Friday, December 07, 2007

Three ... two ... one ...


Seriously, how long until Canadian ID dingbat Denyse O'Leary is all over this, persecution-wise:

Slackjawed creationist surprised at his own incompetence at a scientific job

First, the creationist-flavoured pissing and moaning:

Nathaniel Abraham filed a lawsuit earlier this week in US District Court in Boston saying that the Cape Cod research center dismissed him in 2004 because of his Christian belief that the Bible presents a true account of human creation.

Abraham, who is seeking $500,000 in compensation for a violation of his civil rights, says in the suit that he lost his job as a postdoctoral researcher in a biology lab shortly after he told his superior that he did not accept evolution as scientific fact.

Then, of course, there's the revelation that he is an imbecile, hideously unsuited to the position:

But on Nov. 17, Hahn asked him to resign, pointing out in the letter that Abraham should have known of evolution's centrality to the project because it was evident from the job advertisement and grant proposal.

". . . You have indicated that you do not recognize the concept of biological evolution and you would not agree to include a full discussion of the evolutionary implications and interpretations of our research in any co-authored publications resulting from this work," Hahn wrote in the letter, which the commission provided to the Globe. "This position is incompatible with the work as proposed to NIH and with my own vision of how it should be carried out and interpreted."

The commission [the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination] dismissed his complaint earlier this year. The commission said Abraham was terminated because his request not to work on evolutionary aspects of the project would be challenging for Woods Hole because the research was based on evolutionary theories.

Lesson: You have the right to be protected against discrimination because of your religious beliefs. On the other hand, you do not have the right to be protected against discrimination because you're totally fucking stupid. See the difference?

I'm guessing Denyse should be rolling along shortly to say something jaw-droppingly moronic. We expect no less of her.

WINGNUT WELFARE: I should point out that scientifically illiterate creationists expecting to be treated equally with genuine science scholars is the very definition of "wingnut welfare."

These are people who are clearly unqualified for their position, yet expect treatment equal to that granted to others who are qualified. In short, they want equal remuneration, but have absolutely no interest in generating work of equal value. How exactly is that not the "welfare" they're so often bitching and whining about?

Someone should remind these people about, you know, "accountability" and "personal responsibility." If you choose to be stupid, you have no right to a job that clearly requires you to not be stupid. It's entirely your choice, so why don't you quit kvetching about it, and live with the consequences?

8 comments:

counter-coulter said...

From the linked post:

"Abraham is now working at Liberty University, where all creationist poseurs who claim to be scientists go to die."

Funniest. Creationist. Comment. Ever.

Makes me proud to be a Minnesotan.

Sean S. said...

that's pretty funny...

Ti-Guy said...

The argument from the Creationists/IDeists is that science itself is a too-restrictive paradigm that limits the research necessary to discover alternate explanations to explain the real world.

The day they come up with an alternative approach that doesn't involve magic is the day I'll start paying attention again.

Creationists...too uncreative/unoriginal for theology, philosophy or fiction, too mediocre for science.

Red Tory said...

I suppose she's going to go into paroxysms of victimhood once that Ben Stein movie "Expelled" comes out in February. I'd venture to suggest that a lot of this posturing is part of that whole effort to gain public sympathy for the notion that ID advocates are being "persecuted" for their views by the narrow-minded academic establishment, liberal elites, etc.

That guy said...

If I got a job teaching writing skills but didn't know that, say, grammar was part of the job description, could I claim discrimination on account of stupidity too?

Ti-Guy said...

This kind of thing really puts affirmative action and genuine welfare into a much clearer context.

I've often wondered if there has ever been a true accounting of what consumers end up dishing out for the variety of corporate/public relations/marketing/wingnut welfare programmes that sustain the so-called free market economy.

CC said...

ti-guy:

It might have been a year ago that I read a paper in which the author described -- in horrific detail -- the pervasive culture of corporate welfare and how the so-called captains of the free market and unfettered capitalism positively rake in the bucks based on a completely closed system of rewarding each other. Things like grossly inappropriate CEO compensation leaps to mind.

If anyone knows what paper I'm talking about and can provide a link, that would be nice.

Ti-Guy said...

I've heard this type of capitalism described as "socialism for the rich."

I read this review of Klein's The Shock Doctrine this morning. I thought the review was very fair, but it was the reviewer's explanation of certain trends in economic hegemony, such as "accumulation by dispossession" that has really gotten me unnerved. It's very much what's happening in a multi-pronged attack on the commons (which The Fraser Institute believes shouldn't even exist), which ties in to the latest attack on intellectual property that the Canadian government is trying to initiate with the new copyright legislation.

Economics truly is the dismal science. Well, it's not even a science, but, I digress...