caprette | August 17, 2009 12:25 PM
Roel @ 29:
Because presumably the person did the work required for the PhD, jumped through the hoops, leaped over the hurdles and was subsequently granted the degree. Some PhD scientists are brilliant and should be considered experts across most of a discipline. Others are so narrowly specialized as to need a manual to tie their own shoes, but no one else knows their dissertation topic as well as they do. Outside of academia (and often within) people fail to recognize that aspect of a PhD and consequently douchebags like Jeanson can snow a bunch of believers. A PhD does not certify expertise in everything. Most people should know that. Unfortunately, most appear not to. As far as I'm concerned, he could hit the creationist lecture circuit claiming that Darwin led to athiesm which led to the degeneration of the roaring 20's which caused the great depression which led to Hitler and ultimately resulted in Obama's plan to kill grandma and unborn creationist children, and I would not want anyone to revoke his degree. Ridicule him, yes, but unless Harvard failed, he earned his degree. If Harvard failed (and did so often), then their accreditation should be revoked.
Posted by: Jeff
|
August 17, 2009 12:26 PM
@MrFire #97:
It was Will Provine, the poor bastard who has been quote-mined to death by all types of creotards, not to mention the shitstein of a movie known as Expelled:
@John Pieret #103:
Could that quote be from William Provine of Cornell?
Yes, it was Will Provine. Thanks!
Let me summarize my views on what modern evolutionary biology tells us loud and clear … There are no gods, no purposes, no goal-directed forces of any kind. There is no life after death. When I die, I am absolutely certain that I am going to be dead. That’s the end for me. There is no ultimate foundation for ethics, no ultimate meaning to life, and no free will for humans, either.
Posted by: MikeM | August 17, 2009 12:28 PM
I just want to thank Jeff Eyges for a very nicely written summary.
The point about earth being at the center of the universe is appallingly ridiculous. Just look at the data.
Oh, wait, they never look at the data, it's misleading, we have to have faith, and where the Bible says one thing and the data another, throw out the data.
Red shift: Gone. Just like that.
See, I can do it too!
Posted by: David Bennett | August 17, 2009 12:29 PM
If this has been mentioned before I apologise but isn't the Cytochrome C stuff straight out of the textbook Pandas & People?
Wonder if all his points come from pretty basic sources.
Posted by: Drew | August 17, 2009 12:30 PM
No, Doctoral training is not just about conducting research in a given field. It is about job training. In Grad school you don't just do research on your stuff and leave. You learn about how to apply research in a field to a coherent structure and propose new research to expand knowledge. Often times you are required to research (library-wise) and write a grant about a topic that is in no way related to your own work (at least in some departments at my school you were). The whole point of that exercise is to train you and to ensure that you are able to critically evaluate relevant literature and make hypotheses and figure out how to test them etc. Critical evaluation of data is impossible if you already "know" that it is incorrect and no new data can change your mind. And if that is the case you deserve to be failed because you can not perform the functions of the degree you seek.
Posted by: atheomatix | August 17, 2009 12:34 PM
This is a great report, but I wanted to try to clear something up (for myself).
About cytochrome C:
I understand that highly conserved genes are (duh) highly similar in many distantly related organisms. But surely the relevant point here is not that the sequences are "the same for all organisms", but rather that he's claiming that the cytochrome C sequence should vary from that of the common ancestor *to the same degree* in all organisms? Not *being* the same, but *varying to the same extent*?
This would make the provenance of Jeanson's point about assigning percentage-similarities to sequences a little more scrutable - not to say that he explained it "correctly". If he came up with different percentages of similarity to a common ancestor, he might use it as evidence that all organisms are not, in fact, descended from that ancestor.
My understanding is that the assumption behind this is incorrect; we wouldn't expect all cytochrome C sequences to differ by the same extent from a common ancestor. Rather, depending on (for example) different metabolic requirements of different organisms, evolution of the gene would be under different selective pressures in different organisms.
Can someone set me straight on this?
Posted by: Harvard GSAS Alumnus | August 17, 2009 12:36 PM
I'm a Harvard PhD.
This is an appalling failure of Harvard to uphold its intellectual standards.
A PhD from Harvard is supposed to mean a "unique and significant contribution to knowledge." If this person has met that standard, then please show me where or how.
Unfortunately, I am not completely surprised by this event, which confirms the old joke that the hardest part about Harvard is getting in.
In my day, there was a student who barely met the requirements for a PhD (I'm being generous). Two of his advisers, who were themselves leaving because they were both denied tenure, joked "Let this student be our revenge upon Harvard."
Perhaps Dr. Nathaniel Jeanson is Professor David Scadden's revenge upon Harvard.
There is another angle to be explored in this failure: the relative isolation and independence of the medical research campus/institutions and its PhD students from the main campus.
Posted by: Alexander Fairley | August 17, 2009 12:38 PM
It would be wonderful if you could share Harvard's response, should they even respond.
Posted by: Thedepressingstatistician | August 17, 2009 12:47 PM
Ken Ham and AiG provide a wonderful little manual on how to get a doctorate at a large university whilst learning absolutely nothing.
http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/2009/08/11/surviving-secular-college
"Tests and homework assignments are also not the appropriate forum for discussion of origins. Students should put the answer that they have been taught in class. So, for example, if the question is on the age of the earth and the professor has taught that this is 4.5 billion years, then this is how the student should answer on the test. Tests and homework assignments are about showing that the student understands what has been taught; they are not about testing what the student believes to be true."
Why on Earth anyone would shell out money to take a class they don't believe is based on truth escapes me. Further, if scholarship money is being diverted to these folks who obviously are going to leave the class with the exact same mentality they came with, as opposed to students who actually have something to gain from such a class, its a serious issue that should be dealt with.
Posted by: MikeM | August 17, 2009 12:48 PM
I really hope someone at Harvard notices this thread. I don't have any idea what the process there is, but you'd at least hope someone there would recognize the name and track Jeanson down, just to ask him a couple questions (recognizing that these couple questions will probably lead to hundreds more).
I don't think this degrades Harvard at all, though. If they "only" get 1 Jeanson for 99 "others", there's not much they can do about that. Heck, I wish the ratio was like that in real life. We'd be in better shape if it was.
Since they only granted the degree a couple months ago, and now Jeanson is spouting nonsense, it seems reasonable to me that Harvard could "do something." If Jeanson isn't using data, he isn't doing science.
Posted by: daedalus2u | August 17, 2009 12:52 PM
That a YEC can get a PhD from Harvard just goes to show you what having a PhD really means, not much. Ditto what having a degree from Harvard, not much.
Posted by: Hank Fox | August 17, 2009 12:53 PM
Another of Hank Fox's patented mega-comments ...
Some different thoughts about Jeanson. Sorry for the rambly nature of what follows; I wanted to make certain points right away:
It’s occurred to me that you can crudely divide up different types of performance art under various categories of entertainment: We have entertainers of music, entertainers of dance, entertainers in sculpture, entertainers in oils. You can even see elected officials in this light, as X-percent statesmen, Y-percent entertainers of politics.
Author Whitley Streiber earned my undying disgust some years back when he penned “Communion,” a supposedly true story of his abduction by aliens. He probably wasn’t the first to do such a thing, but he was the first I noticed.
I read and enjoy books about science, and I read and enjoy science fiction. But there is a bright line in my head between fantasy and reality, and I think it’s a necessary one if you’re going to stay sane – which means, capable of operating effectively in the real world. I think seeing that line, keeping it always in the back of your mind as you experience the world around you, is eventually a matter of life and death. (I’ll read Superman graphic novels and identify with the main character, but I won’t imagine I’m bulletproof the next time I’m in a bank during a holdup.)
Streiber’s book blurred the line between fantasy and truth in reader’s minds. The fact that it found a ready audience meant that plenty of people, rich and safe as we all are, were/are less concerned with knowing truth than they are with entertainment. The publisher was apparently happy to support the ploy, and to sit back and make money off it. The book was entertainment, and the happy cawing by its readers about whether it was true or not was part of the performance. It told its story, but then an associated meta-story of “truth or lie” unfolded in readers’ minds, happily consuming their attention for months afterwards.
Streiber’s book was, to me, a new type of entertainment, and one I hated. It lapped over another bright line I observe: entertainment that you offer to your audience to partake or reject at will, and predatory entertainment that deliberately tries to invade and control the reader. One is a cooperative gentle enhancer of pleasure you’re allowed to take or leave (picture Lord of the Rings), one is parasitic and, in my mind, destructive of the audience.
Streiber was selling the literary equivalent of crystal meth to his readers. Who cared if it helped wreck their ability to reason? He was a businessman first, a humanitarian last.
For much the same reason I hold a grudge against Whitley Streiber, I still haven’t forgiven Discover Magazine for the April Fools Day story about ice moles some years back. They proved in that one issue that Discover values entertainment over science, and I never felt much trust or interest in them again.
As someone who’s worked in journalism for many years, I call tell you first-hand that even the news business contains some large focus on entertainment. Ideally, it’s not the primary focus, but it’s always in there somewhere. Not every article is written as a “story” – the Police Blotter, for instance, can be dry as hell – but a large percentage of them are.
Another recent development (to me, anyway) is what I call “entertainers of rage.” These are highly-paid entertainers who both project and cultivate anger in their audience. Ann Coulter, Bill O’Reilly, Sean Hannity, on and on, make millions off prodding people continuously into a state of paranoid fury.
And my gosh does it sell, and sell again. It’s the crystal meth of reasoned argument. Who cares if it wrecks the ability of the audience to think? The purveyors of these types of entertainment are businessmen, answerable to corporate stockholders rather than to audiences.
The question isn’t “Do they believe in what they say?” It’s “Does it make money to do this?” The deeper question of whether you’re willing to victimize your audience with lies, or whether it matters in some larger picture, doesn’t even enter into it – even for the audience. Some large percentage of viewers aren’t even interested in the fact that you can show two videos side by side of Glenn Beck spouting Viewpoint A and the wholly contradictory Viewpoint B, from broadcasts only days apart. Beck is an entertainer, in the same way a comedian is an entertainer, and he can tell two different and mutually exclusive “jokes” to the same permanently-addicted unreasoning audience and still get his applause – shouts of anger.
It isn’t about trustworthiness, it’s about entertainment value.
On some level, I’m guessing Jeanson understands this, and he’s chosen to be one of these parasitic entertainers. Every minute on stage is a performance. These early days of his career, he’s working before a mixed audience, but eventually the science types will fall off and he’ll have the pure gullible audience he seeks.
He doesn’t care that he’s betraying the field he trained in, or his audience, or even his society – he cares about the money. I was going to say this makes him a really heinous whore, but it’s more like being a gigolo, isn’t it? – he fucks people for money.
But then, if you don’t care about what it does to your victims, or even yourself, it apparently pays really well.
In a bigger picture, there’s a long-term social cost to all this, it seems to me. It might not be written in the Constitution, but we do have a social contract, an unconscious expectation, that telling the truth to each other is better than telling lies. Once you breach that contract, which we appear to be in the process of doing in the U.S., nothing and nobody can expect fair treatment.
I see Bill O’Reilly, Glenn Beck and company as traitors to civilization itself. Wholesale lying, goading masses of people into insane rage, is the fuse that lights social bombs such as genocide.
Jeanson is just as culpable, in my mind. He’s a piker now, a squealing little creationist pig, but there’s apparently no ceiling on how far he can rise.
Anyway, just some thoughts, for whatever good they do everybody. A lot of other stuff bubbles up in my head in relation to seeing things in this way, but it’s too much to go into here.
Posted by: Sili | August 17, 2009 12:53 PM
The Hell?!
My apologies. I did not realise that the reverend was indeed a reverend.
Of course, I've just left the church, myself.
Posted by: BlueMonday | August 17, 2009 12:59 PM
I know I've mentioned this before, but my biology professor at Oral Roberts University (crazy fundy school in Tulsa, which you guys just had some fun with the other day) was not a YEC. He fully supported evolution. He said that he could not have received his Phd in genetics if he had tried to be a creationist, because creationism isn't scientific. For the record, he was definitely an evangelical--he spoke in tongues in class a few times during morning prayer. I don't know who has to deal with higher levels of cognitive dissonance, my professor or this guy. But at least my prof taught actual science when it was lecture time (I still don't know how he makes it all work for himself).
Posted by: Tulse | August 17, 2009 1:00 PM
For most PhDs, doing research is their job, so I don't understand your point. In any case, my point was not about occupational training per se, but instead that PhD study is not just about learning theories and empirical facts, but it is also about understanding how knowledge is generated in a given field, and in science in general. If one doesn't accept that the specific methodologies of one's field, and the general procedures of science, don't actually produce knowledge, then you haven't learned one of the most important lessons of one's PhD training.
As for the "real world", I have a PhD myself, and have supervised students. Believe me, if I were on a PhD committee where a student said they didn't actually believe the work they did, I would vote against granting them their degree.
He does if he is to be a practicing scientist. And again, if I were on his committee, and he made it plain his reservations about the scientific method, I would argue to the other committee members that he was not equipped to be a practicing scientist, and should not be granted a degree.
Posted by: Lynna | August 17, 2009 1:01 PM
Sastra @65:
As usual, a great comment, Sastra. This is the point I tried to make in comments on other threads, but I wasn't able to say it as clearly as you have. My brain does its best to conform to whatever tasks I give it, or to whatever tasks the environment demands. And if I demand that it believe in religion in order to thrive in a community, or in order to escape the threat of hell, then by god, my brain will come up with some way to do that. Perpetuating a process from childhood makes sense.
Building damaged brains -- that's what religion accomplishes far too often.
A damaged brain is also vulnerable to other kinds of scams -- hence the correlation between the number of pyramid schemes and believers in Utah.
Posted by: raven | August 17, 2009 1:02 PM
That is the Will Provine quote. It looks like the creationists modified it though. The part about speaking for Darwin looks like an addition. I'm so bored with creationist lying that not going to bother to look up the original
Irrelevant anyway. Provine speaks for himself and no one else. Half of all biologists are self identified xians and wouldn't agree with him.
Posted by: BlueIndependent | August 17, 2009 1:03 PM
"No, Doctoral training is not just about conducting research in a given field. It is about job training. In Grad school you don't just do research on your stuff and leave. You learn about how to apply research in a field to a coherent structure and propose new research to expand knowledge. Often times you are required to research (library-wise) and write a grant about a topic that is in no way related to your own work (at least in some departments at my school you were). The whole point of that exercise is to train you and to ensure that you are able to critically evaluate relevant literature and make hypotheses and figure out how to test them etc. Critical evaluation of data is impossible if you already "know" that it is incorrect and no new data can change your mind. And if that is the case you deserve to be failed because you can not perform the functions of the degree you seek."
Technically all education is about job training. That term is far too vague. Everything you describe is about how to conduct and apply honest research, not about how to do specific jobs. Also, that research method applies to all fields, not just science and medicine. I can operate competently in a particular job and never do any research (unless I want to reach for the higher echelons of the field). I am aware of everything you are saying, because I'm in such a program right now doing research as a graduate student. But you don't see the problem in what you're saying, especially with regard to Jeanson. Jeanson is an anti-science ideologue; that much is obvious. But he can still function (or at least appear to function) competently because he is applying something he doesn't agree with to itself, thereby he views the science he disagrees with as merely pieces of a huge puzzle. He can feasibly go find literature that supports or differs from the problem he's working on for a degree because it's no skin off his hide. He's looking at that evidence differently than you and I. He forces himself mentally to compartmentalize all of it into its own sphere subjugated to his religious views when on his own time. There's no way for a doctorate panel to ascertain his motives because their job is not to review his personal character; their job is to review whether he can conduct and apply research honestly. And it appears that Jeanson did so, at least to get that piece of paper. I also argue it is quite easy for one to withhold subjectivity in a dissertation (partly because that is one major requirement), even if they hold it strongly. All they do is remove that element that would reveal themselves, and then insert it when it no longer matters. This removes the ability of a doctorate review panel to weed out those with ulterior motives. There's not much you can do about it other than be very vigilant when reviewing others' research.
Ironically enough, you yourself are rejecting the evidence that is apparent that, at the very least, Jeanson did the work as required by his Harvard doctorate panel in writing his dissertation to earn his doctorate. It could be the only honest work he'll ever do in the field. Do we know what his dissertation was yet even? Is his work out there somewhere for us to ascertain whether Harvard exhibited gross negligence? If we do and his dissert is crap, then I'm wrong and I'll admit it. But my point is anyone can appear to be playing the game long enough to grab the brass ring. You and I are as capable of it as Jeanson is. But there's no way at this point to determine that A) Jeanson did everything wrong and got through at an Ivy League school, and B) that his doctorate review panel committed educational malfeasance.
Posted by: gman | August 17, 2009 1:12 PM
Drew @101,
Thanks for the details!
Posted by: permial
|
August 17, 2009 1:13 PM
Unfortunately, when I started my final gradual degree, my faculty sponsor called it Piled Higher and Deeper. In this instance, I fear that it's true.
Posted by: BlueIndependent | August 17, 2009 1:16 PM
101 I think succinctly states my view and position vis a vis people like Jeanson. The system isn't perfect, and never will be. Stop worrying about that and challenge these people publicly.
Posted by: ER Doc | August 17, 2009 1:17 PM
A guy like this could not only make money on the lecture circuit, he'd be a prime catch at one of the many evangelical colleges around. Liberty University is far from the onle one. A branch of my family is full of the "woo", and a niece just graduated from Sterling College in Sterling, KS. Sterling grants degrees in both Biology and Chemistry. The Biology department has two professors, neither of whom has a doctorate. The Chemistry department has two professors with PhDs, one of whom is shared with Physics, where he's the only instructor. The other, though, actually is an organic chemist with a doctorate from Stanford. I'll bet a place like Sterling would love to have Jeanson, even if they only had him 3-4 days a week, while he traveled around on the lecture circuit on weekends.
Posted by: Jeff
|
August 17, 2009 1:20 PM
@Kevin Gallagher, #57:
I'd just like to thank Jeff for this brilliantly written piece. I was hoping there'd be someone there that could give a full account and obviously, as always, the Pharyngula regulars did not disappoint!
@MikeM #106:
I just want to thank Jeff Eyges for a very nicely written summary.
Guys, thanks so much. I was actually a little worried about the style, as I wrote it conversationally to PZ. I'm flattered he thought it was post-worthy.
I'd like especially to thank Dr. David Levin of Boston University. He and PZ very kindly explained helium retention and that Cytochrome C business to me, so that (hopefully) I didn't come across as a dummy! David challenged Jeanson and his supporters thoroughly and consistently, and was an inspiration to all of the sciencey people present. He also read my original draft and corrected my memory on a couple of points. I couldn't have done it without him.
(Christ, this sounds like an Oscar acceptance speech!)
I'm heartened to read that a number of you are questioning the propriety of a university such as Harvard awarding a degree to a Creationist, and wondering what can be done about it, even to the point of rescinding the degree. This is something I’ve been complaining about online for some time. I feel very strongly that Creationists should not be receiving graduate degrees in science from secular universities, particularly Ivy League and other top-tier institutions, and, if they earn the degrees honestly, then flip out afterward and begin spouting this nonsense, the degrees should be rescinded.
A PhD program doesn’t work the way undergraduate school does; you don’t simply show up, parrot back what the professor says, turn in the work on time, pass the tests and receive a grade. A PhD is awarded on the basis of an individual’s ability to do original work, based upon a foundation of the body of work of those who have come before. If one disavows naturalism, empiricism, scientific method – how can such an individual do original work in the sciences? You want to subvert empirical evidence to faith? Fine; become a theologian. Stay the hell out of science.
To those who worry about where to draw the line, I’d suggest there is a world of difference between espousing an unconventional theory – such as flight evolving from running and jumping rather than gliding between trees – and the total repudiation of the foundations of a discipline. If a young man or woman were to apply to a graduate Physics department, and, during the interview, tell them, “I will attend all of the classes, turn in all work required of me and repeat precisely what the professor wants to hear; however, I want you to know that I disavow every innovation in Physics over the past three hundred years. Newtonian mechanics tells us everything we will ever need to know about reality. Quantum mechanics, relativity, string theory – it’s all nonsense, and nothing will change my mind.” – should that individual be accepted? Of course not – yet this is what is happening, increasingly, in Biology departments around the country.
Some of you have said that it’s only a handful of wingnuts; there’s little they can accomplish, and why get ourselves worked up over it? I submit that this is only the beginning; it’s an extension of their Wedge Strategy. The few who squeak by today, because the academics can’t be bothered to argue or are afraid of a discrimination lawsuit, pave the way for more tomorrow. This, coupled with the efforts of the Religious Right to undermine the teaching of science in public schools nationwide, poses a very real and imminent threat to the future of science education and scientific research. We’ve already turned into a planetary laughing stock. It needs to be stopped NOW.
Furthermore, this has the potential to cheapen the degree for the students who come afterward, who work very hard to get there. If someone who rejects the foundational principles of a discipline can get a PhD, what does this say about the value of a graduate degree from Harvard? It’s a terrible disservice to them, to the entire academic community and to society at large (as Raven pointed out, it isn’t cheap to produce a PhD today; Jeanson has just tossed away hundreds of thousands of dollars of someone’s hard-earned money).
And to those who’ve said, “It’s only two graduates out of thousands to come out of Harvard”, my response is that it shouldn’t be happening at all. Despite my wisecrack at the end of the article about an anomaly, the existence of even one Creationist getting through the admissions process, five years of supervised research, a thesis and its defense, all the while making his views known, is simply unacceptable.
For those who are inclined to act, I’d like to suggest a letter writing campaign. As I mentioned, I sent an email to Catherine Dulac, Chair of the Dept. of Molecular and Cellular Biology at Harvard (and yes, Bjoern Brembs, please mention this to her, thank you). I plan also to send a copy to Allan Brandt, Dean of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. If PZ thinks it’s appropriate, I’ll post their email addresses here. I’d recommend doing this each time a creationist emerges from a secular university. If there is a public outcry every time this happens, perhaps we can stem the tide before it washes us out to sea.
Posted by: David E. Levin | August 17, 2009 1:20 PM
Deadalus: "That when entire genomes are looked at, each and every sequence of each and every sequenced organism fits into the phylogenetic tree that evolution predicts."
There is no question that he was absolutely unwilling to discuss genomic data and the concept of a nested hierarchy, even when I offered to take just a few minutes to present the concept. It was clear to me that the whole subject scared the hell out of him. His problem was not that he was unfamiliar with the data, it was that he had no answer for it.
Posted by: Les Lane | August 17, 2009 1:22 PM
With regard to Sastra @ 65 -
The interesting question is what part of the brain lights up in response to "God is a penguin". Is it the same part that lights up in response to "The Earth is 6,000 years old?"
Posted by: Lynna | August 17, 2009 1:22 PM
Reverted @102
I'd like to recycle this. May I quote you? If so, what credit line would you prefer? You can reply via my website/email if you don't want to reply here.
Posted by: Bob Carroll | August 17, 2009 1:23 PM
I eagerly await his (no doubt) voluminous book production. After all, the rubber chicken circuit has its negative side. ;0)
Posted by: Reginald Selkirk | August 17, 2009 1:28 PM
Cytochrome C is what is known as a "housekeeping protein." It performs the same basic task (electron transfer) in all known cell types. Therefore differing selective pressure is really not a consideration. Thus, we can expect it to have the same basic structure and sequence in all forms of life. There will be small random changes to the sequence which do not screw up the basic structure and function. This is known as "neutral drift." (There may have been other changes which did screw up the function, but these would be weeded out pretty efficiently by natural selection.)So, if you sequence the cytochrome C protein from two organisms, you can expect the sequence similarity, measured as a percentage, to reflect the evolutionary time over which two organisms have been diverging. Example, the last common ancestor between animals and bacteria was a long time ago, let's say a billion years or more. The sequences won't be much alike, and the sequence identity will be a small number. If instead we take two recently diverged organism, such as a tiger and a house cat, the evolutionary divergence is only a few tens of millions of years, and the sequence identity will be high.
The mistake (or lie?) of Michael Denton, repeated in Of Pandas and People, and now repeated by Jeanson, is not to realize that the proper way to depict such distance-to-common-ancestor relationships is with a tree. Instead, they use a ray diagram, or a Venn diagram to obscure the relationships which evolution claims. They draw a diagram with bacteria on one side, an a list of other organisms on the other (insect, fish, amphibian, reptile, bird, mammal) on the other, and say: "see? All these organisms have the same sequence distance from bacteria, therefore evolution is wrong." But that's exactly the finding evolution predicts! If they used tree diagrams, their mistake (or lie) would be obvious.
Posted by: Jeff
|
August 17, 2009 1:30 PM
@Sastra #65:
It has been suggested by some neurologists and psychologists that religious beliefs seem to involve different parts of the brain than ordinary analytical beliefs, and that they may be part of earlier, more primitive systems of thought formation from our childhood. That could explain why they're so immune to reason and disconfirmation.
Sastra,
I’m not at all surprised; I’ve suspected it for years.
There’s a fellow at the University of Florida by the name of Ken Heilman who’s done some work on the neurological basis of fundamentalism:
http://www.tikkun.org/article.php/Heilman-neuroscienceandfundamentalism
Posted by: MrFire | August 17, 2009 1:39 PM
Sorry Hank Fox, I couldn't resist comparing your:
to:
Orwell quotes - good for any occasion!
Posted by: Reginald Selkirk | August 17, 2009 1:40 PM
Continuing from 131:
So a yeast and a human would have the same CytC sequence distance from bacteria. maybe this appears to be counter-intuitive to someone who imagines evolution as a ladder of progression, with bacteria at the bottom and man at the top; but someone who knows just the smallest amount about evolutionary theory knows it is just what evolution predicted, because the common ancestor or humans and yeast was more recent than the common ancestor of either with bacteria.
Posted by: BlueIndependent | August 17, 2009 1:42 PM
Mr. Eyges, I couldn't agree more, and thanks from me as well for sitting through this and recounting for us. I am as distrustful of of Jeanson and his ilk as much as anyone here. They are abusing science intentionally. My only point regards this part of what you said: "...Of course not – yet this is what is happening, increasingly, in Biology departments around the country..." Do we know for a fact that Jeanson, for example, acted that way in his interview? Maybe he lied and acted his way through it. Remember: These ideologues don't see a problem lying for Jesus if they are lying to those they perceive as overtaken by "satan". Jeanson, to my mind, feasibly could have acted his way through the whole thing. They are individual studies in brainwashing and the power of a molded mind that is told what to do, not that actually thinks.
Everyone here knows their motives. But I think some are being naive as to just how intent these people are at pursuing means that fit their ends. These people are getting passed through somehow, and the system needs to be reviewed.
Posted by: Blake Stacey | August 17, 2009 1:42 PM
More eyewitness reporting from the Boston Skeptics.
Posted by: not a gator | August 17, 2009 1:58 PM
@45
Re: Denton
Considering that he altered his approach, it seems like less the salesman (Ham, Hovind) motive and more the lone genius. That's one hell of an ego to think you've shown that 100's of thousands of scientists over two centuries were wrong.
These cranks think they're Einstein, not realizing his genius was to tweak the existing theory and see where that led him. (The Lorentz transformations were already known. What he did was to make a thought experiment. Okay, what if the speed of light is the fastest you can go, ever? What would Maxwell's equations look like *then*? It was a wacky idea that turned out to be right.)
Even Newton said, "I have stood on the shoulders of giants."
Nope, like all cranks, they've got it all figured out... all energy is orgone energy ... all physics is suction and pressure ...
Posted by: not a gator | August 17, 2009 2:04 PM
@53
He is doubtless part of an incorporated ministry, yielding a fat tax break on his activities.
If you went around lecturing on, say, microchips for fees (rather than an employer's salary), I'm pretty sure you'd be paying self-employment tax.
Hm, I used to pay self-employment tax on violin gigs. I wonder if I turned it into a "music ministry" I could evade the IRS. You file the same schedule. HAW HAW.*
*-p.s. not, actually, suggesting that I or anyone else not pay their taxes. that includes christers, but, damn, that might put some of those blokes out of business. oh well.
Posted by: not a gator | August 17, 2009 2:15 PM
@92
Troy--
Fair point, but what are we going to do about it?
I'm not convinced by this oral exam filter stuff. If you lied for Jesus for 8 years to get the degree, what's to stop you from lying at your defense, etc.?
Posted by: JefFlyingV | August 17, 2009 2:16 PM
Jeff Eyges #126.
Excellent points. Will Harvard (or any other universities) address any of those problems created by granting PHD's to people that have rejected the base of their studies?
Posted by: Jeff
|
August 17, 2009 2:17 PM
@#BlueIndependent #135:
Do we know for a fact that Jeanson, for example, acted that way in his interview? Maybe he lied and acted his way through it. Remember: These ideologues don't see a problem lying for Jesus
You’re right, I don’t know whether or not he was forthright during the interview, but I have to think that even if he wasn’t, it became apparent at some point during the five years he was there. Gould knew quite well what Wise believed; he defended him against his colleagues who didn’t want to give him the degree. Marcus Ross’ advisers at URI were perfectly aware of his beliefs, and his attempts to reconcile them with his work as belonging to a different “paradigm”.
I quite agree with you about their motives, but I suspect that in this case, Harvard GSAS Alumnus, #110, is correct:
Unfortunately, I am not completely surprised by this event, which confirms the old joke that the hardest part about Harvard is getting in.
In my day, there was a student who barely met the requirements for a PhD (I'm being generous). Two of his advisers, who were themselves leaving because they were both denied tenure, joked "Let this student be our revenge upon Harvard."
Perhaps Dr. Nathaniel Jeanson is Professor David Scadden's revenge upon Harvard.
There is another angle to be explored in this failure: the relative isolation and independence of the medical research campus/institutions and its PhD students from the main campus
Posted by: not a gator | August 17, 2009 2:24 PM
@109
I am not any expert on genes. But I'm having a hard time figuring out how the gene or gene expression differing between organisms (or, at least, differing to that extent) helps the creationist case at all.
If I presumed that all species were created at the same time by the same being only 6000 years ago, MY first assumption would be that these genes shouldn't vary much at all ... also, that if this creator came up with one working metabolism, I would kind of expect it to be used ubiquitously.
So, quite frankly, I'm at a loss to see how genetic drift, evidence for ancient splits in the genetic tree, and adaptation actually help his argument.
Posted by: Lynna | August 17, 2009 2:26 PM
Jeff @132: Thanks for the link. I read through the article by Kenneth M. Heilman and Russell S. Donda. The discussion of convergent and divergent reasoning helped me to clarify my own thoughts on how apparently intelligent humans can adhere to dogma that is refuted.
A couple of excerpts:
Posted by: Lynna | August 17, 2009 2:29 PM
@112
My daughter just read the article from AiG and retitled it "How to Wear Blinders."
Posted by: Pablo | August 17, 2009 2:30 PM
How recent was his PhD from Harvard? I am not able to find his thesis listed in the Dissertation Database (unless he deposited it under a name other than Jeanson).
Then again, there are Harvard Biology PhD theses that are from degrees in 2009, so it is pretty darn up to date.
If his PhD is so recent that it doesn't show up in the Dissertations Database, then I am wondering how he got to be an expert in Creationism? Where did he get the time to study?
But mainly, I just want to see his thesis so I can figure out what he actually knows.
Posted by: not a gator | August 17, 2009 2:32 PM
@131
Yeah. That's what I thought. It's prima facie evidence for an ancient universe, so why would a YEC make the mistake of drawing any attention to it whatsoever? Even in the mangled description given above, I suspected this was the case. Talk about stepping in it.
I've run into dumb PhD's before, but this guy takes the cake.
Posted by: David E. Levin | August 17, 2009 2:33 PM
Not a Gator: "If I presumed that all species were created at the same time by the same being only 6000 years ago, MY first assumption would be that these genes shouldn't vary much at all..."
And you're expecting internal consistency from a creationist??
Posted by: thalarctos | August 17, 2009 2:35 PM
I agree with your overarching principle, Josh; let's leave the litmus test/thought police routine to the authoritarian types. We're better than that.
On the other hand, though, with 5 or more applicants vying for the spot in grad school, I would admit the one who I thought had the most potential for a fruitful and productive research career after grad school. Looking at what ID did to the publishing track records of Behe and Gonzalez, and judging from early reports on Jeanson, I would expect someone who subscribed to creationism to tend to fizzle out prematurely.
I certainly would not preferentially admit such a candidate over a more promising one, not because of any litmus test, but of what--in my best estimate--their giving back to the field is likely to consist of. If there were a better candidate, more likely to advance knowledge than the creationist, I would choose the better candidate. If there were no such competition, I would not block the creationist just to be the thought police; I would give them an opportunity, to use or waste as they wish.
Posted by: Josh | August 17, 2009 2:35 PM
It was supposed to have been this June, 2009. I just checked dissertation abstracts and can't find him. I don't know how fast new dissertations are logged in.
Posted by: Jeff
|
August 17, 2009 2:36 PM
Pablo, his thesis was on the "irreducibly complex" calcium regulation mechanism in the blood. That's what he told us, at any rate.
My understanding is that he literally graduated two months ago.
Posted by: Jeff
|
August 17, 2009 2:40 PM
thalarctos, I'm quite certain there are competing candidates for any given doctoral program at Harvard. I'm sure Jeanson didn't get this gig simply because he was the only one to show up for the interview.
Posted by: Blake Stacey
|
August 17, 2009 2:41 PM
Hell, I've had a PhD for longer than that!
Posted by: reverted | August 17, 2009 2:42 PM
Lynna @ 129: I'm afraid the credit must be given to Rabbi Natan Slifkin, not to myself. Read the link I gave earlier (#102) for where I got it from. (There are some other great quotes from him there, too.)
Posted by: not a gator | August 17, 2009 2:44 PM
@134
You've just presented an excellent argument against teaching Western Canon to anyone except aspiring History and Classics majors!
As I recall, Western Canon was chock full of idiotic scientific theories, from the outlandish histories of the Greeks to the pious Protestant thinkers of the 17th century. Sprinkle on some Kant fairy dust if you will, although I think the course tends to grind to a halt at the French Revolution. Anyway, nonsense, nonsense, nonsense! I bothered the prof about it a bit, trying to derail a stupid discussion of the "ladder of creation" by pointing out that you can't equate a finite sequence (all species on Earth) to a limit at infinity ("Dog"). Sorry, no can do. He pretty much ignored me, while the students in the class (humanities majors) didn't even understand my point.
Which, of course, is that all you needed was a little logic and math to show that Alexander Pope was a complete ignoramus--YOU DON'T EVEN NEED EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE. Damn.
I fear for society when I think of all the journalists, politicians, and policy makers who never took any serious science classes (astronomy for dummies for the distro requirement, and a barely-passed section in calc, that's it) but spent much of their college years in Western Phil and Western Civ classes, picking up ridiculously outdated notions about the nature of the universe, but lacking the tools, whether logical, mathematical, or empirical, to realize when they're being led astray.
And so this nonsense persists and persists and persists.
The feminists were right to question Western Canon, just for the wrong reasons. Okay, sometimes for right reasons (a lot of this stupid stuff is stupid sexist stuff, just read Aquinas), but they missed a lot of darn good reasons.
Posted by: Dafmeister | August 17, 2009 2:44 PM
I'm not a scientist of any stripe, just an interested layman, so please correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't all life a transitional form?
Posted by: not a gator | August 17, 2009 2:46 PM
David Levin quoth:
And you're expecting internal consistency from a creationist??
Touché.
Posted by: AdamK | August 17, 2009 2:48 PM
In academia, Jeanson would qualify as a mediocrity. In kookooland, he's a Very Important Somebody, a precious commodity. And he lacks the intellectual integrity to get attention the honest way.
Posted by: Reginald Selkirk | August 17, 2009 2:48 PM
No. Some lineages go extinct. The last trilobite for example, was not a transitional form. (Earlier trilobites were) Being able to designate a current species as a transitional form would require knowledge of the future.Posted by: Pablo | August 17, 2009 2:49 PM
Thing 1:
And you're expecting internal consistency from a creationist??
But this is the beauty of creationism!!!! Everything fits!
"These things are all very similar" - the creator made them that way! Why waste a good design?
"These things are all very different" - the creator made them that way! Why should a creator be bound by a single mechanism?
Thing 2:
I can imagine that something as recent as June would not show up yet (I didn't find him there either). Then again, I can't imagine how anyone could consider a June 2009 PhD to be evidence of expertise in anything outside of the narrow PhD project.
As anyone with a PhD should admit, the expertise that is associated with the PhD doesn't come from the degree, but from the work carried out to get there. Having a PhD in biology doesn't even make one an expert in all of biology, even.
If I had a question about how calcium is regulated in the blood, Nathaniel Jeanson would be a really good guy to ask. He could undoubtedly give me a detailed and informed answer. However, that doesn't mean shit when it comes to anything else.
I have a PhD in chemistry, and know a whole lot about my field. However, that doesn't make me an authority on things outside my field, even within the discipline of chemistry! When it comes to something like biochemistry, for example, I will defer to my colleagues if I need anything more than an undergrad textbook level of understanding.
Posted by: MikeyM | August 17, 2009 2:50 PM
Speaking of Provine, Focus on the Family recenly played an edited recording of a "debate" at Stanford University between Provine and Philip Johnson. Johnson predicted the imminent colapse of both evolutionary theory and methodological naturalism.
Those remarks, as it turns out, were made in 1994.
Posted by: not a gator | August 17, 2009 2:56 PM
Huh. Is this what we would call "special pleading", or is that something else?
Posted by: Pablo | August 17, 2009 3:01 PM
No, it is what we would call "There is nothing you could find that would ever be inconsistent with creationism."
aka non-falsifiable
aka non-scientific
aka creationists don't care
Posted by: Harvard GSAS Alumnus | August 17, 2009 3:04 PM
Assuming that Dr. Nathaniel Jeanson went through Harvard's BBS program (Biological and Biomedical Sciences, in which Professor David Scadden is on the faculty), how could Jeanson have passed BBS's first year course/core requirements?!
Genetics 201: Principles of Genetics. Text: Genomes 2 by T.A. Brown. “… writing is clear and straightforward, and the diagrams are excellent, making difficult topics like DNA sequencing, RNA replication, and genomic evolution, mutation, and recombination approachable and understandable.”
BCMP 200: Molecular Biology. Text: Genomes 2 by T.A. Brown. “… writing is clear and straightforward, and the diagrams are excellent, making difficult topics like DNA sequencing, RNA replication, and genomic evolution, mutation, and recombination approachable and understandable.”
As it happens, Harvard is giving Scadden and associates everything they want, including displacing MCB faculty at the main Cambridge campus (Science article here) because the financial crisis upended other expansion plans that would have housed the Stem Cell cadre.
Based on this Science article, the real issue appears to be that Jeanson, Scadden's solitary PhD student, fell though the cracks in an off-campus hospital lab headed by a MD PI very, very busy with 9-digit budgets, GlaxoSmithKline connections, and extraordinarily messy campus politics.
Posted by: Harvard GSAS Alumnus | August 17, 2009 3:08 PM
Make that:
Genetics 201: Principles of Genetics. Text: Genetics: Analysis of Genes and Genomes, 6th edition, by Daniel L. Hartl and Elizabeth W. Jones. “… provides the most current, clear, comprehensive, and balanced introduction to genetics and genomics at the college level. It treats transmission genetics, molecular genetics, and evolutionary genetics as fully integrated subjects …”
Posted by: Josh | August 17, 2009 3:10 PM
thalarctos, I like that concept.
Whereas I hate the idea of someone who has completely pissed all over the very point of science (even if covertly) getting an advanced degree for jumping through a serious of requisite hoops*, I've been sitting here thinking about how to identify covert creationists during interviews or oral exams or defenses. I can't think of much that doesn't put us on a slippery slope toward being the thought police.
*I absolutely bled for my PhD; the thought that this nitwit has one makes me wanna punch someone.
Posted by: Jeff
|
August 17, 2009 3:17 PM
Harvard GSAS Alumnus,
That link to Science magazine appears to be broken.
Are you certain that Scadden was Jeanson's advisor? He's listed under the Biological and Biomedical Sciences program of the Division of Medicine. Jeanson's degree is in Molecular Biology.
If that's the case, I owe Dr. Dulac an apology.
Posted by: David E. Levin | August 17, 2009 3:18 PM
Josh: "Is it okay to let someone study geology at Yale if they're open about being a YEC? Or is it not okay? How about a flat-earther? Conversely, should I be barred from studying for an MDiv if I think it's all mythology? In short, does being allowed to study a topic at the graduate level require that you subscribe to it? Should you be able to study evolution without accepting that the theory is valid?"
There is another aspect to this. Doctoral trainees in the sciences, unlike in most other disciplines, get their degrees on the taxpayers' dime (hundreds of thousands of dollars, actually). Not only do they not pay tuition, but they are given a living stipend while in the program, which in the Boston area amounts to more than $30,000/yr. Should we all pay for someone to get a doctoral degree in a scientific field so that they can abuse it to spread disinformation and anti-science rhetoric?
That just reminded me of a payback clause in NIH training grants (which provide support for many American doctoral students in the biological sciences). If the student leaves science, he/she is (in theory) expected to pay back the NIH funds that went into their education.
Posted by: Jeff
|
August 17, 2009 3:25 PM
Should we all pay for someone to get a doctoral degree in a scientific field so that they can abuse it to spread disinformation and anti-science rhetoric?
Hear, hear!
David, did you see the comment above? Seems I told off Dr. Dulac for no reason!
Well, I've been thinking about moving to New York, anyway!
Posted by: Josh | August 17, 2009 3:26 PM
That might be the kernal of a means by which to actually prevent them from being admitted, if not a means to remove them at quals.
Posted by: Harvard GSAS Alumnus | August 17, 2009 3:28 PM
Try this:
Science 324, 10 April 2009, pp. 157–158.
Also Jeanson listed as the only PhD student in Scadden's Mass General hematology lab here>GROUP MEMBERS. Jeanson could be from any one of a number of PhD programs, but BBS in the DMS (Division of Medical Sciences) is the most likely.
Posted by: David E. Levin | August 17, 2009 3:32 PM
Jeff,
It's clear from that Nature paper, that Scadden was Jeanson's advisor. Jeanson's degree (from his introduction yesterday) was in Cell and Developmental Biology, which almost certainly refers to Dulac's department. Many PI's in clinical departments and institutes get students from basic science departments, which may be the explanation.
Posted by: Marcus Ranum | August 17, 2009 3:34 PM
PhD from Harvard!!!
It's the bell curve in action. There's always got to be someone holding down the bottom end of the curve; this guy just happens to be one of Harvard's.
Point and giggle, don't worry about it, and hope whoever's holding down the upper end of the curve does some good work.
Posted by: Reginald Selkirk | August 17, 2009 3:37 PM
Special pleading is when your pet belief gets exempted from the usual rules you apply to every other belief:I don't believe in Santa Claus because there's not enough evidence. - No problem.
I don't believe in invisible pink unicorns cuz there's no evidence. - No problem.
I don't believe in the Tooth Fairy; no evidence. - No problem.
I don't believe in God because there's not enough evidence. - Dude, you can't prove that God doesn't exist; after all you haven't been everywhere in the Universe and seen everything.
Posted by: Jeff
|
August 17, 2009 3:40 PM
They want fifteen bucks for the article!
Re: Scadden - I don't understand. If Jeanson was working under Scadden, why was his degree in Molecular Biology. And if he wanted a degree in Molecular Bio, why wasn't he working on a program in that department?
Posted by: KSMB | August 17, 2009 3:40 PM
Before any blame goes to Harvard, it is entirely possible and imo very probable that this guy lied through his teeth about his YECism while at Harvard. He must have known that if he let that be known before he got his PhD, it might cause problems for him. If even one committee member thought that he (Jeanson) didn't actually get what science was all about, the committee could block him from getting the PhD. Quite the incentive to bear false witness.
There's precident here. If I recall correctly, that is what Jason Lisle did while getting his PhD at Colorado. I read somewhere that his major adviser was quite surprised to find out about Lisle being a YEC at AiG.
Posted by: Jeff
|
August 17, 2009 3:44 PM
It's clear from that Nature paper, that Scadden was Jeanson's advisor. Jeanson's degree (from his introduction yesterday) was in Cell and Developmental Biology, which almost certainly refers to Dulac's department.
Oh! I don't know where I got the impression it was Molecular Biology, but you're right, it would still be Dulac's dept.
Now I get to complain to two people!
Posted by: Harvard GSAS Alumnus | August 17, 2009 3:46 PM
Careful, Scadden/SCRB (Scrubs—like the tv show!) are the ones displacing Dulac's MCB faculty on the main campus. Dulac may want to ask the question why her academic competitors are graduating creationists, if in fact Scadden's web page is accurate and he's Jeanson's adviser.
From the Science article:
Posted by: midwifetoad | August 17, 2009 3:50 PM
http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&q=bush+hitler&btnG=Search+Images&gbv=2&aq=f&oq=&aqi=g1
Posted by: David E. Levin | August 17, 2009 3:51 PM
Jeff,
Most clinical departments don't have graduate programs. They either tap into umbrella graduate programs that are not tied to a specific department, or they tap into a basic science department with a graduate program. There is considerable fluidity with these associations. But ultimately, the student's degree must be in a field for which there is a specific degree offered. Scadden's primary appointment in the the Department of Regenerative Medicine. You can't get a degree in that. So, if someone wants to work in that area, they enter a particular lab, but retain their academic program affiliation. In this case, that appears to be the Molecular and Developmental Biology Department.
Posted by: Pablo | August 17, 2009 3:55 PM
While I agree that it would be nice to be able to cull creationists out of the PhD programs in science, it's a tough row to hoe. If they demonstrate the knowledge required and the ability to create new knowledge in their field, then you have a hard case for removing them (particularly for a religious issue, which is what creationism is).
Personally, I think a bigger issue to create a better understanding of what the PhD means. As I have described above, the PhD refers to the demonstrated ability in a particular field, with an expertise that is generally extremely narrow (in, say, the "mechanism of calcium regulation in blood"). That does not mean that the person is an expert in everything, and not even everything related to their field. It is folks like those in the DI who try to promote the idea that the letters that were given because you are an authority in a given field give you credibility in everything else (this is extremely common among the woos - the acupuncturists, for example, are always big on adding as many letters after their name as they can).
Perhaps it is the culture I am in, but the PhD scientists I know (and I know a lot) generally tend to recognize their expertise, and speak authoritatively from that, and admit that their knowledge outside of their expertise is far weaker. Maybe it is because our social interactions are generally among other PhDs, but no one ever pulls the "I have a PhD so I know about everything" crap.
I guess what I'm saying that, as one with a PhD myself, I know full well what a PhD means, and, more importantly, doesn't mean in terms of expertise. In that respect, the questions that should have been asked but (afaik) weren't is, "What was the subject of your PhD research?" followed by, "In what way does that make you an expert in evolution?**"
You need to plant the seed that simply having a PhD does not make one an expert in everything, and get him to admit that he isn't (just as the many questions that exposed his ignorance)
**BTW, the answer is likely going to refer to the courses he took on evolution (since he didn't research it), and things like, he learned it in a class and it doesn't make sense. However, at that point you refer to the person who taught him, and ask why he thinks he is more of an authority on the matter than the teacher
Posted by: Josh | August 17, 2009 3:55 PM
This is really accurate, is it? The mechanisms of evolution don't know or care that any given population is staring extinction in the face. Just because a taxon goes out doesn't mean that there was no selection operating on that last population, even into the last generation. Sure, that population never ends up with any additional modifications, but the process of evolution doesn't know that. It was evolving until it died.
Posted by: Harvard GSAS Alumnus | August 17, 2009 4:01 PM
That detail doesn't make sense. There used to be a CDB ("Cell and Developmental Biology") department at Harvard, but that was merged fifteen years ago with BMB (James Watson's famous Biochemistry and Molecular Biology) to create the Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology (MCB):
Hey, I know that "Gentleman Jim" is persona non grata for his recent stupid remarks, but if you want a great quote on this whole episode, Watson will say something funny about creationists, Harvard, and God, probably all in a one-liner.
Posted by: Jeff
|
August 17, 2009 4:06 PM
There is considerable fluidity with these associations. But ultimately, the student's degree must be in a field for which there is a specific degree offered. Scadden's primary appointment in the the Department of Regenerative Medicine. You can't get a degree in that. So, if someone wants to work in that area, they enter a particular lab, but retain their academic program affiliation. In this case, that appears to be the Molecular and Developmental Biology Department.
Ah, got it. Thanks.
Posted by: Aaron Golas | August 17, 2009 4:13 PM
For what it's worth, I've got a post up now going into more detail on Jeanson's cytochrome c schtick.
Posted by: David E. Levin | August 17, 2009 4:16 PM
Jeff,
Actually, Harvard Alum is right. Dulac's department is MCB. Perhaps Jeanson misrepresented the department or program he was from.
Posted by: arensb | August 17, 2009 4:20 PM
daedalus2u @#32:
So much for the fine-tuning argument. I guess the physical constants of the universe have to be set exactly the way they are for the universe to exist, except when they can vary by several orders of magnitude.
This also applies to the c-decay hypothesis, which I haven't seen lately.
Posted by: ConcernedJoe | August 17, 2009 4:25 PM
Re: Provine's Quote:
Soooo what is wrong?!?!?
"Let me summarize my views on what modern evolutionary biology tells us loud and clear.."
It DOES tell us loud and clear the gist of his statements!
"There are no gods, no purposes, and no goal-directed forces of any kind. "
In science there are no such things else it ain't science! God of the gaps or other such stuff has no place in science period!
"There is no life after death. When I die, I am absolutely certain that I am going to be dead. That's the end of me."
Perhaps not stated correctly by Provine but stated as a "I see no compelling evidence to support..." type of statement in terms of biology (which I would guess is his gist) I see nothing arrogant or illogical or nihilistic in it! He is speaking biologically not philosophically. He is not in context excluding such things, for example, as the afterlife the "spirit" of my deceased father has in me or that of Einstein does in many physicists or that of Shakespeare does in many actors and playwrights.
"There is no ultimate foundation for ethics, no ultimate meaning in life, and no free will for humans, either."
Here Provine has me wondering. Certainly there is no good evidence for god driven ethics or meanings -- all seems from the mind of Man in context of period with large overtones fueled by our evolution driven wiring. But "no free will for humans"?!? Hum.. I'd not say emphatically NO (none).. for me it depends.
Posted by: Xenithrys | August 17, 2009 4:27 PM
One sensible thing everyone on a job search committee can do is always to Google the short-listed candidates. It's not to discriminate against the religious, but to eliminate candidates who don't understand science.
I know of one university biology department that got within a day of sending a job offer to a young earth creationist when someone who felt uneasy did just that. Even then, it was hard to convince the biochemists and cell biologists in the department that it mattered!
That's another issue, some biological disciplines are so focused on describing systems that evolution is off their radar.
Posted by: Lynna | August 17, 2009 4:35 PM
@153
Ah. Thanks. I should have read your earlier post more carefully. I'll use the quote and attribute it to Rabbi Natan Slifkin.
OT, sort of. Love the way the subject of PZ's post draws ad like:
Posted by: Harvard GSAS Alumnus | August 17, 2009 4:38 PM
That's tautologous! Oh wait …
Posted by: 'Tis Himself | August 17, 2009 4:41 PM
I should send in my $2500 and a dissertation cribbed from Conservapedia to Hovind's alma mater and get a PhD in Christian Missions. Then I would reveal that I'm an atheist and go on a lecture tour preaching the word that there is no god.
On second thought, I'd rather spend the $2500 on living room furniture
Posted by: Pteryxx | August 17, 2009 4:47 PM
Off topic: Interestingly, the Texas bible scholars post is blocked at my current location. In Texas. None of the rest of Pharyngula, just that one. Are we paranoid yet?
Posted by: Reginald Selkirk | August 17, 2009 4:52 PM
"Free will" is a difficult topic to discuss. Everyone thinks they have it, so they change their definition to fit their understanding of the problem. I would want to hear your definition of "free will" before getting into a discussion. But, if you are a materialist/naturalist like Provine, and do not accept the existence of any supernatural component to your mind, then what part of your mind is exempt from the laws of physics (i.e. "free")?Posted by: Ritchie Annand | August 17, 2009 4:53 PM
Quantized redshifts is probably what he's using to assert universal geocentricity. This was something discovered by Tifft some years back, and it keeps resurfacing every now and again.
The latest I've seen, only judging by the papers that the Wikipedia entry on "Redshift quantization" link to, is that a team said "yes there is" in 2005, and an SDSS paper in 2006, said "no there isn't", but did so by filtering out a lot of the objects that the 2005 paper was using:
I've seen a few "selection criteria wars" that happen in papers that deal with astrostatistics (if such a word can be coined), e.g. what constitutes the Local Group, are we getting a bias due to seeing only the brightest objects, etc., so it's not necessarily the final word, but in the absence of updates, it remains merely a curiosity.
There are plenty other interpretations to be had even IF it turns out to be a real phenomenon. The astronomers and cosmologists that they quote would not be positing that the earth is the center of the universe. Well, maybe John Hartnett would, but even he often insinuates 6,000-year-old universes based on Halton Arp's work, which would say nothing of the sort (galaxies can produce other galaxies... therefore the universe is only 6,000 years old? Including the ones further away than that in equivalent light-years?)
There's another statistical phenomenon called "Fingers of God" that I imagine creationists might use, but I haven't seen that in current use.
P.S. It's still stupefying to me the dance that is done by common descent deniers. Whoever linked to that Spectator article, oof, I'm still stuck replying there :)
Posted by: James F | August 17, 2009 5:05 PM
For those in need of a scorecard...
Harvard has a Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology and a Division of Medical Sciences. The DMS is primarily based at Harvard Medical School and is made up of four programs, including the Biological and Biomedical Sciences program (BBS, apparently Jeanson's department). A Ph.D. from MCB or DMS is awarded by the Harvard Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. So technically Jeff should have written to Prof. David Van Vactor, BBS Program Head, but he can hardly be blamed for writing to Prof. Dulac.
Posted by: Thedepressingstatistician | August 17, 2009 5:09 PM
>186
That's nothing.
Did you know the Second Law of Thermodynamics (the one creationists love to use against us) has an on/off switch.
"For instance, many suggest that the second law of thermodynamics may not have been operating in its fullness before the fall "
http://www.icr.org/research/index/researchp_df_r01/
Sadly, I kid you not.
Posted by: Jeff
|
August 17, 2009 5:13 PM
@Ritchie Annand #194:
Quantized redshifts is probably what he's using to assert universal geocentricity.
I don't think he was concerned about redshifts, actually. It seemed to be the actual placement that impressed him. I probably should gone into this more; as Jeanson described it, the other galaxies are deposited neatly in concentric circles radiating outward from Earth. If the first circle is at a distance of one unit, the next circle occurs at two units, not 1.5, and so on. I think it was the order (as he perceived it) that got to him.
Posted by: Lynna | August 17, 2009 5:21 PM
@195
Sounds to me like Jeff should just write to all and sundry. That would be easier than trying to figure out who heads what, or who may have sent their students off to serve as slaves in another department.
Posted by: Jeff
|
August 17, 2009 5:22 PM
@David Levin #185:
Actually, Harvard Alum is right. Dulac's department is MCB. Perhaps Jeanson misrepresented the department or program he was from.
@James F #195:
So technically Jeff should have written to Prof. David Van Vactor, BBS Program Head, but he can hardly be blamed for writing to Prof. Dulac.
Well, I've already written to Dulac and Scadden. Sure, I can write to Van Vactor as well. I'm not going to be applying for a grant anytime soon!
BTW, everyone - Aaron Golas (#184) has his own post about the evening lecture, with great reproductions of the CytC charts and pyramids I was trying to describe:
http://www.aarongolas.com/2009/08/tangled-bakruptcy-response-to-nathaniel-jeanson/
Posted by: Rob S | August 17, 2009 5:28 PM
Sorry to go off topic but I've just seen this on youtube.
Downfall of Chris Mooney and Unscientific America. Its very funny
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nfoQfL8vJXQ
Posted by: Reginald Selkirk | August 17, 2009 5:47 PM
"Pull my finger."Posted by: JGC | August 17, 2009 6:24 PM
Assuming this isn't the last time he'll be giving this talk, I'd like to propose a question for the Q&A regarding his claims that the ion-channel system is irreducibly complex (given that as the subject of his dissertation it's arguably the claim most within his demonstrated scientific experience):
What exactly is the basis for his presumption that the ion channel as it exists now is the exact form in which it has always existed? What evidence rules out the possibility it arose by entirely natural and well-characterized evolutionary mechanisms from precursor systems that weren't irreducibly complex?
After all there's a simple two-step evolutionary process by which systems that aren't irreducibly complex can become irreducible: add a part followed by make it essential .
As for stripping him of his PhD, to what end? No argument he offers becomes credible simply because he has a PhD, any more than arguments offered by anyone else--PZ or Collins or Williams or Dawkins, etc--become credible simply they possess PhD's. Arguments must stand and fall on their own merit as a function of the body of evidence (or in Jeanson's case lack of such)that can be marshalled in their support.
So let him have his PhD--don't make him some kind of martyr--and simply continue to attack the arguments on their own merit, as was done in the Q&A.
Posted by: 386sx | August 17, 2009 6:50 PM
What evidence rules out the possibility it arose by entirely natural and well-characterized evolutionary mechanisms from precursor systems that weren't irreducibly complex?
Actually there probably is evidence that they did evolve from precursor systems. (I'm just guessing though.) That's what always happens: some IDer makes a claim, and then it turns out that they don't know what they're talking about, or they have it completely wrong.
The only "data" this guy is "familiar" with is apparently ignorant creationist data, and yet he goes around giving lectures like he's an expert at debunking evolution data. Yeah, okay, strawman data I guess.
So yeah I guess technically he does indeed debunk evolution data, but he debunks it like a "clown" or an "idiot" would debunk strawman data, and then gets some free cash from the "sheeples". So maybe he's more of a "clown" than an "idiot".
Posted by: GFA | August 17, 2009 6:54 PM
Wasn't it Harvard University Press who refused to include the cartoons, or any images of Mohamed, in a book on the "Danish Cartoon Incident". (see Richard Dawkins .net)
Hummm, Harvard takes two knocks to its credentials as a top Uni. in one week ...
Well at least it saves time. Journal paper comes from Harvard. Godbots. Ignore. Next.
Posted by: 386sx | August 17, 2009 7:02 PM
Sorry if I gave the impression in my other comment that Mr. Jeanson is a "clown" or an "idiot". That was my (probably wrong) impression since he seems unfamiliar a lot with the data that he's debunking, or debanking *, or whatever.
* Nathaniel Jeanson, Evolution: Bankrupt Science; Creationism: Science You Can Bank On
Posted by: Ichthyic | August 17, 2009 7:03 PM
*I absolutely bled for my PhD; the thought that this nitwit has one makes me wanna punch someone.
Imagine actually being at the same grad school as this guy at the same time?
been there, done that.
still have a sore spot on my head that when I rub it screams "Jonathan Wellllllssssss".
just to reiterate what was said by others, there's nothing stopping ANYONE from studying any subject. In fact, we give undergraduate degrees as rewards for studying subjects.
that, as you know, is NOT the function of a graduate program. The function of a graduate program is train those who will CONTRIBUTE to our knowledge of a subject, not just learn about it.
It's quite clear that people like Jeanson and Wells had no intention of ever contributing to our scientific knowledge.
ergo, they never should have been accepted into the program to begin with.
as to stripping degrees? rationally, it actually would make sense to do so. Logistically? the reason unis don't is because it would call attention to the fact that they made a mistake in granting the degree to begin with, which would then lower the prestige of the uni as much as leaving him with the degree, or even more.
Moreover, there is always the argument to be made that once you establish a precedent for removing degrees, that process could easily be abused.
Posted by: Josh
|
August 17, 2009 7:03 PM
It probably doesn't need to be mentioned, but for the record:
in his talk, it doesn't appear that Jeanson got anything right about geology, except that he correctly noted that there are in fact these things out there called rocks.
Posted by: 386sx | August 17, 2009 7:08 PM
Nathaniel Jeanson, Evolution: Bankrupt Science; Creationism: Science You Can Bank On
Yeah, I'll bet it's some science he can "bank" on!! Wink wink!!
Posted by: JGC | August 17, 2009 7:11 PM
Re: 386sx at #203
The problem if were you counter with evidence indicating it arose evolutionarily from non irreducible precursors you'd create an opportunity for him to respond by attacking that evidence (the classic characteristic creationist misconception that attacking evolution equals shares identity with supporting creationism.)
Phrase the question as "What is your evidence to support the tacit claim that the calcium ion channel as it exists now exists in the only form it has ever existed?" you're placing the ball squarely in his court, explicitly requiring he actually identify credible evidence in support of the creationist argument he's advancing.
Posted by: Ichthyic | August 17, 2009 7:13 PM
As for stripping him of his PhD, to what end? No argument he offers becomes credible simply because he has a PhD, any more than arguments offered by anyone else--PZ or Collins or Williams or Dawkins, etc--become credible simply they possess PhD's.
unfortunately, it is the case that most americans appear to value the authority and credibility of the person who is speaking over the actual material being presented.
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/316/5827/996
So, there actually IS a good reason to strip him of his degree, as it grants him unwarranted authority.
Again, it becomes an issue of what unis feel is their responsibility to the community at large, vs. what they feel is their responsibility to the perception of prestige of the uni itself.
I seriously think that it's time the idea of degree revoking should at least be discussed openly, as there are now good reasons for doing so.
I haven't yet decided myself if it's actually a good idea overall or not; it would take a great deal of debate to work out what would be the best general approach to take, if there even can be one. Still, every time the issue was broached when I was a grad student, and for years after, it was quickly quashed.
I doubt the comments thread on a blog would be the best place to debate it, either, but I'm sure people here would have interesting things to say at least.
Posted by: Olowkow | August 17, 2009 7:20 PM
Maybe he'll get an IgNobel prize some day.
Posted by: 386sx | August 17, 2009 7:22 PM
JGC, that's true. The designer, or the creator, or whatever, can do whatever creationists want. All of the evidence does indeed support the intelligent "poof machine" (or whatever nom du jur is fashionable in creationist circles these days).
But yes, when they do make the error of actually making a factual claim, then it is best to pin them down on the specific claim, and then watch as they lie their tails off, or just make up things right there on the spot, or just completely ignore the point altogether.
Posted by: JGC | August 17, 2009 7:41 PM
"So, there actually IS a good reason to strip him of his degree, as it grants him unwarranted authority."
>>I'm sorry, but it grants his arguments no more additional authority, credibility, or likelihood that they are accurate than if they were advanced by someone who'd earned the rank of Eagle Scout: all arguments stand or fall on their own merit.
If the problem is that to the uninitiated (i.e., people who can't tell the difference between a classic rhetorical fallacy--argument from authority--and a hole in the ground) it conveys a false perception of authority, then that's what needs to be addressed.
Nothing Einstein offered regarding relativity, nothing Hawkins has offered regarding cosmology, possess confidence because it was Einstein and Hawking who came up with them: they possess authority because the math behind them works, the models are comprehensive and predictive, etc.
So with resepct to Jeanson, stripping him of his PhD would do nothing other than make him the poster child for Ben Stein's next 'documentary' effort.
What needs to be done is to educate people that his degree does not argue his claims are accurate, and the reality is quite the opposite: his arguments fail for the same reasons they've always failed when people like Morris, Gish, Hovind, Hamm, Wells, etc. previously put them forward: they simply aren't compatible with the body of evidence which exists.
Posted by: Ichthyic | August 17, 2009 7:46 PM
If the problem is that to the uninitiated (i.e., people who can't tell the difference between a classic rhetorical fallacy--argument from authority--and a hole in the ground) it conveys a false perception of authority, then that's what needs to be addressed.
fair point, but the problem is, as you recognize, that the degree does indeed garner him false authority.
It's exactly why the Institute for Creation Research has been working so hard to get accredidation for it's "advanced degree" program.
It's exactly why Rev Moon paid for Jonathan Wells' two graduate degrees.
why should we allow the market to even exist?
Posted by: Fil
|
August 17, 2009 7:49 PM
PZ, next time you go to one of these stand up comedy routines, why don't you set some cats amongst the pigeons?
Take along a couple of Jesuits with appropriate doctorates. Given that the Micks have no problems with evolution and science in general (officially anyway) it should be fun to watch a Christian Baptist loony creationist arguing with a Christian Catholic evolutionist (and a priest no less).
Bring popcorn.
Posted by: JGC | August 17, 2009 7:58 PM
"It's exactly why the Institute for Creation Research has been working so hard to get accredidation for it's "advanced degree" program."
Which is why we should focus on promoting the understanding that simply having a PhD doesn't convey additional authority, doesn't argue you're claims are more likely to accurate than the next guy: that even smart people have wrong ideas. Rather than playing whack a mole, knocking down the credentialed ICR shill of the hour (previously Wells, in this case Jeanson) concentrate on dismantling that strategy itself.
The proper response to "But he has a PhD..." is "That's nice--I play the harpsicord myself. Now, let's consider his evidence."
Posted by: Carlie | August 17, 2009 8:02 PM
Rob S @ 200, that was brilliant. I swear, that meme never gets old.
Posted by: Ichthyic | August 17, 2009 8:13 PM
Which is why we should focus on promoting the understanding that simply having a PhD doesn't convey additional authority
You don't think that the idea of an argument from authority as a bit of false rhetoric has been taught?
it fails to be grasped for the same reasons that teaching evolution has failed to abate creationism in the US.
The solution, while ideal in nature, is doomed to fail in practice because of the very thing I'm talking about, which is a preponderance towards authoritarian argument to begin with.
yes, the ideal is to teach that authoritarian arguments are worthless, the problem is, it's impossible to teach that to someone already raised to believe the opposite. For these people, who value the authority that comes with a degree, the simple act of removing that degree, that authority, is much like the act of disbarring a lawyer.
Posted by: Josh
|
August 17, 2009 8:19 PM
Did you read the whole paper? Interesting stuff.
I understand the argument for degree stripping. I'm concerned about it, though. I much prefer trying to deal with The Creationist Problem at the admissions stage (although screening people on their beliefs also bothers me; it's what religious schools do--but if it had to be one or the other--definitely admissions screening). If one gets through, well then shame on all of us.
Posted by: Ichthyic | August 17, 2009 8:25 PM
Did you read the whole paper?
of course! It's been quite influential in my thinking on the creationism issue since it was published.
I think I post that link here every other day or so...
:P
I'm concerned about it, though. I much prefer trying to deal with The Creationist Problem at the admissions stage
ditto and ditto
it's still worth discussing, I think.
Posted by: JGC | August 17, 2009 8:40 PM
Remember who we're talking about, Ichthyic--dyed in the rule true believers. Stripping him of his degree wouldn't lessen his perceived authority before that target audience it would enhance it.
He'd become the latest poster-boy martyr sacrificed on the altar of science, punished for daring to even question the party-line scientific dogma.
'Course, Jeanson would love it--he could probably double his speaking fees.
Posted by: Josh
|
August 17, 2009 8:59 PM
I'm sorry, but did you just miss sarcasm?
Holy shit. I gotta write this one down. Where the hell is my Blackberry?
*runs*
ditto.
Posted by: Ritchie Annand | August 17, 2009 9:11 PM
@Jeff Eyges:
Actually, the central relationship in modern Big Bang Theory is that redshift is proportional to both velocity and distance - the latter being a result of the same velocity starting from the same point.
So a quantized redshift in the consensus theory would be the same as placement at intervals.
The funny thing is, creationists also quote alternative cosmologists... sometimes just to show that science contradicts itself, other times to show that it's somehow conceivable that the universe is young (extra funny in that most of the cosmologists they quote estimate an older age of the universe than even 15 Gyr).
For example, Halton Arp, an inadvertent favorite of creationists, holds that matter starts with zero mass and gains mass through a Machian principle, and that these redshift quantizations are from matter going through certain stages.
They can't have both the Big Bang cosmology to use redshifts to estimate the distances and the alternative cosmology that says the redshifts are a quantum phenomenon not [completely] indicative of the distance to disprove Big Bang Theory...
...but consistency has never been their strong suit. Like many grade 7 Social Studies essays, the rule is barely just enough effort, a lot of plagiarism, and a lot of bullshitting :)
Posted by: James F | August 17, 2009 9:24 PM
#190
"I have a degree from Harvard. Whenever I'm wrong, the world makes a little less sense!"
-Dr. Frasier Crane
Posted by: bybelknap, FCD | August 17, 2009 9:57 PM
James Brown sang:
"If I didn't believe the Pythagorean theorem was correct how could I have completed a course in Trigonometry? I could not."
Ha! It's just a theory! Triangles are actually FOUR sided for sufficiently large values of three.
Posted by: Citizen Z | August 17, 2009 11:04 PM
Eh, no Ph.D. program is foolproof. Literally, in this case.
Posted by: Polyester Mather | August 18, 2009 12:01 AM
Given Harvard's high grad school application attrition , infiltration might involve throwing ten nominally qualified people at the admissions office in order to get one accepted.
One accordingly wonders what became of the other half dozen or more wannabe Veritas ringers- did they simultaneously apply to all the other Ivies plus Oxbridge ?
Stay tuned for more loons before long, but before blaming the President & Fellows of Harvard College - or for their opposite numbers at Harvard Divinity School, recall that there is a fair amount of distance and autonomy , from admissions thorough the thesis process , between the University per se and the constellation of professional schools surrounding it.
Nobody much cares how many Mormon JD's or Hindu Doctors of Dentistry we produce , or how many of the former convert the latter. The last tenure contract buy-out involved -brace yourself , PZ, a world class invertebrate zoologist who put aside his sea urchins to evangelize the theory that the Phoenicians and Celts beat the Vikings to the discovery of America , and who detecting deep Ogram and Punic meaning in every glacial scratch and scrap of graphic granite in New England devoted volumes to translating the lot into English.
Trouble was nobody else could.
Posted by: thyme | August 18, 2009 1:13 AM
An excerpt of Jeanson talking about vitamin D and calcium regulation is up. There's a link in the description with a partial transcript, as well.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FnQDQs3Fp_Q
Posted by: Leigh Williams | August 18, 2009 2:31 AM
"Astronomy - the galaxies are positioned at discrete distances from the Earth, in all directions, which is what you'd expect to see if we were at the center."
Geez louise, my fifteen-year-old son (future colleague of Phil Plait's) explained this illusion tonight at the dinner table, complete with torn-up paper napkin 2-d model. He included a long discussion of red shift and a few thoughts on the current state of cosmology, too.
I'll just keep the kid reading on his own and looking at the sky with his new and self-bought telescope. He'll be better educated than this particular Harvard goober, and I'll save a ton of money.
Posted by: Roel | August 18, 2009 3:21 AM
At Bernard Bumner #52 and Chris Caprette #104
Don't get me wrong, I haven't really made up my mind yet if we should be able to revoke PhD's, and if we should, I think it should be with great caution. But it bothers me that creationists are bragging about being supported by real scientists (and complaining about being discriminated, which they aren't). Now setting a standard is always a problem, but we've set standards dor malpractice by docters and lawyers, so why not for scientists? They are professionals we, society, must be able to trust. Their personal opinions, either religious or political, are irrelevant but their professional opinions are.
Posted by: DLC | August 18, 2009 3:35 AM
Re: Jeanneson and PhDs.
Proof positive that, as the philosopher once said, you can lead a man to knowledge but you can't make him think.
Posted by: Adam Cuerden | August 18, 2009 5:41 AM
If you'll excuse a little non-Cuttlefish poetry, a quick filk:
And here's to the city of Boston!
The land of the bean and the cod:
Where Harvard taught science to Jeanson
But Jeanson hears nothing but "God".
Posted by: Jeff
|
August 18, 2009 10:31 AM
@Ritchie Annand:
Actually, the central relationship in modern Big Bang Theory is that redshift is proportional to both velocity and distance - the latter being a result of the same velocity starting from the same point.
So a quantized redshift in the consensus theory would be the same as placement at intervals.
Right, I get that. I meant that I don't think Jeanson is thinking about matter expanding outward from a singularity, and condensing into galaxies at intervals. He thinks God simply poofed it all into existence, in situ, 6,000 years ago, making it all topographically even and symmetrical - one light year, two light years, etc.; no fractions, no irrational numbers! - so we'd have no excuse for not recognizing his handiwork.
God, apparently, is a high school shop teacher.
Posted by: Jeff
|
August 18, 2009 10:43 AM
Heh! This I like:
"If I didn't believe the Pythagorean theorem was correct how could I have completed a course in Trigonometry? I could not."
Ha! It's just a theory! Triangles are actually FOUR sided for sufficiently large values of three.
And this is fabulous!
And here's to the city of Boston!
The land of the bean and the cod:
Where Harvard taught science to Jeanson
But Jeanson hears nothing but "God".
(For those who are curious, here is the original.)
Posted by: Pablo | August 18, 2009 11:18 AM
Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater, as they say. And I think the subtlety is where you are going to run into the problem, because what you say is not completely true.
You need to be more specific: having a PhD in X doesn't convey authority in Y. It does argue that your claims about X ARE more likely to be knowledgable than the next guy.
As I have pointed out, the problem is when trying to use the PhD outside of your area of expertise. I concede that Nathaniel Jeanson is absolutely an expert when it comes to the mechanism of calcium regulation in the blood. As a result, I think he could also legitimately argue that he is an expert in related issues, such as mechanisms of other mineral regulation in the blood, or calcium regulation in other areas of the body, such as the endothelium. But none of this makes him an expert in evolution.
The problem with your approach is that it denies legimate expertise. It is the same attitude that leads one to give Jenny McCarthy just as much credibility in terms of vaccinations as an endowed chair of the Department of Pediatric Immunology.
No, the PhD does not make one an expert in everything. But they are certainly authorities in their field, which should not be discounted. Of course, the key word here is, "in their field," and most of the blatently idiotic actions of PhDs comes from when they step outside of their area of expertise.
Posted by: Ritchie Annand | August 18, 2009 12:00 PM
@Jeff Eyges:
So he thinks they were poofed there and that they're just sitting there?
It would be interesting to know how he figures redshift as a measure of the distance, then.
Wait, no it wouldn't :)
Posted by: Pacal | August 18, 2009 1:41 PM
Regarding Jeanson and his placing of the Earth at the center of the Universe. Either he is just plain ignorant or he is deliberately lying about it.
It is my understanding that the Universe has four dimensions but that we perceive three. In other words we are similar to 2 dimensional spots on a ballon. each two dimensional spot is at the center of this Universe in two dimensional terms, so there is no real two dimensional "center" of this Universe. In the same sense we are three dimensional spots embed on a fourth dimensional curve, or "ballon". Each three dimensional spot is in three dimensional terms at the center of the Universe. So that in three dimensional terms there is no real "center" to our four dimensional Universe.
This is in my understanding basic Relativity Physics Jeanson either doesn't know this or is deliberately lying.
Posted by: Andy Drake | August 18, 2009 4:12 PM
While I don't agree with their methods or beliefs, I think revoking a PhD is a bit drastic. They have a right to believe whatever they wish no matter how silly and unfounded it may seem. It is up to us to think for ourselves and choose whether to believe their B.S. or not. PhD does not mean perfect.
Posted by: Zachary Bos | August 18, 2009 4:15 PM
@386sx, post 208
Actually, I asked him if he had been paid to appear that day. His answer was no.
Posted by: Roel | August 19, 2009 7:59 AM
At Andy Drake #239,
The question is not whether Jeanson may believe what he believes. In a free society, of course he does. The question is whether he may abuse his scientific status to present his personal beliefs as if they were a professional opinion and get away with it.
Posted by: Annasbones | August 19, 2009 9:43 AM
Funny how they seem to demand 'repeatability' and 'evidence' of science when they don't think their beliefs should be exposed to same scrutiny:
'few transitional forms'? Have you SEEN a virgin give birth?
*headesk*
Posted by: Jeff
|
August 19, 2009 11:52 AM
Actually, I asked him if he had been paid to appear that day. His answer was no.
Zachary, I remember you asking him that question. I'm sure he wasn't paid; he probably saw it as a public service - either saving a few souls before leaving godless Boston, or reinforcing the beliefs of the church members. He might have done it simply as a favor to the pastor; I have a feeling that was his church. They meet in that same space every week, right down the street from Harvard Medical School, where he worked.
You were also the one who got him to admit that "irreducible complexity" is merely a semantic device.
Posted by: David E Levin | August 19, 2009 8:05 PM
Jeanson hasn't yet published the work from his thesis. If I was Scadden, I'd be having someone repeat his work prior to publication. This guy (Jeanson) clearly has no respect for the scientific method or for scientific interpretations of data. I wonder about his ability to collect reliable data. It seems he didn't intend to continue doing science after finishing the dissertation. It was off to ICR to do as much damage to science as he possibly can. So what motivation did he have during his time in the lab to treat his own project honestly? Perhaps he was able to compartmentalize in some way. But if I'm Scadden, I'm just a tad worried.
Posted by: robert bryant | August 22, 2009 3:00 AM
I could never finish telling
You of her that was her dwelling
Where those springs of truth are welling
Whence all streams of beauty run.
She has taught me that creation
Bears the test of calculation,
But that Man forgets his station
If he stops when that is done
Is our algebra the measure
Of that unexhausted treasure
That affords the purest pleasure,
Ever found when it is sought?
Let us rather, realising
The conclusions thence arising
Nature more than symbols prizing
Learn to worship as we ought.
Worship? Yes, what worship better
Than when free'd from every fetter
That the uninforming letter
Rivets on the tortured mind
Man, with silent admiration
Sees the glories of creation
And , in holy contemplation
Leasves the learned crowd behind!
James Clerk Maxwell
10 November 1852
http://rpo.library.utoronto.ca/poem/2707.html
Anyone care to check the validity of Maxwell's Equations
Posted by: Jeff
|
August 23, 2009 7:28 AM
Anyone care to check the validity of Maxwell's Equations
That's a ridiculous example. No one is suggesting rechecking Newton's work, either. If you can't see the difference, too bad. I'm not going to explain it to you.
Do you people ever think about what you say, or is everything a knee-jerk reaction? Or are you just channeling the Holy Spirit?
Posted by: robert bryant | August 23, 2009 6:05 PM
Do you people ever think about what you say, or is everything a knee-jerk reaction?
Posted by: Nerd of Redhead, OM
|
August 23, 2009 6:09 PM
Your point was?Posted by: Ichthyic | August 23, 2009 6:17 PM
Your point was?
To share with us his knee-jerk reaction.
The woods are full of irony today...
Posted by: Ichthyic | August 23, 2009 6:24 PM
Yes, what worship better
Than when free'd from every fetter
That the uninforming letter
Rivets on the tortured mind
If uninforming letter = bible
Then it makes sense.
Indeed rationality can only exist once freed from the fetters of religious dogma.
Is this not what Maxwell meant?
;)
Posted by: Robert bryant | August 23, 2009 8:22 PM
"Do you people ever think about what you say, or is everything a knee-jerk reaction?"
Hmm. There was no point in this acknowledgement of what you said. I was just musing about it.
Maxwell liked to muse ..
"Teach me so Thy works to read
That my faith- new strength accruing,-
May from world to world proceed,
Wisdom's fruitful search pursuing;
Till, Thy truth my mind imbuing,
I proclaim the Eternal Creed,
Oft the glorious theme renewing
God our Lord is God indeed.
Give me love aright to trace
Thine to everything created
Preaching to a ransomed race
By Thy mercy renovated
Till with all Thy fulness sated
I behold Thee face to face
And with Ardour unabated
Sing the glories of Thy grace
Ma from world to world accrue
wisdoms
Posted by: Smoggy Batzrubble OM4Jesus | August 23, 2009 8:53 PM
Dear Brother Robert Bryant,
Thank you for these stirring words. But you missed off the next verse, penned, as I understand it, by Maxwell on his death bed.
"Give me courage to perceive,
When my mind has been deluded,
Then I will no more receive,
All the superstition once alluded.
For false beliefs are now derided,
As thoughts that weaker minds conceive,
In reason is all faith confounded,
And science is my great reprieve."
I hope you won't be as shattered as I was.
Your brother in Christ
Smoggy Batzrubble
Posted by: Alex | September 9, 2009 10:22 AM
My favorite quote:
"He then began to weave tortuous arguments from geology and astronomy..."
"He then began to weave tortuous arguments from gastronomy!"
INSTANT WIN!
Posted by: Joe M. | September 10, 2009 11:27 AM
Sorry, fellow pharyngulites, there's no real content here: I'm just feeling sorry for myself and venting.
I'm medically disabled with lupus, can't do sh-t given our busted health care system and utterly shredded so-called "social safety net" ... So what? I'm not the only American in this pickle.
The "so what" is that I busted my butt to get MY Ph.D. in Biological Anthropology [which just morphed, by the way, into the new "Department of Human Evolution"] at Harvard, with a thesis on brain evolution ... but can do virtually nothing — in the classroom or outside of it — to counteract this fool Jeanson and others like him. Because, you see, he's presumably a vibrantly healthy young stud (except for his moth-eaten creationist brain) with all the energy in the world (much of it doubtlessly pent up while he was writing his thesis) to do his utmost to destroy what's left of rational thinking among Mencken's "Boobus americanus" ...
Gawd, I hate ad hominem attacks. And I hate feeling sorry for myself. In fact, I hate "hating" most of all. But now that I've publically whined on this forum, I can get back to fighting my illness and trying not to get COMPLETELY demoralized by the onslaught of terrible news on this Forum.
Which brings me to my final point: Professor Myers, besides your beautiful animal photos, I LOVE it when you broadcast the admittedly rare good news that happens, here and there, in the world of public science education and awareness. Keep up the good fight for those of us maimed on the sidelines!!
Posted by: onein6billion.myopenid.com
|
September 13, 2009 7:13 PM
I think Stephen Meyer also qualifies. His book - Signature in the Cell - is the same stuff that he got his Ph.D at Cambridge in. It's clear that he has been working on/thinking about "life from non-life is impossible" for decades. Perhaps since he read it in Wilder-Smith's 1970 book?
Posted by: Godornothing
|
February 11, 2011 8:20 PM
It's like arguing with very stubborn, developmentally challenged children (which, as I suggest from time to time on Pharyngula and Ed Brayton's blog, is how I feel they should be treated).
This is venemous slander that the other side never characterized evolutionary atheists, it creates a hateful fearful environment that prevents honest students from carefully weighing both sides for fear of being labelled.
Posted by: Godornothing
|
February 12, 2011 9:28 AM
http://www.biblestudy.org/prophecy/old-testament-prophecies-jesus-fulfilled.html
The Benchmark
Alexander the Great Translated the Old Testament into Greek 330 BC. Even Critics have to acknowledge, The Septuagint. The Old Testament Prophecies and their fulfillment are listed below, in total there are many more. This is the Benchmark for the world to see. In sum it speaks of The Messiah i e where he would be born Bethelehem, where he would be from Galilee and that he would also come out of Egypt. Only one person manage to be from all 3, and his name begins with a J, this is historic, independent, objective analysis. History screams it, creation screams it. We deny it! Until HE overcomes our darkness. There is no free will, our will is dead with our nature, only his word which is life can free it...read his word below and see if your soul gets freed!
Prophecy: Jesus to be born in Bethlehem
Old Testament Reference: Micah 5:2
New Testament Fulfillment: Luke 2:4-7
Prophecy: The time of Jesus' birth
Old Testament Reference: Daniel 9:24-25
New Testament Fulfillment: Luke 2:1-5
Prophecy: Christ to be born of a virgin
Old Testament Reference: Isaiah 7:13-14
New Testament Fulfillment: Luke 1:26-28, 30-31
Prophecy: Lamentation for the killing of infants
Old Testament Reference: Jeremiah 31:15
New Testament Fulfillment: Matthew 2:16-18
Prophecy: To be called out of Egypt
Old Testament Reference: Hosea 11:1
New Testament Fulfillment: Matthew 2:13-15
Prophecy: The way of the Lord prepared
Old Testament Reference: Isaiah 40:3-4
New Testament Fulfillment: Luke 3:2-5
Prophecy: A messenger to come before the Lord
Old Testament Reference: Malachi 3:1
New Testament Fulfillment: Luke 7:24-27
Prophecy: Declared to be a Son of God
Old Testament Reference: Psalm 2:7
New Testament Fulfillment: Matthew 3:13-17
Prophecy: Ministry centered in Galilee
Old Testament Reference: Isaiah 9:1-2
New Testament Fulfillment: Matthew 4:12-16
Prophecy: Jesus to bind up and heal the brokenhearted
Old Testament Reference: Isaiah 61:1-3
New Testament Fulfillment: Luke 4:17-21
Prophecy: A Priest after the order of Melchizedek
Old Testament Reference: Psalm 110:1,4
New Testament Fulfillment: Hebrews 5:5-6
Prophecy: Despised, rejected and not believed, especially by the Jews Old Testament Reference: Isaiah 53:1-4
New Testament Fulfillment: John 1:11, 12:37-40; Luke 23:16-18
Prophecy: Hated without reason
Old Testament Reference: Psalm 35:19
New Testament Fulfillment: John 15:24
Prophecy: Triumphal entry in Jerusalem
Old Testament Reference: Zechariah 9:9
New Testament Fulfillment: Mark 11:7-11
Prophecy: Praised by the mouth of babes
Old Testament Reference: Psalm 8:1-2
New Testament Fulfillment: Matthew 21:15-16
Prophecy: The Messiah would be cut off, but not for himself
Old Testament Reference: Daniel 9:25-27
New Testament Fulfillment: John 11:49-52
Prophecy: Betrayal of Jesus Christ by a close friend (Judas)
Old Testament Reference: Psalm 41:9
New Testament Fulfillment: Mark 14:10, Luke 22:47-48
Prophecy: Price paid to Judas for betraying Jesus
Old Testament Reference: Zechariah 11:12
New Testament Fulfillment: Matthew 26:14-15
Prophecy: What would be done with the betrayal money
Old Testament Reference: Zechariah 11:13
New Testament Fulfillment: Matthew 27:3, 5-7
Prophecy: His scourging predicted
Old Testament Reference: Isaiah 50:6
New Testament Fulfillment: Matthew 27:26; Mark 15:15
Prophecy: His body would be brutalized
Old Testament Reference: Psalm 22:16-17; Isaiah 52:14
New Testament Fulfillment: Matthew 27:26, 29-30; John 19:1-3
Prophecy: Jesus would be bruised and crucified for the sins of the world
Old Testament Reference: Isaiah 53:4-6, 10-11
New Testament Fulfillment: Romans 5:6-8
Prophecy: Feet and hands would be pierced
Old Testament Reference: Psalm 22:15-16; Zechariah 12:9-10
New Testament Fulfillment: John 19:33-35, 20:25-27
Prophecy: He was numbered among the transgressors
Old Testament Reference: Isaiah 53:12
New Testament Fulfillment: Luke 23:33
Prophecy: His side would be pierced
Old Testament Reference: Psalm 22:16; Zechariah 12:10
New Testament Fulfillment: John 19:34
Prophecy: Jesus would be resurrected
Old Testament Reference: Psalm 16:10-11; Psalm 49:15
New Testament Fulfillment: Mark 16:5-6
Prophecy: His ascension to God’s right hand
Old Testament Reference: Psalm 68:18
New Testament Fulfillment: 1Corinthians 15:3-6; Mark 16:19-20; Ephesians 4:8-10
Posted by: Nerd of Redhead, OM
|
February 12, 2011 9:35 AM
Ah, and idjit fuckwit who doesn't understand how and why the babble was written. It was all written down well after the facts they describe, so that the "prophecy" would always be true. Very easy to do with hindsight. And the NT supported such nonsense where it could, but well after the fact. So your alleged evidence is nothing but bullshit.
Still no conclusive physical evidence for your imaginary deity. An eternally burning bush or equivalent would be nice.
Posted by: a_ray_in_dilbert_space, OM, A little FUCKING ray of sunshine
|
February 12, 2011 9:44 AM
Wow, It's amazing how accurate prophecies are when they are written after the fact!
Posted by: Forbidden Snowflake
|
February 12, 2011 9:44 AM
That was some pretty good evidence of the NT's status as OT fan-fiction, and very shitty evidence of anything else I can think of.