Apparently there's more to the University of Kentucky than basketball.
WaPo reports that the fabled flagship university of the Commonwealth is being sued by Dr. Martin Gaskell, an accomplished astronomer turned down as director of UK's student observatory because, he alleges, the university's faculty demonstrated prejudice against his religious views.
Dr. Martin is a Christian, not a young-earther but one who is willing to discuss publicly various views of scientific and Christian cosmology. Holding the best CV of applicants for the UK job, Martin was turned down, he alleges, because faculty from various university departments of the sciences campaigned against him, alleging that he would be something akin to Ken Ham. This despite the fact that he is a member in good standing of the astronomy faculty of a certain largish state university in Austin, Texas.
The article suggests that Dr. Martin has no relish for the legal process but believes that universities must be held to account for anti-religious prejudices. Good for him.
The only aspect of this story that will surprise most readers is the revelation that UK has a student observatory that apparently doesn't train its telescope on the floor of Rupp Arena. It's no shock that academics are tribal and petty, that those trained to use evidence rigorously in their academic disciplines are often completely uncritically swept up by gossip and slander, that folks who routinely examine the deaths of whole worlds in our galaxy won't hesitate to use apocalyptic language to describe their fear of social chaos if this or that person becomes part of their little club.
Once upon a time SWNID worked with a state agency to get approval for his IHE to offer a certain professional license issued by the state government. At the beginning of the process, an honest and open-minded functionary of the state agency said to us, "I have been the object of prejudice, and I don't think you should be." At the end of the process, a functionary who had been won over as a friend said to us, "At the beginning of this, someone in our office said, 'They can't get authorization! If students from that school became teachers, they'd want to faith-heal kids every time they got hurt on the playground!'"
Life is complex. Time is short. Stereotypes are efficient. Like "all Christians are young-earth creationists," "all scientists are militant atheists," "evolution and biblical Christianity are incompatible," and "UK is only about hoops."
3 comments:
This problem could easily be solved if they put Coach Cal in charge of the astronomy department and named it after Adolph Rupp. Right decisions would immediately be made.
"The only aspect of this story that will surprise most readers is the revelation that UK has a student observatory that apparently doesn't train its telescope on the floor of Rupp Arena."
Hilarious - and truly sad - at the same time.
Excellent commentary
Interestingly, the article says that one of the reasons for his application's rejection is that he questions the evolutionary process. THAT'S THE POINT!
Evolution is not a fact, but a theory - and thus by definition has to be questioned.
I would recommend that the faculty at UK actually read Karl Popper's "The Logic of Scientific Discovery" that they assigned to the doctoral students. I still have my copy if they would like it.
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