We have a bit more than a week to go on our fund raising drive for DonorsChoose, which puts money directly into the hands of teachers who need it, and the pace of donations is slowing way down. Are you tapped out? Do I need to go all NPR and beg for money in every other post? I’ve been so restrained and only putting out these reminders once a week.
Look! Sandra Porter has joined the Scienceblogs team! Maybe I should be nagging the other bloggers here to get it together and join in.
You all know them: those awful loud little men who travel from campus to campus to preach apocalyptic hateful nonsense on the sidewalks, who rant and howl and condemn everyone who passes by as a sinner, damned to hell, and reserving a special hatred for women and gays. One of the virtues of being on a small campus in a remote rural part of my state is that we don’t get many of those jerkwads here, but they infest the main campus and any other college that is more conveniently located.
What do we do about them? Tarring and feathering is illegal, and you can’t just silence them because you don’t like what they say. I think James Dimock at Minnesota State University Mankato takes exactly the right approach.
“The answer to speech you don’t like isn’t to suppress it. The remedy is to speak back,” said James P. Dimock, associate professor of communication studies at Mankato State. “That is what those kids did and why I am proud of them. They could have gone to the university administration and fought to keep this guy off campus — a fight they would probably have lost. But instead they answered speech with speech. I support what they did 100 percent and I think that they should be a model for how people should respond to these preachers everywhere.”
What he did was encourage students to politely protest the noise of a gay-hating preacher going by the name of John the Baptist by taking him up on his invitation to attend his church services. They did. They sat in the front row, quietly, with signs showing gay people who had committed suicide, thanks to homophobic bullying. They didn’t interfere with his preaching at all, but no one could look at him in the pulpit without also seeing the victims of his hatred. It’s perfect. It’s the kind of peaceful protest that makes people think.
Of course preacher John Chisham doesn’t see it that way. He’s angry about it all, and is whining that the university is promoting anti-Christian attitudes (anyone want to bet against the idea that many of the students who were protesting were also Christian?)
But Chisham said that was unfair. “If a professor said ‘Why don’t you come and attend my class?’ I would take that to mean I’m going to go into the class and sit, and listen respectfully, and I would expect the same kind of decorum.” (Both Chisham and those who protested agree that while the students held signs in front of the room, making it impossible for the congregation members to see their pastor without seeing images of gay youth who have killed themselves, the protest was a silent one — and did not stop the prayers or any other part of the service.)
Chisham said he has filed a complaint with the university, asking it to impose sanctions on Dimock, the professor who advised the students and who attended the service with them. But Chisham said he does not believe Dimock is being punished. “I think there should be sanctions,” he said, “unless Mankato State doesn’t mind being associated with someone disrupting a service of worship.”
Oh, the hypocrisy, it burns.
They did not disrupt the service. They silently highlighted his message. They also listened to every word he said, they did not shout him down at all. When creationists come to Morris, I’ll often encourage my students to attend and listen, too, and I’ll tell them to be polite and non-disruptive (although I’ll also assure them that good, calm questions are also a good idea). The creationists don’t particularly like this, because it means some of their audience are there to think and criticize rather than affirm and gullibly swallow whatever they say, but there’s not much they can do to stop us without looking blatantly hypocritical.
There’s also the fact that Preacher John sees no problem in proclaiming his message, but is offended that anyone would quietly reject it. There’s this whole evangelical principle of, well, evangelizing … but any pushback, no matter how mild, is regarded as wicked. We’re not supposed to ask questions in church, but there’s a whole evangelical literature praising the idea of promoting Christianity in the science classroom — see Chick’s “Big Daddy” for the classic example.
Despite Big Daddy’s puffery, one thing I’ve learned is that fundagelical Christians are typically cowards. They fear and hate being criticized. I occasionally get protests at my talks, and my response to the sign-bearing chanters lined up outside the auditorium is always to invite them to come in and feel free to ask questions in the Q&A. They rarely do. I’d actually welcome a mob of creationists who showed up and sat up front and quietly listened, and might even make sure to keep the talk a little more brief than usual, because I’d expect a lively post-talk discussion. It just doesn’t happen, much as I’d like it to, and here’s Preacher John complaining because he’s got an audience with specific issues to debate. If he’s so sure he’s right, he ought to be overjoyed to have an opportunity to publicly rebut specific questions.
Just in case the opportunity comes up, any time I give a public talk, the creationist versions of Professor Dimock are welcome to show up, take a front row seat, and carry signs that object to evilutionism. I shall joyfully address any concerns that you might have at the appropriate part of the hour, and all you have to be prepared for is the laughter of myself and the rest of the audience.
Brain melting. Remember that call for applicants for a tenure track job? We’re screening all those applicants now, and meeting tomorrow to consider who to invite to the first round of preliminary phone interviews. If you haven’t got your application in, you’re late! You’re going to hope everyone else sucks badly if you’re still trying to get something filed here.
All it means to me right now though is more squinty staring at lots and lots of essays and CVs and recommendations. I may be entering a data coma soon.
This is a very poor quality recording of a group of fraternity pledges marching about the Yale campus chanting. You should be able to make out what they’re chanting, though: “No means yes, yes means anal.”
These privileged man-children made it a point to march past various sororities letting the women know exactly what to expect from the Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity; the president of the frat has since apologized, calling it a “lapse in judgment”.
I don’t think so. I think it goes deeper than that: this was a lifelong failure, the result of a poor upbringing that generates bully-boys who think that terrorizing women with threats of rape is hilarious, and further, a culture that looks on these beasts and forgives them, urging them to go on and bring their misogynistic attitudes to their future careers as captains of industry and masters of politics.
This is not a free speech issue. Of course DKE is free to advertise the fact that they are a slimy nest of anti-woman vermin; one could even argue that they’re doing everyone a favor by making it clear that their frat is the one for low-life scum. But when the Yale University administration sits quietly, waiting for the furor to die down, and when they foster such unconscionable behavior by their students, we’re also free to suggest that maybe Yale isn’t a fit place for our sons and daughters, and maybe that Yale degree should carry a certain amount of social stigma.
As if it weren’t already bearing a mark of shame for being George W. Bush’s alma mater…
We’re still trying to raise money for science education — donate if you can. We’ve teamed up with Uncertain Principles and The Thoughtful Animal to raise cash for teachers, and together we’ve almost brought in $10,000 so far. My personal goal was $20,000, though, so we need more.
I’m hoping some billionaire will tire of throwing his money away on ID conferences and will instead invest where it can make a difference. But even a dollar or two helps.
Especially if you’ve got adblock in place, because the big banner on the left asking you to donate will disappear…but yes, we are still trying to raise money for science education, and if you’ve got a few dollars to spare, go to my challenge page and pick a project you like and help them out. One of the nice things about the way DonorsChoose is that you actually put your money in the hands of teachers who are doing work that you like.
Now I know, we’re all evil atheists here, and we’d never do something just because it was good and nice. If cutthroat competition is a better motivator to your mind, we’re also having a little contest with some of the other science blog networks, and we have a leaderboard for the science bloggers. Scienceblogs is ahead right now, but those nefarious rascals at Discover and Scientopia are breathing down our necks. Help us simultaneously crush the others and help school teachers!
But then, so have we all. I hit my developmental biology students with the first evil exam of the term last week (I give them a couple of broad questions where we don’t have all the answers, and send them off to write a longish essay on their own time. It’s definitely the kind of test where regurgitation doesn’t work at all). Then also the last few days have been our Fall Break, a short interval with no classes which were added to allow the faculty a chance to catch up on their work and sleep, but which I squandered by gallivanting off to London where I got almost no sleep.
But they’ve got some stuff online.
Hannah seems to like the idea of making slug monsters.
Lisa’s into solar powered salamanders.
Logan has a good time with chicken ZPAs.
Kele has a conversation with Arlin Stoltzfus.
Rev. Frost discusses sleep-deprived fish. I can identify.
Anthony gives us worm photos — they’ve been culturing nematodes this week.
Gonzaa275 also shows off the nematodes.
I’ll crack the whip in class some more today and tell them to provide more blog fodder. If I don’t fall asleep mid-session, that is.
I teach at a small public liberal arts college in Minnesota. We’ve got a lot of similar liberal arts institutions around the state, including Gustavus Adolphus, a private college with a Lutheran affiliation. We’re secular (we don’t sponsor church services) and public (much lower tuition, also much smaller endowment), which we consider our advantages, but the Illinois Family Institute is trying to undermine that. They are outraged at the licentiousness at Gustavus.
The climate at Gustavus was predominantly secular in the classroom, in dorm life, and on sports teams with only the empty trappings of Christian tradition hanging on in the form of daily chapel services led by a chaplain who affirmed sexual deviance and other such “spiritual” activities.
The IFI, by the way, is one of those fanatical conservative organizations that has a primary mission of opposing gay rights and promoting general prudery everywhere. What triggered the killjoys this time is the appearance of a video showing parts of Gustavus’s freshman orientation, which includes a frank and amusing discussion of student sexual behavior.
(Youtube comments on that video are predictably inane, too)
Dang. That was awesome. IFI may be pissed off, but I predict an uptick in enrollment applications at Gustavus next year.
Once again, my developmental biology students generate some science content for the web.
Hannah’s blog discovers that stem cells can repair damaged hearts.
Lisa’s Ledger covers a story I criticized about a genetic link to ADHD.
We’ve been talking about induction and pattern formation this week, so Development from a naiad talks about his favorite signaling center.
Kele’s Science Blog talks about a tricky subject: gene conversion in the Y chromosome.
Rev. Frost continues his neurological series with sexual dimorphism in fly brains.
Anthony’s Weekly Developmental Biology Blog is all about our lab subject, nematodes.
Developmental Biology has an eye-popping image from Ernst Haeckel.
They also address the minor contretemps that arose last time over the fact that they are competent to handle themselves on the web. Rev. Frost reassures us that he’s not evil. But wouldn’t he say that even if he were?
This is the same ad I posted for a position in our biology department the other day, with one very significant difference — I had used the copy we’d put together before we got absolute final approval to fill the position, and once it was locked down, we changed the date.
Notice: We start screening applications on 22 October. If you’re interested, send in that application soon, soon, soon!
Assistant Professor of (Cell) Biology
University of Minnesota, MorrisThe University of Minnesota, Morris seeks an individual committed to excellence in undergraduate education to fill a tenure-track position in biology beginning August 15, 2011. Responsibilities include: teaching undergraduate biology courses including a sophomore-level cell biology course, an upper-level genetics elective course, an elective in the applicant’s area of expertise, and other courses that support the biology program; advising undergraduates; conducting research that could involve undergraduates; and sharing in the governance and advancement of the biology program, the division, and the campus.
Candidates must hold or expect to receive a Ph.D. in cell biology or a related field by August 15, 2011. An area of expertise of relevance to our pre-health professional students and complementary to existing faculty interests is preferred. These might include, but are not limited to: immunology, pathophysiology, cancer biology, bioinformatics, and cell signaling. Experience and evidence of excellence in teaching undergraduate biology is required. (Graduate TA experience is acceptable.)
The University of Minnesota, Morris is a residential public liberal arts college serving over 1800 students. As one of five campuses of the University of Minnesota, UMM is located 160 miles west of Minneapolis in the rural community of Morris, MN. The student body is talented, diverse and engaged. The Morris student body is one of the most ethnically diverse in the University of Minnesota system with 20% students of color (12% are American Indian students) and a growing international student population.
The college values diversity in its students, faculty, and staff. The college is especially interested in qualified candidates who can contribute to the diversity of our community through their teaching, research, and /or service because we believe that diversity enriches the classroom and research experience at the University.
This tenure-track position carries all of the privileges and responsibilities of University of Minnesota faculty appointments. A sound retirement plan, excellent fringe benefits and a collegial atmosphere are among the benefits that accompany the position. Appointment will be at the Assistant Professor level for those having the Ph.D. in hand and at the Instructor level for those whose Ph.D. is pending. The standard teaching load is twenty credit hours per year.
Applications must include a letter of application, resume, transcripts, a teaching statement (in which teaching goals and methods are discussed), a research statement (proposing a research program that is viable at a small liberal arts college and accessible to undergraduates) and three letters of reference. Send applications to:
Biology Search Committee Chair
Division of Science and Mathematics
University of Minnesota, Morris
Morris, MN 56267-2128Applications will be accepted until the position is filled. Screening begins October 22, 2010. Inquiries can be made to Ann Kolden, Executive Office and Administrative Specialist, at (320) 589-6301 or koldenal@morris.umn.edu.
The University of Minnesota shall provide equal access to and opportunity in its programs, facilities, and employment without regard to race, color, creed, religion, national origin, gender, age, marital status, disability, public assistance status, veteran status, sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression. To request disability accommodation or material in alternative formats contact: UMM Human Resources, (320)-589-6024, Room309, Behmler Hall, Morris, MN.
