Category: First Amendment

Purdue wusses out on God plaque

March 9, 2014 • 9:46 am

I while back I put up a post about how an American donor, Michael McCracken, wanted to give $12,500 to Purdue University’s School of Mechanical Engineering, with the donation to be marked by a plaque that read as follows (my emphasis):

To those who seek to better the world through the understanding of God’s physical laws and innovation of practical solutions. In honor of Dr. William ‘Ed’ and Glenda McCracken.

As I noted, Purdue rejected the plaque.  But it didn’t do so for principled reasons. Purdue is a public university, and such a plaque would violate the U.S.’s First Amendment to the Constitution prohibiting the entanglement of church and state.  But Purdue rejected the plaque not because of that, but because they recognized that they’d get entangled in expensive legal battles with First-Amendment boosters—battles that would cost far more than the original $12,500 donation. McCracken’s lawyer vowed to litigate the issue, saying the following:

“The university is essentially giving voices that would ban even private references to ‘God’ a heckler’s veto here,” Kelner said. “In so many words, the statement suggests that Dr. McCracken’s pledge was not large enough to justify the hassle of defending his speech in court. But, of course, it is precisely the university’s decision to violate Dr. McCracken’s First Amendment rights that would lead to potentially lengthy and expensive litigation.”

Now, according to Thursday’s Exponent, the Purdue student daily newspaper, the issue has been settled. But not settled well: there will be one plaque (my emphasis), and then a disclaimer plaque:

McCracken will be able to honor his parents, as well as mention God, with language that specifies the statement is from the viewpoint of the McCrackens and not the University.

The revised language reads as follows: “Dr. Michael McCracken: ‘To all those who seek to better the world through the understanding of God’s physical laws and innovation of practical solutions.’ Dr. Michael and Mrs. Cindy McCracken present this plaque in honor of Dr. William ‘Ed’ and Glenda McCracken and all those similarly inspired to make the world a better place.”

However, the University will be adding an additional plaque accompanying McCracken’s which will clarify that his words are not the speech of Purdue and that the University is aware of its neutrality obligations by law.

Everyone seems happy with this resolution:

With the support of the legal counsel at the Liberty Institute and Covington & Burling LLP, McCracken was able to avoid this legal crossfire while still upholding his religious convictions.

“Our Founding Fathers understood the importance of freedom of speech and religious freedoms, yet recognized their dependence on God. In a society that now seems to fear even mentioning God, I hope that we can remember what this great nation was founded upon and for which tens of thousands have died,” McCracken wrote.

First of all, the First Amendment prohibits mentioning our dependence on God, although it’s made its way (illegally, I think) into our Pledge of Allegiance and our currency. Further, this “great nation” was founded not on belief in God, but belief in democracy and religious freedom (which also meant freedom not to be religious). The most important founding fathers were either agnostics or deists, and “deists” back then were probably equivalent to what “agnostics” or “atheists” are. It wouldn’t do in 18th-century America to call yourself an atheist. But to claim that this great nation was founded upon religious principles is to grossly distort history.

Second, there’s no substantive difference between the original and the second plaque, except for the clarification that the words are those of McCracken’s. The university hoped to get itself out of hot water by nothing that it didn’t endorse the sentiments.

Finally, I’m not so sure that this settles all the legal issues, as it still allows God to be mentioned (and as a being responsible for physical laws) in a public university, with a lame and obvious plaque that the words are those of the donor.  Just as the Los Angeles County Museum of Natural History simply deep-sixed a donor’s plaque referring to animals as “God’s creatures,” so should Purdue deep-six a plaque referring to nature’s regularities as “God’s physical laws.”

To see why this compromise solution is problematic, imagine someone donating money for other public facilities, like courthouses or elementary schools, and then insisting that the facilities post the palpably false statement that morality or science or whatever are “gifts of God.” Then the courthouse or school simply adds a disclaimer plaque saying that those words aren’t theirs and they’re cognizant (as they damn well better be!) of obeying the Constitution. That wouldn’t fly, so why would it fly in a public university? There seems to be some feeling afoot that public universities are somehow Constitutionally different from public secondary schools or other public institutions. They aren’t.

What this could lead to is a proliferation of pro-religious and anti-religious signs, all “neutralized” with one disclaimer. Imagine if there were a Muslim and an atheist donor to Purdue who insisted on the following signs being put up to acknowledge their donation:

“Mr. Sam Nogod: ‘To all those who seek to better the world by accepting materialism and naturalism as the basis of science, and rejecting the notion that God or any supernatural force controls or helps us better understand the laws of physics.'”

“Mr. Theodore Bear Aziz: ‘To all those who seek to better the world by recognizing its laws as those being divinely instituted by Allah and conveyed by the prophet Muhamed, blessed be their names.'”

Then, nearby, there’s a plaque saying that those are the words of the donors and Purdue recognizes its Constitutional duties.

Do you suppose that the University would let that stand for a minute? Or that there wouldn’t be a huge outcry from Christians?

The solution to this issue is to remove all religious sentiments from public institutions—not to allow them to proliferate and then somehow render them “Constitutional” with a disclaimer plaque. That way lies madness—and that tacit endorsement of religion.

Iowa State University puts Bibles in guest rooms, riling up the FFRF

January 29, 2014 • 1:40 pm

This may not seem like a biggie, but I really do see violations of the First Amendment as a slippery slope.  Every time the Ten Commandments is displayed on public property, every time creationism is taught without opposition in public-school science classes, every time a manger goes up on a courthouse lawn, it makes it easier for further (and perhaps worse) violations to occur in the future. That’s why it’s important to quickly nip in the bud any incursion of religion into the U.S. government.  The Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF, the Official Website Atheist Organization™) is superb at this: they try to stop First Amendment violations at the outset, avoiding lengthy and expensive court battles. It’s important to recognize that doing so doesn’t just protect nonbelievers—it protects members of all faiths, for none should be privileged.

Iowa State University (ISU) is of course a public university, but the officials have allowed Gideon Bibles to be placed in the university guest rooms. We’ve all opened drawers in our hotel rooms to find such Bibles, but some readers have carped about that. Well, hotels can do what they want (Marriott hotel rooms, for instance, also have copies of the book of Mormon, since Bill Marriott, the son of the chain’s founders, is a Mormon.

Well, one of our readers, whose name I won’t reveal, complained to the FFRF about the Bibles in the ISU student union, and today the FFRF (i.e., staff lawyer Patrick Elliott) sent them one of their patented letters, which any sane lawyer will recognize as a shot across the bow.  (Its implicit message is, “If you don’t take action, we’ll sue your pants off.”) I reproduce it below.

As I mentioned, this is not a huge battle in the war to keep church and state separate, but every little bit helps. And it does tick me off to see Bibles in hotel rooms. You never see the Bhagavad Gita or The God Delusion!

Note, in the letter below, the case law stating that Gideon Bibles cannot be placed in public secondary schools. Public universities are clearly not exempt from such a ruling.

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Ceiling Cat bless the FFRF and its staff! If you want the biggest secular bang for your charity buck, you could do worse than give them a donation. Oh, and if you see potential violations of the First Amendment, always think about reporting them to the FFRF. They are nice folks and will decide whether any issue is worth pursuing.

How your tax dollars support faith healing

November 19, 2013 • 11:52 am

It would seem unconstitutional for U.S. taxpayers to support religion, but of course we do, giving tax breaks to churches and exempting ministers from being taxed on their housing allowance. Still, all religions are treated equally in those respects.  But there’s one way a few religions are given even more unconscionable tax breaks: those religions, like Christian Science, that practice faith healing.  Faith healing does not work, of course: tests of the efficacy of prayer and “distant healing”, which are multiplying, show no positive effects Yet the government continues to subsidize them, as I suppose the UK government does for homeopathy.  In my view, if the taxpayers are going to support medical care, there has to be some evidence that it works.

Here’s material taken directly from an official page from the Church of Christ, Scientist: “Where is Christian Science care covered in public and private insurance?”

The question of how Christian Science care will fit into a post-health care reform landscape can be partially answered by examining the experience of existing coverage for Christian Science nursing/practitioner care in public and private insurance. That’s right – some insurance companies already pay for this type of care. In fact, it has been covered by insurance for over 90 years. (Please consider providing the information we request below.) More specifically . . .

  • 17 Christian Science nursing facilities are Medicare providers. So, individuals who are eligible for Medicare Part A coverage can receive reimbursement for Christian Science nursing care at those facilities. This system has been in place for over forty years. [JAC: you can see the list of those facilities here.]
  • If you work for the federal government as a civilian employee you have the option of choosing from four Federal Employee Health Benefit (FEHB) plans that cover Christian Science nursing/practitioner care: 1) the Government Employees Health Association (GEHA) plan; 2) the Mail Handlers Benefit Plan; 3) the Association Benefit Plan; and 4) the Special Agent Mutual Benefit Association (SAMBA) plan.
  • If you are a member of the armed forces or a dependent of a member of the armed forces, you may qualify for the TRICARE insurance program, which covers Christian Science nursing/practitioner care.
  • If you are a state employee in the following states, then Christian Science nursing/practitioner care may be available to you under your state employee insurance plan: Alaska, California, Colorado, Illinois, Kansas, Missouri, Oklahoma, Oregon, and Texas.
  • Christian Science practitioner and nursing services also qualify as tax-deductible medical expenses under the medical expense income tax deduction under Section 213(d) of the IRS code. Because of this designation, individuals who have health savings accounts (HSA’s) and contribute money to them, may use those pre-tax dollars to pay for Christian Science practitioner and nursing care.
  • Several private insurance plans and self-insured companies include Christian Science nursing/practitioner care as a reimbursable benefit.

No real medical care is provided at Christian science nursing facilities. The “practitioners” have only two or three weeks of training, and their main instrument of healing is prayer. Ashley King, the girl whose story is below (a story I’ve told before) received no care beyond prayer, food and water, and dressing of her tumor. Her pain was terrible, but of course such facilities offer no pain medication. After all, they say, pain is just an illusion, the result of faulty thinking.

This is the kind of “healing” that we subsidize, though in Ashley’s case her sanatorium was not eligible for Medicare or Medicaid reimbursement.  I have no idea whether the King family received a tax break on any payments for Ashley’s “care.” What I do know is that Christian Science healing is quackery.

The U.S. government, or for that matter the British government or any government, has no business subsidizing “medical” care that hasn’t been shown to work. It’s an incentive that keeps people ill, and, in the case of people like the Kings, promotes the abuse of children.

(Thanks to author Caroline Fraser for the reference and the UC library for getting me the scan.) The reference is at bottom. Read the story of a tragedy that, but for religion, could have been avoided or ameliorated.

Picture 2 Picture 3I’ve showed this picture before but I’ll show it again. This is Catherine King, Ashley’s mother, who displayed cardboard cutouts of her late daughter at the press conference she held after being convicted for a misdemeanor (reckless endangerment) and given three years of unsupervised probation and 150 hours of community service for making a martyr of her child.

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Brown, J. W. Oct. 21, 1988. “I’m in so much pain.” Transcripts describe young Christian Scientist’s agonizing death. Pp. A1, A4. Phoenix Gazette, Phoenix, AZ.

Public Prayers: Town of Greece v. Galloway

November 1, 2013 • 10:03 am

This is the kind of stuff that should not precede public meetings.  In exactly 5 days, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear the case of Town of Greece v. Galloway, which Americans United for the Separation of Church and State has characterized as “the first legislative prayer case to be heard by the high court in 30 years.” At issue is the incessant use of prayers, almost invariably Christian, before meetings of the Greece, New York, town council.  This is an important case and, given the present conservative and Catholic composition of the Court, a dicey one.

If you want to hear the prayers, Americans United has compiled a bunch of videos of them here.  Just the top one will suffice. They’re long, insufferable, and repeatedly invoke Jesus. They are an unconscionable breach of the wall between church and state, mandated by the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. And they also privilege one religion over others.

Have a look. If the court rules for the town, it’s all over in the U.S.  We’ll have prayers in every public function—maybe even in high-school sporting events.

Kudos to Americans United, which noted this in an email about the videos:

Americans United has used video links in previous cases, but never as extensively or with such high stakes – and to do so required an unprecedented effort by Legal staffers.  They reviewed 130 videos from Greece Town Board meetings from 1999 to 2010, comprising nearly 150 hours of footage.  From the raw footage, they created 10 video compilations, each approximately 10 minutes in length.  The compilations were organized by theme – opening proceedings, awards, public hearings, public comments, swearings-in, segments that included children as participants and, of course, a compilation of the prayers themselves.

The Legal team estimates that they “easily” spent 1,000 hours working on this project.  Not only did they review nearly 150 hours of raw footage, but each video had to be converted from a DVD to a format that could be edited using computer software.  They estimate that each 10 minute compilation took 100 hours to complete!

Baptist explains why freedom of religion requires public prayer

October 15, 2013 • 10:13 am

Russell D. Moore, identified by PuffHo as the “newly-elected president of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention, the moral concerns and public policy arm of the nation’s largest Protestant denomination,” has a new take on the First Amendment.

In a piece at PuffHo called “Why public prayer is about more than culture wars,” he carefully explains that preventing public prayers is, in fact, preventing freedom of religion.

His inspiration was the White House’s surprising and distressing siding with the defendants in the case of Town of Greece [New York] v. Galloway, in which the town is being sued for opening city council meetings with prayers. This case, which will be heard this year by the U.S. Supreme Court, is pivotal, for if that conservative court allows such prayers, it will overturn decades of precedents preventing public prayer as a violation of the First Amendment.

In his wisdom, Brother Moore tells us that the reverse is true: freedom of religion requires public prayers:

In fact, most of us support voluntary public prayer not because we oppose the separation of church and state but because we support it.

After all, at issue in this dispute, is the supposed “sectarian” nature of these public prayers. Few suggest that any invocation at all is unconstitutional — especially since invocations have been going on in such forums since the Founding Era. The problem is that these prayers are specifically Christian or specifically Jewish or specifically Jewish or specifically Wiccan, or what have you.

But that’s precisely the point. A prayer, by definition, isn’t a speech made to a public audience but is instead a petition made to a higher Being. For the government to censor such prayers is to turn the government into a theological referee, and would, in fact, establish a state religion: a state religion of generic American civil religious mush that assumes all religions are ultimately the same anyway. To remove the “sectarian” nature of prayer is to reduce such prayers to the level of public service announcements followed by “Amen.”

Really? An absence of religion is a “state religion”? That’s reminiscent of the argument that atheism is a religion.

In fact, I suggest that any invocation of god at all is unconstitutional, and that’s been the case for public meetings for a long time.  And it doesn’t matter if the prayers are Jewish, Christian, or Muslim: they’re prayers to a deity, and that presumes, as Moore implies, the existence of a deity.  Well, lots of Americans don’t accept that, and that’s precisely why the government should remain absolutely neutral on the issue of religion, i.e., no prayers at government meetings.

Moore’s piece is in fact the best example of religious doublespeak I’ve seen in a while. Have a gander at this:

Evangelicals pray in Jesus’ name not because we are seeking to offend our neighbors, but because we’re convinced that through Jesus is the only way we have access to God. We can’t do otherwise. Likewise, a Muslim shouldn’t be expected to speak of God as “Father, Son, and Holy Spirit” because one who could do so isn’t a Muslim at all.

When we allow evangelicals to pray as evangelicals, Catholics to pray as Catholics, Muslims to pray as Muslims, Jews to pray as Jews, we are not undermining political pluralism in our democracy, we’re upholding it.

That’s why these prayers are not an establishment of religion. The clergyperson offering the invocation isn’t an extension of the government. His or her prayers aren’t state-written or state-approved.

It doesn’t matter whether the prayers are state-written or specifically state-approved.  If they’re uttered in public, the institution of public prayer becomes state-approved, and if the founders intended anything, it’s not that we should call on God—whichever God is on tap at the moment—in public meetings.  Or will people like Moore allow atheist “prayers” that specifically call on our humanism and decry the existence of God? Here’s one: “Oh humanity, give us the rationality and access to the facts to make our decisions with wisdom, for there’s no God up there to help us.”

I doubt that would be approved! In fact, I’m not in favor of any invocations at all. Why can’t they just start the damn meeting without words of piety? And why, oh why, do religious people like Moore insist that they be allowed to parade their beliefs before public meetings? Isn’t it enough for them to pray in church, or on their own? The faithful just can’t help themselves from trying to share their Good (But Untrue) News with everyone else.

The infliction of religious beliefs on others who may not share those beliefs is unnecessary and offensive. It’s also divisive. The only divisiveness we need here is a stronger wall between church and state.

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Special illustration by reader Pliny the in Between

In Alabama, Jesus rides with the cops—and taxpayers foot the bill

October 11, 2013 • 1:38 pm

This is unbelievable, but apparently in Alabama (where else?) the police carry pastors in their cruisers and allow them to proselytize crime and disaster victims. This is verbatim from a letter sent out by David Silverman, president of the American Atheists:

The religious extremists have crossed the line again. Imagine you were just the victim of a crime. You’re traumatized. You see someone step out of a police car and start to walk toward you. He flashes his police-provided ID card and ducks under the crime scene tape. He sits next to you as you think, “Who is this guy? A social worker? A crisis counselor?”

But when he opens his mouth, you find out right away that he is neither of these. He begins to tell you about God’s plan as he takes your hands and prays for you to come to Jesus.

Shockingly, this isn’t imaginary at all. In Montgomery, Alabama—the capital city with a population of 200,000—the police department has started a new program called “Operation Good Shepherd.” The program trains evangelical Christian pastors, using tax dollars, to ride along with police officers and gives them access to crime scenes in order to preach Christianity explicitly while people are vulnerable.

That’s right. And they’re not even trying to hide it. Official police chaplain E. Baxter Morris told The Atlantic, “Anytime you find a group of people whose lives have been adversely affected—it could be a major fire in an apartment complex, it could be trouble in a given community, it could be a storm or a disaster… There is an evangelicistic advantage. That is, that once I float to your comfort zone, and we become one in our crisis… I may be able to share with you a word from Christ.”

In other words, they are taking advantage of people who are in crisis and using your tax dollars to do it. So far, 37 pastors have completed the tax-funded training. On Monday, I sent a letter to Mayor Todd Strange and Chief of Police Kevin Murphy laying out, in no uncertain terms, that using taxpayer money and governmemt employees for the purpose of spreading Christianity is unconstitutional, and that the program must be terminated immediately, or American Atheists will sue. With your help, we can stop this violation of the most basic of American rights. Taking advantage of vulnerable people in order to evangelize at taxpayer expense is not only unconstitutional, but sickening.

According to the Atlantic, this program is indeed publicly funded, and besides the complete lack of evidence that it works, it’s palpably unconstitutional.  The Atlantic notes this:

“Even without paying the ministers, using ministers as a formal part of the police department— as an outreach ministry — I think violates the Establishment Clause,” said Erwin Chemerinsky, the dean of the School of Law at University of California in Irvine. “The government cannot take actions that appear to endorse religion. Using ministers in this way does exactly that.”

I don’t think there’s any question about this.  If the cops don’t let mullahs, rabbis, and humanist “preachers” ride around with them, it’s clearly a violation of the First Amendment. In fact, they should deep-six the whole idea. Cops are cops, not aides to God. The police chief weighed in with his rationale:

“What we’re seeing today, those seeds were sown a long time ago. I truly believe there has been a breakdown in the family. We have young people not being guided,” said Montgomery Police Chief Kevin Murphy.

And Murphy’s police department is intent on providing that guidance via a cop-led, Christian outreach program.

Wouldn’t it be better, if you’re dealing with family problems or social dysfunction, to have psychologists instead of ministers ride around with the cops? After all, the First Amendment doesn’t put a wall between state and psychology.

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Don’t tase me, Lord!

h/t: Diane G.

Another god-infused science class at a public university?

October 11, 2013 • 5:33 am

Yesterday I wrote about the case of Dr. Ned Bowden, an Associate Professor of Chemistry at the University of Iowa, who had written a letter to the University magazine calling out evolutionary biology for its gaping holes, and insisting, at the same time, that evolutionary biology comports perfectly with Genesis (that is, if you construe “Genesis” as chapter 1 but not chapter 2). In a comment to an Inside Higher Education piece about his letter, Bowden also accused his colleagues in evolutionary biology of lying about their field:

Picture 1I wonder if Bowden has a wee bit of regret about his remarks.  I’m sure some of his colleagues do, including the 25 who responded to his claim that there are “holes in the theory of evolution that are big enough to drive a semi-truck through.” (Bowden didn’t identify the holes.)

Well, a few minutes of Googling revealed more than just Bowden’s effusive Christianity.  It seems that he also teaches a seminar at his university that mixes science with God.  Have a look at the description of Chemistry 1000:

004:029:003 (CHEM:1000:0003)    First-Year Seminar

19 of 20 enrolledGeneral Catalog:

Small discussion class taught by a faculty member; topics chosen by instructor; may include outside activities (e.g., films, lectures, performances, readings, visits to research facilities).

Subtitle: What Does Science Say about the Big Bang, Evolution, and Genesis?
Description:

A conflict between evolution and genesis has existed ever since Darwin wrote his book that first explained the case for evolution. In 1925 the famous Scopes Monkey Trial brought this conflict to a wider attention that has not gone away.  Many people are firmly entrenched in their beliefs on both sides. Some folks believe that the Big Bang and evolution explain everything and eliminate the need for a god because science has all of the answers. Does science negate the need for a god? Others believe that the earth is 6,000 years old or they believe a maker that has guided and continuous to guide the universe by intelligent design. In this course we will examine these different viewpoints from the perspective of science.  What does science say about the current theory of evolution and the Big Bang? How does science explain the origin of life on this planet and the “descent of man” from simpler species? How similar are the events described by scientists and Genesis, chapter 1?  No assumptions about what is right or wrong will be used, we will study the current scientific understanding about the Big Bang and evolution to gain an understanding about the differences and similarities between what was written in the Bible and what scientists believe.

In this course we will read a series of short articles written for a general audience to provide a basis for discussion about different topics. For instance, we will discuss the fossil record and what it says about the current theory of evolution and what is left to be discovered.  On another day we will discuss how life might have evolved on earth and what makes earth conducive to life (and has for over four billion years).  All faiths and creeds will be respected; we will examine the science behind the origin of life rather than the differences between faiths.  An interest in science will certainly benefit the discussions in class.

There will be short weekly readings to cover a topic, and we will discuss these readings in class.  You will be expected to do the readings and come prepared with opinions and a willingness to discuss or debate what was read. Some weeks the class will be broken into two groups who will debate a topic.  At the end of the course, a short 5 page paper will be assigned and form part of the basis for your grade.

The reference material and textbooks for the course are not given, though there’s a space for them on the syllabus.

Now this all seems fine—like a “let’s examine all viewpoints” course, but knowing Bowden’s views I strongly doubt whether pure naturalism will be given the same play as his view that “our salvation comes from Christ” (see his Inside Higher Ed comment on my previous post).  And, given Bowden view that Genesis comports nicely with what we know about evolution (despite the “big holes” in the latter), I suspect he’s going to point that out in his section about “the differences and similarities between what was written in the Bible and what scientists believe.” Note as well that Bowden’s magazine piece says this:

If we throw out our modern definition of a day as a 24-hour period, Genesis tells us that on the first day, “God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void…”

When this story was written 4,000 years ago, they didn’t have the language to talk about things like the Big Bang theory and subatomic particles. But whether you take the Big Bang or “God said, ‘Let there be light,’ ” it says the same thing.

So is he going to argue that in his class? If so, it’s not science, but Bowden imposing his Christian views on students.  Are they going to read The God Delusion, or Victor Stenger, or Lawrence Krauss?  If “all faiths and creeds will be respected”, will atheism be among them? All I can say is that I’ll write to Bowden’s chairman and ask for a syllabus.  Odds are that I’ll fail, even though, since his school is a public one, that information is available via the Freedom of Information act.

This whole thing smells fishy—fishy enough that I’ll try to get more information. The University of Iowa should be deeply concerned about this course, and while Bowden is free to publish his views that science proves God in their campus magazine, he’s not free to teach that to students at a public university. The school should also be concerned that a chemistry professor wants to teach about evolution and the “descent of man”, and wonder why he’s doing this. Is he qualified to do so? Maybe Bowden’s course is on the up-and-up, but there’s enough concern to warrant a bit more digging.

What makes me extra worried is an interview with Bowden that appeared in the October 3 issue of Worldmag.com.: “Denying holes in evolution makes science appear arrogant.” Here’s a bit of it (my emphasis):

Some of Bowden’s colleagues went as far as calling into question his credentials for teaching a class on Genesis and Evolution.But Bowden said the professors failed to notice that he was not arguing against evolution, only pointing out unresolved holes in the theory.

“Denying that these gaps exist is embarrassing and makes science appear as arrogant,” the associate professor told me. He believes it is important for scientists to admit they don’t know everything about how the world came into being.

The faculty members also disapproved of Bowden’s acknowledgement of the existence of God. This shows the intolerance of science, Bowden said: “When you come out so strongly saying evolution has to be accepted and no one has a right to question it, people are going to be offended.”

. . .Not everyone at the university opposed the article. Faculty members contacted Bowden personally in support of his views, but said they don’t talk about what they believe because they don’t want to “stick their necks out.”

. . . But his colleagues’ reaction shows it’s not enough to embrace the theory of evolution, holes and all. To be accepted, scientists must deny any belief in a creator who brought the world into existence. Bowden wishes the scientific community would just admit that there is much they don’t know about the origin of the world: “When talking about evolution it’s 10 percent science and 90 percent creative writing.”

That’s wrong, and it’s insulting.  “Creative writing,” really? How much does Bowden really know about evolution, anyway? Is he speaking from a deep acquaintance with the field, or is he, infused with his Christianity, simply buying the talking points of intelligent design creationists? What would he think if a biologist said the same thing about his field, or about physics?

Bowden is an embarrassment to his department and to the University of Iowa.  Please note that I am not calling for him to be fired, or for his course to be eliminated. I just want to know what he’s teaching impressionable Iowa students, and I’d like him to either point out what those “gaping holes” are in evolutionary theory, or stop implying that the field is mostly creative writing, promulgated by biologists who lie about their field.