An astronomer who was denied a job as director of an observatory at the University of Kentucky in 2007 after his writings on evolution came to light is suing the university, saying it violated his rights under a federal law that bans job bias on the basis of religion, The Courier-Journal reported. The scientist, Martin Gaskell, who is now a research fellow and lecturer in astronomy at the University of Texas at Austin, has spoken to religious groups about science and the Bible, and says he accepts the theory of evolution but believes it has major flaws. The university acknowledges that concerns over Mr. Gaskell’s views on evolution played a role in the hiring decision, but it argues that those are valid scientific concerns. A judge last month refused the university’s motion to dismiss the suit, and set a trial date in February.
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21 Responses to Astronomer Says U. of Kentucky Denied Him a Job Because of Religious Views
galileo - December 12, 2010 at 10:32 pm
Actually, Gaskell has never said that he thinks evolution “has major flaws.” This was a misrepresentation of his views first appearing in a newspaper article about his case. Gaskell is an astronomer who, in a lecture largely about modern cosmology surveyed about a dozen interpretations of Genesis I and how they may or may not be reconciled with modern science. He noted that there “are significant scientific problems in evolutionary theory,” as there are in most areas of science. Pointing out that there are “scientific problems” in any scientific field is hardly the same thing as saying the the reigning theoretical framework of that field has “major flaws.” “Problems” are not “flaws.” In the same lecture Gaskell repeatedly voiced his acceptance of evolution and his belief that “creationism” is “very bad scientifically.” That some at the University of Kentucky interpreted his views as “creationist” says more about their own lack of intellectual depth than it says anything about Gaskell.
wdabc - December 13, 2010 at 5:53 am
Title VII of the Civil Rights Act was passed in 1964. 1) UK is 37 years behind the times. 2) Perhaps one should not discuss creationism at a state school. 3) Perhaps academics should avoid contraversial speeches with religious groups. 4) Mr. Gaskell is lucky to be rejected thereby avoiding the never ending rancor that would follow if he had been appointed.
cfsmith - December 13, 2010 at 7:07 am
In no way should “academics” “avoide contraversial [sic] speeches with religious groups”.
The foundation of Academic Freedom is freedom of speech. If I am not free to discuss a topic, any topic, including a religious one, with any group I choose to speak with, then both my free speech rights and my academic integrity are compromised.
Any professor at ANY institution, state or private, should be free to fairly and irenically lay out options for interpreting any controversial matter, and to critique those options, and even to make clear which option he accepts. If it is done as part of a course, then he should accept the fact that not all of his students will agree, and grade them fairly on how well they know the material and defend their own position.
At one time, academic training was designed to build the virtues of open mindedness, objectivity and tolerance for diverse views. Too often these days, we assume that diversity cannot be tolerated among faculties because they will be inherently unfair.
From first grade to PhD I had an array of teachers ranging from right-wingers to left wingers, John Birchers and Marxists, atheists, born again Christians and one “Hindu-Methodist.” I profited from all of them, and my understanding of the diversity and motivations behind all of these views has been enhanced. How sad that so many institutions want to create faculties who march lock-step to a leftist political/social agenda, and a defiantly anti-Christian bias on religion, all the while “celebrating diversity.”
drjilliantweiss - December 13, 2010 at 7:09 am
Wait, evolution, is that an astronomical theory? I’m not sure why his views on evolution should be relevant to a job in the astronomy department, unless the job description is for an exobiologist. Of course, these are allegations, so maybe it had nothing to do with it. Still, makes me wonder whether astronomy departments really evolved from mathematics departments. Perhaps they have an ancestor in anthropology departments.
agoldstein - December 13, 2010 at 8:06 am
When it comes to hiring, a University has every right to hire those who they believe are the best qualified. We apparently don’t know precisely what Mr. Gaskell has said or believes but if it is true that he rejects evolution then it calls into question his scientific credibility. There are a variety of thoeries that can all be considered as evolution and some certainly do have problems. But the change over time in the biota living on this planet and the planetary age of 4.6 BY simply cannot be questioned as flawed, they are well-supported observations not theories. Both of those are key elements of accepting a scientific interpretation of life on the planet and are inconsistent with a strict interpretation of Genesis. Again, IF Mr. Gaskell rejected those key scientific observation the UK had every right not to hire him.
22067030 - December 13, 2010 at 9:15 am
I notice that neither this article nor the Courier-Journal’s article reported what Mr. Gaskell’s views actually are. If they were, for example, that the evolution of the universe and of the Earth’s biosphere were mediated or guided by the Holy Ghost, that would be innocuous. If Mr. Gaskell was commenting on specific aspects of evolutionary theory, well, a lot of them (from the impact of natural selection to the identity of species) are controversial among serious scientists.
I would hope that Mr. Gaskell wasn’t rejected because someone heard a garbled account of his views and acted reflexively…
GLMcColm
olmsted - December 13, 2010 at 9:45 am
@ agoldstein, might one extrapolate that, from your statement, a university might not only consider excluding a candidate, but consider whether a previously hired faculty member–especially if in a review period such as tenure probation years–should be reconsidered if s/he rejects evolution?
What you allude to is a little spoken facet of belief (i.e., faith) expectations of higher education. That non-replicated events have grown from theory to fact speaks to the slippery slope science faces when it, too, dips a toe into faith.
samusa - December 13, 2010 at 10:03 am
“…while he has no problem reconciling the Bible with the theory of evolution, he believes the theory has major flaws. And he recommended students read theory critics in the intelligent-design movement.”
This is a clear indication that the Prof. has preference against the Evolution, and in a very clever way was trying to garner support for the ID movement. From the limited information that we have here, it is clear to me that had he been hired, he would have promoted ID theories by creating doubts about Evolution which is the most common approach of the religious zealots who want to teach Bible in every school and science class.
physicsprof - December 13, 2010 at 10:28 am
Here is the link to Gaskell’s public talk:
http://incolor.inetnebr.com/gaskell/MABC.pdf
While most of it refers to Science and Genesis issues, at the end it simply dumps a number of intelligent design references on the listener/reader and provides “advice to someone interested in the Bible and biology issues is to talk to a Christian biologist or to a Christian geologist for geology issues.”
There is certainly no attempt for a balanced scientific discussion on ID. It appears to me that Dr. Gaskell indeed cannot keep his religious views separate from his professional work.
mhick255 - December 13, 2010 at 12:50 pm
@physicsprof,
Thank you for the link to Gaskell’s talk. I hope others read it as well. In the talk, Gaskell offers religious believers a variety of ways of reconciling Genesis 1 with scientific theories. Addressing a religious audience, he encourages skeptics of evolution to take more seriously the scientific consensus on evolution and cosmology. What’s the problem with that?
It’s unfortunate that Gaskell is not being evaluated on his own merits, but instead on what others claim he secretly believes or hypothetical scenarios of what he might do in the future (when he’s done nothing of the sort previously).
Contra samusa, what’s clear is that Gaskell has a strong interest in helping religious believers reconcile their beliefs with mainstream scientific theories about cosmology and evolution. In a religiously conservative state like Kentucky, UK would have been well served in hiring someone who can communicate the values of science to religious communities, rather than reinforcing the idea that science and religion are somehow enemies.
lclane2 - December 14, 2010 at 10:07 am
‘He noted that there “are significant scientific problems in evolutionary theory,” as there are in most areas of science. Pointing out that there are “scientific problems” in any scientific field is hardly the same thing as saying the the reigning theoretical framework of that field has “major flaws.” ‘
To a religious fundamentalist what he says means exactly that evolutionary theory (in particular) has major flaws.
mhick255 - December 16, 2010 at 11:38 am
@lclane2: “To a religious fundamentalist what he says means….”
Why don’t we evaluate Gaskell on his own words and work, rather than what we think anonymous others might theoretically assume about his work?
geoscientist - December 16, 2010 at 11:43 am
So now one cannot even suggest that one is Christian and be employed at a major university? One can spout only praise of anything from Santeria to Islam despite their “doctrinal” brutality in the living world, but the Christian cannot even speculate intellectually about Creationism? It’s the new persecution.
drkull - December 16, 2010 at 12:27 pm
There’s an interesting theory called “The Simulation Argument” which posits that we’re living in a Matrix-type reality. This theory is batted around by philosophers all the time, e.g. are we brains in vats? To me, this is essentially a Creationist argument, though the downside is that God is a gamer.
Point is, it is a compelling logical syllogism that gives a 99.9~% chance of probability if you follow the narrative. How might spiritualists 2000 years ago try to explain this insight without a useful technological metaphor?
Not to fall victim to the fallacy of probably – that just because something has a high probability of happening it did, but the same can be said for other theories of how we got here. We don’t have to agree with each other to have reasoned debates.
As I recall, my Ph.D. means Doctor of Philosophy. We need to defend the academy against dogma in whatever form. Personally, I find evolution compelling by the overwhelming evidence, but we’ll only be able to rigorously repeat the experiment when we have more powerful simulation technology and us “sims” are made to think for ourselves.
drkull - December 16, 2010 at 1:08 pm
Was inspired to clean up my comment on my blog. Merry Christmas.
http://michaelkull.blogspot.com/2010/12/creationism-and-simulation-argument.html
geoscientist - December 16, 2010 at 2:27 pm
Kull, who are you as a “doctorate in management and organization and work as a professor, consultant, writer, entrepreneur and digital media producer” to write that Gaskell is “a religious nutjob who thinks evolution is ‘just a theory’ but in this case feels he has faced nutty discrimination for a job at the University of Kentucky” in obvious ignorance of intellectual discourse, cosmology, science and academic freedom?
http://michaelkull.blogspot.com/2010/12/creationism-and-simulation-argument.html
dr_g_hurd - December 16, 2010 at 7:35 pm
@ geoscientist
The inter-departmental politics shaped the hire decision far more than religion, or even competence. This would be obvious to anyone who has read the pretrial depositions before they began bloviating on the “interwebs.” They are available via
http://ncse.com/creationism/legal/c-martin-gaskell-v-university-kentucky
Are you seriously expecting us to think that the University of Kansas, or other major universities do not hire Christians? Or that you poor, poor fundamentalists are persecuted in America? Or that creationism is somehow the criteria that Christians are judged by, or are the equivalents?
Christians dominate nearly every aspect of life in the United States. And, while fundamentalists are fortunately rare in schools of biology, they are common enough in university life even if at far lower numbers than in the general public. But, is that from discrimination? No. The likelihood of someone being a fundamentalist declines in direct proportion to intelligence, and education. And when controlling for other SES variables, the faculty hires at universities do favor the intelligent and well educated. At least so far they do.
Creationism is far from the norm among Christians, and is not at all unique to them either. There are quite notorious Muslim creationists, such as Harun Yahya of Turkey. There are Native American “traditionalist” creationists such as Vine Deloria, Jr. There are Jewish, and Hindu creationists as well. So, the rejection of a creationist for a scientific position that requires as a job obligation a 1/3 time investment in K-12 education outreach is not persecution- it is just good sense.
dr_g_hurd - December 16, 2010 at 7:54 pm
Various people have assumed incorrectly that Dr. Gaskell’s position on creationism was similar in 2006-2007 to what is reflected in his currently revised personal essay, “Modern Astronomy, the Bible and Creation.” The current essay is far more moderate. The version that is relevant to the hiring decision was the one that was active at the time he applied to the University of Kansas. It is appended to Dr. Gaskell’s deposition, and can be read via the link I provided above.
Reading it closely, and having read the authors, and most of the books he recommends, I am forced to recognize that he is a fairly ordinary “old Earth creationist” (particularly the positions taken by Hugh Ross in books and his website ministry). He is also a strong promoter of “intelligent design creationism” shown by his promotion of several books by Phil Johnson, Mike Behe, and J. P. Morland, and websites such as ARN. And he advocates these positions in public lectures where he prominently displayed his academic affiliations, both at Univ. of Nebraska, as he does today with the University of Texas.
Since 1/3 of his U.K. job would have been conducting K-12 outreach, this advocacy would clearly generate problems. For example, see the transcripts of the Kitzmiller v Dover trial from 2005.
barbarapiper - December 17, 2010 at 8:43 am
@drjilliantweiss
writes “Wait, evolution, is that an astronomical theory? I’m not sure why his views on evolution should be relevant to a job in the astronomy department…”
The point is that Creationist beliefs are incompatible with modern physics and astronomy, not merely with theories of biological evolution. For example, a fundamental notion in astronomy is that red shifts in light wavelengths allow us to measure the distance between the earth and objects moving away from the earth, and the distance is expressed as a time value by the speed of light: x number of light-years. If the world was created around 6000 years ago, the whole red shift phenomenon is wrong, whole realms of modern physics and the astronomy based on it are wrong, etc. And if modern physics is wrong, I am not really using a desk-top computer and the internet to write and send this note, but I am sure glad that God allows it to be transmitted through the aether to show up on your computer screen.
Religious fundamentalists focus on biological evolution rather than physics for at least two reasons. First, since Darwin, religious fundamentalists have recoiled at the notion that humans – God’s Image, after all – could be descended from a non-human ancestor that we share with monkeys and apes. It’s that offense that leads to an obsession with biological evolution. Second, physics is so well established as a science that to deny the validity of principles such as the red shift would simply be too tough to sustain; religious fundamentalists would end up sounding like the Catholic priests who condemned Galileo.
astronomer_x - December 20, 2010 at 1:37 pm
There is also a specific problem with Dr. Gaskell’s approach to presenting a lecture. Read it for yourself, here: http://incolor.inetnebr.com/gaskell/MABC.pdf
Using the 1975 “New Columbia Encyclopaedia” definition of atheism to begin the lecture is very strange. Mentioning that “About half of it is taken up defining the term. The rest of the article is a short history. I was struck when I read the article that there are no “proofs” or arguments offered for atheism,” is even stranger. Are “proofs” for Christianity included in the article on Christianity? How is this relevant to anything? And that’s just the opening of the lecture.
He goes on to detail quotes from “some” famous scientists who were also men of faith, presumably to refute the statement in the Columbia Encyclopaedia 1975 edition that there was a popular
He spends a bit of time on the Genesis timescale, but doesn’t set forth his own version of the timescale.
But the worst part from a fellow scientist’s POV is the final pair of paragraphs, wherein Gaskell uses the Fox News “Some people say” technique at first, but then grows bolder and makes actual assertions of what he apparently believes is fact:
“It as [sic] been said that it is doubtful whether the latter, purely mechanistic, atheistic view of our origins can be a sufficient basis for such human values as goodness, truth, justice and beauty, etc.”
Excuse me? Atheists have no basis to judge truth? From a scientist? exactly what article of faith is required to count electrons impacting a screen? But wait, there’s more:
“It has also been argued that in the atheistic view, man is left without ultimate meaning and value, that it is pointless to speak of “human rights”, for example, and that in atheism existence is ultimately absurd.”
Sorry to hear that without religion it is pointless to speak of human rights, perhaps the suffering of one’s fellow humans would fail to move Gaskell if he were not a man of faith? The rest of us use our empathy for this, and even logic (open societies with guaranteed rights are more successful than repressive ones).
Finally, Gaskell comes out from behind the “It has been said” shield, to assert:
“The Judeo-Christian worldview is very different from the atheistic view. In the Judeo-Christian view mankind was created in the image of an infinite personal God. This belief gives people significance, dignity and value.”
So, Gaskell’s asserting that people who don’t embrace Judaism or Christianity live without significance, dignity or value? Most of Asia and India would be stunned to hear that. Or perhaps they wouldn’t, since that kind of ignorance seems pretty common in politics in more than one Western nation. The place it’s NOT common is in academia. To put Gaskell in a leadership position (Director of anything) is to add weight to his public declarations, such as those above. The speech from which these quotes are prefaced by Gaskell with the following remarks: “These notes are based on public talks I have given at a number of universities. These notes are updated from time to time. Last update: March 2010.” IOW, it’s current.
astronomer_x - December 20, 2010 at 1:40 pm
Amend previous post: insert “… that there was a popular belief in a conflict between religion and science.” Apparently the copy-paste from Gaskell’s notes did not work. Sorry!