I’m starting to really have doubts about the academic quality of Ball State University. First they allow Eric Hedin to teach a science course that is heavily larded with intelligent design (ID) and Christianity (he’s now under investigation), then they hire another prominent ID advocate, Guillermo Gonzalez, to teach astronomy. Among all this kerfuffle it hasn’t escaped my notice that no Ball State professors have written letters or editorials criticizing intelligent design.
Now a Ball State English professor, Larry Riley, who is also a columnist for the Muncie Star-Press, has produced a completely superfluous and poorly-written op-ed for that paper drawing parallels between Eric Hedin and—wait for it—George Zimmerman. What surprises me is not only the complete superfluity of the piece, but also the poor quality of thought and writing coming from an English professor.
Here’s the entire thesis of Riley’s op-ed, called”National case or local instance, who should decide?”
An analogy question:
What is the most pronounced similarity between the trial of George Zimmerman, acquitted of criminal charges in Florida for killing Travon Martin, and the allegations against Ball State professor Eric Hedin, accused by the Freedom From Religion Foundation of teaching theology in a science course?
Answer:
Only a handful of people in the end have sufficient information to make informed decisions, but that won’t stop lots of other people from bluntly asserting who’s right, who’s wrong and prescribing the correct course of action.
That’s it, though the letter goes on for two more pages of pompous lucubration.
Now what’s the point of this? The cases are not comparable at all. Zimmerman was accused (and exonerated) of murdering a young black male in Florida, and possibly faced life in prison. Hedin is accused of teaching religion and proselytizing Christianity in his classroom, and at worst he’ll be forced to deep-six his course or revamp it as a philosophy or religion course. To Riley, the parallel between Zimmerman and Hedin consists solely in the fact that their “fates” were in the hands of people who had more information than anyone else. But even that is dubious given that anyone could have watched the Zimmerman trial and read the transcripts. The information for the jury was available to all. What was secret was how the jury weighed that information.
But that’s a thin parallel, not worthy of an op-ed. It must be a slow news week in Muncie.
There’s not much to note about the rest of Riley’s piece save its arrogance (a trait pointed out by his students on ratemyprofessors.com), sound and fury conveying—nothing. This is the end of the piece:
Whatever other evidence Freedom From Religion Foundation has compiled hopefully was disclosed to the [Hedin investigation] panel, too.
So could have been the 7,000-signature petition sent to Ball State from the Discovery Institute, which garnered names from around the country in support of Hedin’s “freedom to teach.”
I’ll bet not one person signing the petition even read the syllabus for the course “Boundaries of Science.” Regardless, they, too, seem sure of themselves and get to exercise their freedom to speak up anyway.
Rather comes down with a bump, doesn’t it?
And here’s a specimen of prose that, well, isn’t exactly prime quality from an English professor:
Thus, only the jurors, all women seemingly Caucasian with the possible exception of one Hispanic, had all the information and nothing but that information with which to make judgments about what happened and whether what happened rose to the level of criminal behavior, concluding in the negative for both murder and manslaughter. To reach unanimity after such lengthy deliberations would appear to give credence to at least the jurors’ belief that they weighed evidence painstakingly and followed the law as they were directed.
“Seemingly Causasian with the possible exception of one Hispanic”? “Concluding in the negative”? In fact, the entire paragraph says nothing except that Zimmerman was found not guilty. And a unanimous verdict, which it must be unless there’s a hung jury, says nothing about how painstakingly the evidence was weighed or whether the law was followed. Juries, in fact, can completely ignore the law and let a guilty defendant go free if they consider the law unfair (this “jury nullification” happened a lot during Prohibition, not so much now).
Finally, at the risk of overanalyzing an insipid piece, I’ll point out one apparent slur that Riley makes against atheists:
One comment [in the student evaluations of Hedin] complained that the teacher “constantly talks religion,” though the student said he was atheist, and I wonder about that student’s level of forbearance. Despite this, the student still recommended others who take astronomy at BSU choose Hedin.
(Does a comment complain? I would have thought a student complained!)
What? Atheists are supposed to be “forbearing” when religion is shoved down their throat? Riley, apparently, needs some schooling in the First Amendment—and maybe a copy of Strunk and White.
Subscribing.
sub
Maybe the student recommended Hedin’s course as a way to get astronomy course credit without actually taking astronomy.
Hey, look on the bright side.
At least he didn’t misspell “judgments”. L
I seem to recall that that came up on WEIT a couple yrs ago, and it was a surprise to me at the time that there was only one E. Just looking now, Wikipedia lists the word with two E’s, with the alt version having just one. Haven’t thought very hard on this, but are there any other words out there with a DGM string not interposed with a vowel between the first or last pair?
“Judgment” with only one “e” is the preferred American English spelling of the word that refers to the decision of a court or a jury, such as a court award of damages, which becomes a debt. H. W. Fowler (1983 edition) is consistent with the British English preference for using the second e, even when a judicial decision is referred to. The Oxford University Press preferred “judgment” in legal contexts and “judgement” in all others.
In my normal American lawyerly usage, I use “judgement” to refer to human beings’ decision-making and application of reason to evidence, etc., and by that standard, Prof. Riley goofed when he wrote “make judgments” without the extra e. Not a big deal, considering how terribly written the rest of his piece was.
Preferred by whom?
Preferred by many of the the grammar snobs and pedants who have appointed themselves as the the police to serve and protect “accepted” and “standard” American English.
On the other hand, the mid-1960s Webster’s Second Int’l Dictionary lists only “judgment” as the spelling for all meanings (human decision-making and court decisions), and adds at the end “also spelled judgement.”
Canadians spell it “judgement”, like the British but we also accept the American, “judgment”. Before you think I’m all “high brow”, I was first exposed to the spellings Oh through Terminator Judgment Day
Too funny. That’s exactly how I came to understand that the generally accepted American spelling is “judgment”. Having grown up reading a lot of H. P. Lovecraft (a notorious overenthusiastic Anglophile), I think I can be forgiven.
Acknowledgment.
Not reading this thoroughly because as an atheist I am lacking in forebearance but I think the point of the article is that if a young black non-believer tries to take Astronomy at Ball State, that you have the right to shoot him self-defense.
That has movie script written all over it!
Or a Hindu monley-god beleiver…
D’oh! monkey!
Sub.
Doesn’t he have to be doing something suspicious, like walking between classrooms, first?
Again an English professor embarrasses me. I read that piece and wondered if he was trying to create some sort of ridiculous parallel but I think he just can’t make a coherent, logical point to save his life!
It’s so insulting to bring up the Zimmerman case both to the family of someone murdered and to anyone who reads his article. Really? Is he saying justice is badly served to Hedin? His argument is so infelicitous, it’s hard to tell!
Now if he is arguing about fairness I guess we atheists are just really unfair and should suck it up because we are big meanies.
Ooh, since we’re all meanies, can I be Badlands Meanie? I loved Tom Terrific cartoons. I’ll ask my better half if she wants to be Bushwack.
Not that I condone straying off topic, but when I look for the Bushwack character @ wiki’s Tom Terrific entry I don’t see it.
On a more positive note, this memory jolt about the Captain Kangaroo show spurred me to research a two-part dispute I’ve had with several people over time: 1) Was there a character on the show known as The Banana Man, who never spoke but said in sing-song tones “Lalalalal…ohhhhh!” with a trill on the drawn out oh finish; and, 2) Did the same actor play both Mr. Greenjeans & The Banana Man? [it always surprises me that many people my age, who also watched the Captain more or less daily when children, often do not recall The Banana Man.
[answers: 1) yes 2) no] … It is embarrassing to learn, after all these years, how wrong I was about #2. OTOH, I learned a lot about The Banana Man today, so net gain.
The Banana Man was played by both A. Robins and Sam Levine. Mr. Greenjeans was someone else. The Banana Man jacket was custom made with a jillion pockets and became so old and fragile that it couldn’t be cleaned, so it had quite an aroma about it after a while. Legend has it that the set stunk for quite a while after filming those bits! That was definitely an odd and memorable routine; it seems like something out of a strange dream.
LOL
I started with low expectations. I have seen nothing to change that.
I can’t give any explicit references, but over the years I’ve come to the conclusion that Ball State is definitely not a first rank university. It’s even questionable if it qualifies as a third or fourth rank institution.
It can’t be worse than Liberty University, Oral Roberts Univerity, or – worst of all – Patrick Henry College.
You raise the question of BSU’s quality as an academic institution.
I know it’s a long time ago, but I was a visiting professor at BSU in 1979-80, in the music department. My impression then was that there were some good people there (in music). I know nothing of any other departments. However, one memory I have was being out on one of the main campus streets one night late, and witnessing a frat-jock type male urinating into some shrubbery, while belching loudly the whole time! The other thing I noticed was that there was no “U-district”–a street of funky shops and eateries that caters to university types. This is a bad sign for an academic institution. A U-district is (at its best) a sign of intellectual vitality and ferment. (Also a place for “perpetual students” to hang out and dissipate themselves!) The University of Washington is the one I’m most familiar with, but Berkeley has a delightfully sleazy one, and even the University of Minnesota has its Dinkytown! I also know the area around Harvard. I’ve been around the University of Chicago, but as I recall, it’s in a bad neighborhood, so I never explored. But Ball State had nothing.
The university of Chicago is in Hyde park and it is not a bad neighborhood. If you’re in the market for second hand books, it’s the place to go in Chicago. Not to mention some great restaurants and having easy access to the museum campus via public transportation. It’s also where Obama lives, when not in DC.
“I’ll bet not one person signing the petition…”
I suspect that paragraph is yours, and does not belong in the blockquote.
WRONG. It’s the author’s.
Hmmm.
That is very confusing. I think professor Larry Riley is confused about what he thinks about the Hedin issue, and about how to relate what he thinks about it. But I guess it could just be me. I admit I am sometimes easily confused.
Nah, he’s confused but also just sucky at writing. I wonder what he considers good writing from his students. Perhaps, a thesis like this would still pass: “I think the separation of church and state is essential because it cheesecake, tomato, Hitler”.
Tomato cheesecake? You might be on to something there! I’m going to have to try this. Should it be on the sweet side with something like those sweet little grape tomatoes? Or more on the savory side, say with San Marzano tomatoes and fresh basil? With an olive oil / balsamic foam?
That works great for bread pudding, why not with cheesecake?
Oh. And how about a jalapeno cheesecake made with some nice homemade jalapeno jelly?
I should have thought of this stuff before. Thanks for the inspiration!
Maybe something featuring semi-dried tomatoes? It would be easier to maintain the moisture balance if you were incorporating them into the cheesecake, instead of just covering its top.
Definitely, agree. I think incorporation is the only way this could work. For a tasty outcome, that is.
Upthread, Frank said this:
“I think the point of the article is that if a young black non-believer tries to take Astronomy at Ball State, that you have the right to shoot him self-defense.”
QFT.
For some reason theists and their ilk like to use false or mistaken analogies to “prove” their point.
Riley’s screed would be a bit less incoherent had Hedin already been cleared of all charged. Perhaps he’s got some inside information and is attempting to soften the blow?
b&
And I’ll bet the author did not visit even one web page frequented by signers, given that a huge number of those pages published Hedin’s reading list.
I’m surprised no one else has pointed out that Riley’s analogy fails at the basic level.
Juries, as a matter of routine, do not have access to all the facts. Judges will deny them information that is deemed irrelevant, prejudicial, inflammatory, and other adjectives one doesn’t like seeing paired with the task of deciding someone’s fate. Not to mention any evidence that would be entirely relevant, but was obtained illegally (or of too much doubtful legality for the judge’s taste).
It is, in fact, commonplace for those outside a criminal trial to have access to far more information than the jury deciding its outcome.
+10
FTR, I don’t think any member of the Philsophy/Religion department at my college would stand for a “scientist” teaching ID as a philosophy or religion class. They have far more sense than that (and I teach at a church-affiliated school!)
Simply put, no serious scholar of religion or philosophy would accept “that’s neat, I don’t know how it happened, therefore God did it” as an appropriate academic offering.
I would like to say ‘no serious scientist’ would either, but…Hedin. Now, one can say he’s not a serious scientist. But IMO that’s a No True Scotsman type of gambit.
The truth is, there are serious academics in all fields that will argue crap. That is precisely why peer review and departmental review of basic/standard curricula is a good thing – because otherwise normal, good scholars can sometimes go off the rails. Just as good people sometimes do bad things, good scholars sometimes teach bad cap.
Its great that there are no such people in your Uni’s philosophy department. But I’d be wary of taking that observation and drawing the conclusion that there are no bad apples among ‘serious philosophers,’ or the even more fallacious conclusion that any bad apple is, by definition, not a serious philosopher.
Fair point on the “New True Scotsman” fallacy. Let me re-phrase. My colleagues in religion/philosophy would have no respect for such a person and would never allow such a course to carry their prefix.
hey jerry, just wanted to say I really enjoy your blog and keep up the good work.I dont know much about Ball State’s academics but I know several students that went there.Almost all dumb as doorknobs.so you’re probably right.
Psssst. It’s not a blog! He says it’s a website! 🙂
I had intended to post a memory of my time at Ball State here, but it wound up attached as a reply to Comment #6. If you’re interested, you can find it there! It includes my personal, biased, assessment of BSU’s academic quality in 1980 when I taught there.
Let me guess: Hedin’s like a racist who runs down and guns down unarmed black children and gets away with it? Even I would think that’s an unfair characterization of Hedin. The one tenuous parallel I see is that Hedin bitches and moans about being the poor oppressed majority just as Zimmerman’s lawyer whines about how Zimmerman’s just a poor oppressed white guy.
Having read the entire article, I think Riley is speaking for officialdom and process. He wants an “informed” decision, not necessarily a correct or good decision. He is a prim schoolmaster giving a lesson. He adopts a tone of detached objectivity but there is no doubt he respects authority and is uncomfortable with the chaos of the democratic marketplace. He reveals himself when speaks of TV coverage of the Zimmerman trial as entertainment for the “masses”.