In Monday’s New York Times (“Believing Scriptures but Playing by Science’s Rules”), Cornelia Dean joins Eugenie Scott of the Darwin lobby NCSE (National Center for Science Education) in raising the tantalizing thought that (as “some say”) maybe scientists who have earned legitimate doctorates in scientific fields, but are known to hold private views that question Darwinism, should be denied their professional degrees. Take that in: Perhaps doctoral candidates whose personal views deviate from an ideological party line should be punished professionally. Presumably, if they are in a later stage in their career, you can thwart their application for tenure; or later still, a promotion to full professor.
This has long been suggested by firebrand Darwinists, such as those attending the “Beyond Belief” conclave in San Diego late last year. Now it is posed coyly as an open question on the news pages of the New York Times. Corny Dean, from my experience, decides on her own what terms — and science standards — mean. For example, “creationism” in the Dean Lexicon is a totally flexible term that embraces without distinction people who support intelligent design and those who support a Young Earth. Dean knows the difference in common usage, but she isn’t about to let the readers in on it. For her the pejorative terminology carries too much ideological advantage to let mere accuracy, let alone nuance, intervene.
She likewise wields the word “fundamentalist” as a club against anyone who is religious and also questions Darwinism. This, her editors, if they consult their own style book, know is a misuse. Even at the New York Times you are not supposed to call people “fundamentalists” unless that is what they call themselves. Ms. Dean apparently makes her own rules.
Dean is adroit enough to report the views of a few academics who resist persecuting colleagues for their personal beliefs. But she clearly comes down on the side of redefining the responsibility of scholarship in a way that serves her purposes. Why not discriminate against students and professors suspected of religious or anti-Darwinian views? After all, she concludes, citing Eugenie Scott, “fundamentalists who capitalize on secular credentials to ‘mis-educate the public’ were doing a disservice.”
A fine Orwellian sentiment, isn’t it? You can now lose your hard earned doctoral degree for “doing a disservice” in the eyes of some Eugenie Scott or Cornelia Dean at Hale-Bopp U or Quark College. This is like the other euphemism one discovers at tenure time, “lack of collegiality,” which really means “we don’t like the person’s views.”
Copy the Times article from the paper’s website (they won’t let us reprint it here) and send it to your friends. It is a keepsake for the day when the history of academic discrimination in this era is written.