04-19-2008, 01:44 AM
Quote:And... if they had the power, they would have canned him. Too bad he didn't do the noble thing and throw himself upon his sword. I'm not entering into whether he did his job as Editor correctly, or whether the paper published was junk science. I'm pointing to how his peers reacted once they found out a "believer" had somehow entered the hallowed halls of atheism. The evidence is plainly in the exposed e-mail correspondence flying around after this paper was published. The kimono at the SI Museum of Natural History has been opened, and all the ugliness is exposed. The concern was not about an Editor doing a bad job, it was about his beliefs and how this embarrasses them that people will think religious people are at the SI Museum of Natural History.
Well, it's a little silly to not get into whether he did his job as an editor or whether it was junk science or not, and then come to conclusions about his position at one of the most presitgious scientific institutions in the world. Obviously, the two things are deeply connected. If you're a geographer, and you let slip into a geographical journal a Flat Earth publication, that's going to be a major embarrassment for any geographical group you're connected to. This is not discrimination, it's just the obvious reaction to someone supporting views that are completely ridiculous within a discipline.
There must be hundreds of Smithsonian employees and researchers who are religious. This is plainly obvious, contrary to your bizarre assertion otherwise. Yet they get free and fine access to the "hallowed halls of Atheism." The only one who gets a slap on the wrist (which is about as much as it amounts to) is the one who puts complete junk into an otherwise respectable journal by bypassing the peer review process.
So, I wonder which is to blame, then, for the persecution he supposedly almost suffered, but didn't? His religion, or his professional misconduct which just happened to lend public support for anti-biology religious zealotry?
-Jester