Yet another religious cult raided

[Quark]

Now, no one, and I mean no one at the Lounge so far has defended anyone impregnating under aged girls. So, what's your beef?

but it's outrageous to me that these families are all attacked and Texas is seeking to make all 416 children wards of the State.

That's my beef. "Let's keep children in a dangerous environment, because, oh, it's their religion." You claim to not defend it, and yet you're perfectly willing to keep children in the dangerous environment because it's the "sacred tenets" of religion and family.

[Bun-Bun]

Except for the subservient part.

-Jester

For the majority of the men, I will put forth the idea that it does apply. There's no going against the word of Warren Jeffs (or whoever is in charge now that he's incarcerated). Even if they get to order their wives around, they still operate under the umbrella rules. For instance, look at all the male kids that are kicked out so the favored ones can have multiple wives.

[Occhidiangela]

You have totally gone out to left field on misinterpreting my remarks. As the saying goes, "Projecting much?".:)

No, responding to your post. And no, not in left field. I thank you for taking the time to explain your position in more detail.

I made no such sweeping generalizations about a patriarchal model. In fact, I didn't even mention it.

You don't have to. It is the topic of the thread, the FLDS commune. It is a commune built upon a patriarchical, and I think authoritarian, social model.

I didn't even imply or base any conclusions on it. It's all you, bud.

See above, it is the topic of the thread, and thus the pivot point around which this conversation revolves.

However, since you've obviously missed what I'm saying, let me try to clarify it for you.

Not hardly. Let's run back the tape.

My position is that the emotional control the FLDS has over these women is so strong that this is [i]not a valid metric[/i].

Arbitrary assertion. I had to try and divine what imbedded assumptions you were making to arrive at that statement. The only projection I have seen in our last interchange is your projection of a bad value judgment on the women, the mothers in quesiton. (What's going on with the kids is a separate conversation.)

My original statement was "My position is that the emotional control the FLDS has over these women is so strong that this is not a valid metric." I was referring to the fact that most of the adult women had returned to the compound, and rebutting your conclusion that this was a sign the conditions were not bad.

You rebutted nothing. We agreed that they returned to the compound, you then assign an arbitrary value assessment for them based on your valuation of good and bad. I am not convinced either way, but with the both of us being outsiders to that movement, I am not willing to assume that the perception of "bad situation" that you assess -- sensibly, given your frame of reference -- matches those who have spent their lives in that social group.

To expand, the conditions may be very, very bad, but they could view returning as the best option because:
1. They are intentionally deprived of news from outside the compound, so any relative informed judgement is impossible.

That is not an element of emotional control. (It's certainly an element of control, if true.) Access to information and particuarly outside information is part of a controlling behavior. It's not too far a reach to uncover the "mind control" card being played here.

2. The outside world is continually demonized, again tilting the balance. Outside information is pre-judged to be wrong.

The assumption you seem to be making is that from the beginning, their position was that of enforced isolation from the outside world, rather than an elective one. On what do you base that?

3. They are taught from birth that their place in the culture is a subservient one.

Cultural indoctrination. Hindu are indoctrinated into the caste system. Is that emotional control, mind control, or something else?

4. In their experience, there is no second authority. Decisions are unchallengable, and not their job.

Quite possibly so, due to point three above.

5. They are conditioned to practices that make them feel different or better than outsiders. They are told they are a privileged elite. They dress differently and speak differently, so on occasions when they do interact with nonmembers, they are greeted with some adverse reactions.

How is this significantly different from other small and selective social groups?

6. They are faced with ample fears that limit their behavior
6a: The fear of being ejected from the community. They have no friends, allies or contacts outside the FLDS.
6b: The fear of losing their status in the community.
6c: The fear of losing their immortal soul, since only FLDS members are saved.
6d: The fear of outsiders in general.

Is the above what you are referring to as emotional control?

So based on what they believe to be true, returning to the compound is a rational choice even in the worst case, even if abuse is prevalent. No need to call them brainwashed or mind-controlled. They are information-starved.

Beyond your assumption that this is what they believe to be true, I follow your thought process clearly.

Why did you refer to emoitonal control in the first place? Is this based on the issue of their children being used against them?

This applies in a patriarchal model, a matriarchal model, just about any model you can think of that imposes a sole source of authority. The fact that the FLDS organizes patriarchally only defines one underclass; indeed, all of the above applies to the men, too.

No disagreement there, authoritarian social models have significant similarities, as you mentioned.

I heard on the radio today that each of the 416 children has to have his or her own attorney. This case looks to go on for sometime, so all sorts of information that will either confirm, or reverses, the assessments you have made will become available in due course.

I don't expect it to be pretty.

Occhi

[Occhidiangela]

Witness: Teens at ranch said any age OK to marry.

Married off and pregnant at 13. 13! Yes, let's save these children from the state.

News flash: the human race survived nicely for centuries with such customs in operation. Where is the danger in this? (See your subsequent post on the topic)

Granted, it's not how I go about raising my kids. I'd like them to mature a bit before going to the next stage in life, but that view is in part due to my own cultural indoctrination within our mainstream culture.

Some of that cultural norming has been codified, by the statutes that define, for whatever reason, what the generally accepted minimum age is, or ought to be, for marriage, breeding, and so on. These are inconsistent with biological development, but that is not the sole consideration in the mainstream society. (A mitigating factor in teen pregnancy is that it isn't always society's problem to solve. Families sometimes solve it by accepting that it's not the baby's fault, and the extended family raising the teen birthed child as part of the family. Indeed, my own in laws were faced with, and are doing, exactly that. Read carefully: the family handled it, not CPS. )

Given the above, these norms now have the force of law. Breaking that law has consequences, as we see in this news story. Conform or go to jail. Look at the FLDS as an extended family, or clan, (perhaps a dysfunctional one) and some of what they are doing isn't all that odd, nor out of the norm, nor particularly dangerous. What it is is archaic, and as noted above, in some details, illegal.

So here comes the fifty dollar question: should my sister in law, whose brother in law is a cop, have pressed charges against the penis wielder who impregnated her not quite sixteen daughter? (Who willingly had sex with him multiple times before the seed was fertilized. Indeed, she was a bit of an instigator in the whole deal.) Said cop and I did the math the day the baby was born.

She chose not to, and for a good reason. He, and his family, quite readily agreed to provide X child support for an extended period of time. They have remained true to that agreement for the last six years. Neither family was endorsing, nor urging, the two to get married, for a host of reasons. My sister in law, not her daughter, has legal custody of the child, and is raising her.

No CPS required. No arrest required. No one needed to go to jail over stupidity and sex mixing.

Now look once again at what an extended family, a clan, has done as a pattern of raising their families without interference from all of the busybodies of the world. That, IMO, is what any number of the adult members of that society view as an appropriate way to live their lives.

You can call what they, the FLDS, are doing a manifestation of Future Shock. What they are doing would fit in very well in the southern parts of Iraq, and a variety of other places on the globe.

Maybe they should have moved there first, before they started their colony of anachronisms.

WIth three hundred million people in the US, I have a hard time finding a small colony of backward thinking whack jobs dangerous.

DR

[kandrathe]

Or, you could go back to the original subject and provide some evidence that there's a grand conspiracy of nasty Darwinists out there. You've not supplied any yet that stands scrutiny.

I will do my best. You did not ask me for a grand conspiracy of Darwinists, you asked for one. I gave you three, and you picked them apart. We could also go back to where I said that it is because of perceptions (and maybe fact) of institutionalized biases in schools and colleges that certain movements get traction. That's how we got here.

You are asking for something that is very hard for anyone to find conclusively, because it involves employment contracts and judgments that are usually sealed. Then, if we do find something and post it here, there will be two sides to the dismissals and "persecution" which you may choose to side with the defense of the party doing the persecution. Ergo, prove conclusively that persecution occurred. Your tactic here is the same one that Jester used in the Wright discussion when he asked me to prove that a Wright inspired sermon incited violence. It is hard to make a point where something seemingly apparent, for example that any prominent orator castigating and targeting an entire class of people as their enemy might inspire violent action against that enemy. Or, that when people are demoted, fired or denied employment it might be because of a dogmatic bias against their beliefs (whether that be based on race, sex or religion).

As for my notions of reality, and getting through the day. No, it's not hard. I don't feel I need to have an answer for everything, and I can accept that some things are just a mystery at present. I'm a very open minded person who considers many and all possibilities and evidence. I seem to be stuck on the Earth by what I can only understand is a constant force of Gravity which seems to have been around since I was born. My physics education has presented many theories and systems to explain it, and it seems to make sense, but Newton and Einstein were also wrong on some stuff. Their models generally explain most of the gravitational phenomena we encounter at our scale, but lose validity at the edges. There is no reason for me to fear it suddenly going away and me flying off into space at any rate. So, take Bose Einstein Condensates... I freely admit I get a little lost in the quantum mechanics of it all, and it seems kind of magical to me. It might be that YOU actually created the entire universe just 10 seconds ago, but not very likely and I have no evidence to substantiate it anyway. :)

It is disheartening that you are using the tactic to place the burden on me to research and then when I deliver findings I'm concerned you will just casually dismiss them, as you have already done. For example, you don't trust the article or its contents because of the publisher, which is a pretty common debate tactic. Are we engaged in an open minded discussion, or are you trying to score points and win? So, I claim there is a bias against Christians in science, and not just Creationists in biology and you have said, a) it is justified because no one who believes in spirituality can be a scientist(not based on evidence), and b) this bias isn't happening anyway. I maintain there is a growing proportion of scientists, and laymen who are dogmatic in their absolute beliefs in some science theories. So much so, that they discriminate and persecute those who do not adhere to their dogma.

If I understand your point, you say that if scientists admit to being Christian it is ok, as long as they deny that part in Chapter 1 on how God created it all. You don't think that is a challenge to faith? The first line of the Apostles Creed is, "I believe in God, the Father almighty, creator of heaven and earth." It is an anchor of Christianity. I think you and they are closing your mind to understanding that philosophy only one way, where I'm saying that these philosophical beliefs are complex and allow for various understanding of what that means. Some narrow minded strictly fundamentalist beliefs are incompatible with the scientific evidence present in paleontology, geology, cosmology, biology, etc., but even then I don't think it would prevent them from contributing and writing as long as they kept their philosophy separate from their science. When Teilhard worked as a paleontologist, the fact that he remained spiritually based did not interfere with his science. He was intellectual enough to separate his teleological philosophies from his scientific work. So here we are in 2008, rehashing Aristotle and Lucretius. Even Dobzhansky himself spoke of God as creating through evolution.

Finally, when I present my world experience with scientists first hand, you find it hard to believe. It would be fun to fly you here and introduce you personally, so we could chat face to face with some of them and let them explain for themselves. It is hard for me to speak for them generally and they would do a much better job than I can do supporting their positions. You see, I do believe in the evidence supporting evolutionary biology, cosmology, etc.

P.S. Also, one last point on Creationism -- it is a broad category and if you are reading my prior statements with the strict fundamentalist literal interpretation point of view, I can understand your confusion. This is not how I meant Creationism. I mean it in the broad philosophical teleological sense. So, my answer when someone asks if Creationism should be taught in public schools, is "Yes!, but not as a theory in opposition to Darwin's". Religious topics should be taught within the humanities, not in the sciences sections of schools. Science is science, and philosophy is philosophy. And, then, if it were possible it would be my hope that given all the information, children would be allowed to decide for themselves how to rationalize their own understanding of the heavens and earth. I fear that instead, they are indoctrinated toward one particular politically based world view.

[kandrathe]

Well there we are back to where we were.....indoctrination. Even for very intelligent people it is extremely difficult to step from their faith even with much evidence available. The people can however contribute to the field because during their work the keep there religious beliefs to themselves and focus on the subject. In most cases (also the natural sciences) you can go quite a way without believing in evolution.

I agree. Very far. Look up Theodosius Dobzhansky.

[kandrathe]

That's my beef. "Let's keep children in a dangerous environment, because, oh, it's their religion." You claim to not defend it, and yet you're perfectly willing to keep children in the dangerous environment because it's the "sacred tenets" of religion and family.

Were all 416 abused?

[Mordekhuul]

Were all 416 abused?

If you have evidence that some are, and aren't sure which, in a communal environment, should you just allow the abuse to continue while trying to investigate from a much less advantageous position, or should you remove kids from what appears to be an enviornment that encourages the abuse until you can sort out where the danger lies?

CPS and the gov seemed to make the call that the only way to sort out what is going on is to separate all of the children of a certain age and investigate in a more controlled manner.

[Bun-Bun]

OK, maybe we're not talking past each other so much.

Arbitrary assertion. I had to try and divine what imbedded assumptions you were making to arrive at that statement. The only projection I have seen in our last interchange is your projection of a bad value judgment on the women, the mothers in quesiton. (What's going on with the kids is a separate conversation.)

I made no such judgement, although, given the evidence available on practices in the FLDS, my opinion would be that it would be a bad decision. But I'm not there, and my opinion carries no weight.:)

As to the arbitrariness of my assertions, I think the facts on the ground bear them out.

You rebutted nothing. We agreed that they returned to the compound, you then assign an arbitrary value assessment for them based on your valuation of good and bad. I am not convinced either way, but with the both of us being outsiders to that movement, I am not willing to assume that the perception of "bad situation" that you assess -- sensibly, given your frame of reference -- matches those who have spent their lives in that social group.

What I read into your comment was a value judgement on the return of the women vis a vis conditions in the FLDS. My rebuttal was to indicate such a judgement was not probably valid. Since your comment excited my response and neither one seems to have had sufficient clarity, I think we're chasing our tails on that.

That is not an element of emotional control. (It's certainly an element of control, if true.) Access to information and particuarly outside information is part of a controlling behavior. It's not too far a reach to uncover the "mind control" card being played here.

OK, that's a reasonable criticism. Let's go for "informational control". Your suspicions aside, I'm working rather hard to stay away from flinging labels and providing arguments that flow logically from facts.

The assumption you seem to be making is that from the beginning, their position was that of enforced isolation from the outside world, rather than an elective one. On what do you base that?

Bits of the Jessup memoir, testimony of some of the ejected boys, and news reports. It is apparent it is an authoritarian power structure, and the leadership mandated minimal contact with the outside. It is "enforced" in that it is not a community decision and there are penalties for noncompliance.

Cultural indoctrination. Hindu are indoctrinated into the caste system. Is that emotional control, mind control, or something else?

Indoctrinated? Perhaps. They are born into a culture that accepts the caste system wholeheartedly. Since the majority follows this set of principles, those who do not wish to participate face barriers in social interactions. This tends to a self-perpetuating system, but I suspect it frays a bit when exposed to dissimilar cultures.

What you're looking at is a sliding scale, not a binary control/no control situation. I'd view the Hundu culture as mid-range, in that it significantly limits social and business opportunities. I'm not sure how much it would limit information access or behavioral patterns; I just don't know India well enough to say. I'd put the FLDS much higher on that scale, with more elements of behavior and information restriction.

If you're looking for a good-bad view from me, I tend to view "good" as less restriction and "bad" as more restriction. Past a certain point I see it as violating values that my cultural indoctrination has given me.:)

How is this significantly different from other small and selective social groups?

It's difficult to say in such a general sense. My thinking is that it's a matter of degree. On the other hand, there could be no difference at all. It's just one factor in the mix.

Is the above what you are referring to as emotional control?

Yes, but I'm using the term incorrectly. I have some evidence of emotion control from the Jessup extracts I read, but the above falls more squarely in information control.

Beyond your assumption that this is what they believe to be true, I follow your thought process clearly.

OK.

Why did you refer to emoitonal control in the first place? Is this based on the issue of their children being used against them?

As I said, I was using the term incorrectly, for which I apologize.

No disagreement there, authoritarian social models have significant similarities, as you mentioned.

I heard on the radio today that each of the 416 children has to have his or her own attorney. This case looks to go on for sometime, so all sorts of information that will either confirm, or reverses, the assessments you have made will become available in due course.

I don't expect it to be pretty.

Indeed. I hope the judge there likes publicity. And hordes of lawyers.

[kandrathe]

Should you remove kids from what appears to be an environment that encourages the abuse until you can sort out where the danger lies?

Well, maybe the girls. Maybe the minor girls aged 12 and over. It doesn't seem to be a case of pedophilia, or molestation. It seems to be an issue with the age of marriage, and beliefs of a sect in what marriage is about. If there are issues of physical abuse, which was alleged by the phone call, then is it performed by all the men? Do all the children appear beaten? I dunno. I'm torn on it. Children need to be protected, but so do parental rights.

Ok, mental shift for you...

"It is estimated that one in every four girls and one in every seven boys will be a victims of sexual abuse in Indian Country." IHS -- Child Abuse Project

Should the government sweep into the reservations and round up all the children? Statistics indicate there is a problem.

[kandrathe]

Go ahead. Name one.

Ok, another one. Richard Stemberg's home page lists his own accord and explanations of his persecution.

I find it ironic too, since the history of the Church is rife with the persecution of Scientists, including it's own priests who found evidence in conflict with church dogma. Now, we have the reverse.

[Bun-Bun]

Ok, another one. Richard Stemberg's home page lists his own accord and explanations of his persecution.

I find it ironic too, since the history of the Church is rife with the persecution of Scientists, including it's own priests who found evidence in conflict with church dogma. Now, we have the reverse.

Another oft-debunked example.

http://www.scienceblogs.com/dispatches/200...he_sternber.php

I particularly like Mike Dunford's comment on the matter:

"As punishment for this heinous crime, Sternberg suffered the indignity of not getting fired from the unpaid editorship that he had quit months before the paper actually appeared. His punishment further included the cruel and unusual steps of not dismissing him from his unpaid position as a Smithsonian Research Associate, not declining to renew the unpaid position when the term expired, and not firing him from his paid job at NIH. The draconian nature of the consequences that he ultimately suffered - some of his colleagues said bad things about him - obviously makes him the ideal example of an open-thinking scientist railroaded by the Darwinian Inquisition. "

Sourced from http://pandasthumb.org/archives/2008/04/...ernbe.html

[kandrathe]

Another oft-debunked example

Oh, come on. He suffered a witch hunt at the Smithsonian, and was specifically targeted along with serious violations of his First Amendment rights.


"There was a strategy by several managers to force you out of the SI. The first thing they did was to check your official status with the SI to see if you could be let go for cause for the Meyer article and the information found in your unofficial background investigation. Then they tried a more sophisticated strategy by arguing that since your sponsor died shortly before the Meyer article was published that you could be denied access on that basis. Within two weeks of receiving the Meyer article in the Proceedings, four managers at the SI and NMNH expressed their desire to have your access to the SI denied."

"Eventually, they determined that they could not terminate you for cause and they were not going to make you a "martyr" by firing you for publishing a paper in ID. They came to the conclusion that you had not violated SI directives and that you could not be denied access for off-duty conduct. This was actually part of the strategy advocated by the NCSE. Undeterred, these same managers then embarked on a new strategy to change your working conditions and create a hostile working environment. Several e-mails complained that you should not be allowed to "live" on the same working floor with other scientists. Two very senior scientists wanted your supervisor to let you know that "you are welcome to leave or resign."

"These e-mails are consistent with many others at this time. Your managers are still attempting to find a way to terminate your access. However, they have decided that the politics aren’t right for them to let you go. They wanted to make it clear that you should "do the right thing and resign." This supports your allegation that you were subjected to a hostile work environment. Finally, the last e-mail cited sets forth a troubling summary of events were people had to be investigating your work activities beyond that which is done for other RAs. They are even inspecting what you have been checking out from the library. We are very concerned where this type of scrutiny can lead. Your job as a scientist is to ask the hard questions and make other scientists think about their positions. This type of scrutiny does not engender the correct atmosphere. From the information received by OSC, not a single e-mail shows that a manager attempted to halt this type of retaliatory investigation or admonish those that had already taken place."

Source: U.S. OFFICE OF SPECIAL COUNSEL -- who subpoenaed and reviewed the Smithsonian's e-mail communications.

Here is a quote from the WSJ; "Darwinism, by contrast, is an essential ingredient in secularism, that aggressive, quasi-religious faith without a deity. The Sternberg case seems, in many ways, an instance of one religion persecuting a rival, demanding loyalty from anyone who enters one of its churches--like the National Museum of Natural History." The Branding of a Heretic -- DAVID KLINGHOFFER

Klinghoffer is saying what I'm saying. Sternberg violated the trust of the dogmatics of Evolutionary Science (which he actually believes in) and paid the price.

[Jester]

Oh, come on. He suffered a witch hunt at the Smithsonian, and was specifically targeted along with serious violations of his First Amendment rights.

Sternberg still has his position at the Smithsonian, long after the "witch hunt" has passed. Apparently, he's had to move offices, once as part of a reorg he agreed to, and once at his own request, hand in his master key as part of an overall security tightening, and now has a boss who doesn't like him so much. The horror, the horror, it's like the Spanish inquisition.

http://www.skeptic.com/eskeptic/08-04-17.html#part2

-Jester

[kandrathe]

Sternberg still has his position at the Smithsonian, long after the "witch hunt" has passed. Apparently, he's had to move offices, once as part of a reorg he agreed to, and once at his own request, hand in his master key as part of an overall security tightening, and now has a boss who doesn't like him so much.

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.

Follow-up: Actually, he is now demoted to Research Collaborator -- also due to this "Editor" incident which is an off duty, non-SI related event.

[Jester]

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

[kandrathe]

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 prestigious 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.

Actually, Sternberg disagrees with Meyer's article and it's conclusions. Meyer has a degree in philosophy of science, not evolutionary biology. So, how dare a serious evolutionary biologist allow the publication of a paper written by a philosopher? The reality is a little different than your geography example. And by the way, the Earth is flat, at least the picture of it on my wall is. Philosophy is so tricky. Also, Sternberg asserts he did follow his editorial review process, and other than not have an associate editor involved he seems to have done everything else required. He made a bad judgment in not following the letter of the law, and in hindsight I bet he wouldn't have published it. This is not relevant even though you claim it is. He was attacked because of his perceived religious views. It is clearly in the e-mails.

Now. Let me react to the last part of your statement, "just the obvious reaction to someone supporting views that are completely ridiculous within a discipline". Really? What is SETI? No, I think rather my observations about the Darwinian Holy Grail are closer to the reality than you might hope for.

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.

Really? I don't see much evidence of that. How is it plainly obvious?

[Bun-Bun]

Here is a quote from the WSJ; "Darwinism, by contrast, is an essential ingredient in secularism, that aggressive, quasi-religious faith without a deity. The Sternberg case seems, in many ways, an instance of one religion persecuting a rival, demanding loyalty from anyone who enters one of its churches--like the National Museum of Natural History." The Branding of a Heretic -- DAVID KLINGHOFFER

Klinghoffer is saying what I'm saying. Sternberg violated the trust of the dogmatics of Evolutionary Science (which he actually believes in) and paid the price.

The Office of the Special Counsel produced no official findings in that case; it was eventually dropped.

That quote is from the WSJ opinion section. Also, Klinghoffer is hardly an unbiased observer. He's a fellow at the Discovery Institute, a pro-Intelligent Design PR house. He's not bringing anything but the party line to the table.

Sternberg got tricky to slip a poor, but pro-ID paper into a reputable publication. He got called on it, and his colleagues were pretty mad. The Discovery Institute is trying to make him into a martyr in a nonexistent cause.

Edit: I did a little poking about and it seems Sternberg was associated with a creationist group since at least 2001. He didn't start yelling about a hostile work environment until after the Meyer paper foulup. The correlation would seem to indicate any animosity was linked to the actions of Sternberg, not his beliefs.

[kandrathe]

The Office of the Special Counsel produced no official findings in that case; it was eventually dropped.

Because? Because they had no jurisdiction. If they had jurisdiction, do you think they would have pursued it?

That quote is from the WSJ opinion section. Also, Klinghoffer is hardly an unbiased observer. He's a fellow at the Discovery Institute, a pro-Intelligent Design PR house. He's not bringing anything but the party line to the table.

So ignore the substance, and attack the source. Got it.

Sternberg got tricky to slip a poor, but pro-ID paper into a reputable publication. He got called on it, and his colleagues were pretty mad. The Discovery Institute is trying to make him into a martyr in a nonexistent cause.

Tricky. I see, obtaining two degrees from respected institutions, developing a respected career in evolutionary biology, spending 5 years as editor of a respected biology journal on his own time, just to get tricky and slip in an ID paper. It actually seems suicidal to me. I think he is guilty of being open minded.

[Bun-Bun]

Because? Because they had no jurisdiction. If they had jurisdiction, do you think they would have pursued it?

Probably not.

So ignore the substance, and attack the source. Got it.

You presented an unreferenced quote as if it were an official pronouncement, and another with no indication that it was an op-ed piece from a partisan and not a news bit. I thought I'd point that out, clear things up a bit.

Sometimes sources do matter. As for substance, read my posts, Jester's post, or the one I just edited.

Tricky.I see, obtaining two degrees from respected institutions, developing a respected career in evolutionary biology, spending 5 years as editor of a respected biology journal on his own time, just to get tricky and slip in an ID paper. It actually seems suicidal to me. I think he is guilty of being open minded.

Allow me to give you something I've noticed over the years. Smart people still do stupid things. Maybe not as often, but they do.