Wrongful Firing of a Creationist, or Employment Catch 22?Follow

I was just thinking of a pharmacist, not part of a chain or the likes, who refused to sell birth control products, with his shop being the only one in a rather large area. Makes me wonder if there are any basic requirements dealing with this or not.

Dealing with abject incompetence?

Um... Read the article again. This part specifically:



This is a direct quote from the project director in the letter in which he demanded the researchers resignation. The bolded part is critical. Nowhere does he say that the researcher failed to produce relevant data, nor that his work quality was low, nor that he failed to understand and apply the othologous and paralogous concepts correctly. He was fired specifically because he refused to co-write a paper in which the data were interpreted into a broader implied evolutionary context.

That's extrapolation. He was asked to take his data and instead of simply reporting the results, make the next hypothesis based on an evolutionary model that he did not agree with. And that's why his case may have merit.

Well. The part where he required that the researcher co-write a paper in which the data is interpreted within an implied evolutionary model would be a good start. I just don't see how it can be any clearer.

Maybe if we reversed this? Let's pretend that it's the director who doesn't believe in evolution and the researcher who does, and that after being hired and doing his work, the researcher was told by the director that he must co-write a paper in which the results will be discussed based on how they fit into a creationist view of the earth? Would you then argue that he had no legitimate reason to refuse? Would you call it discrimination if the director fired him because he didn't believe in creationism?

I'm pretty sure you would. Look. I understand the whole "but evolution *is* science!" argument. But we're talking about the law here, not science. And the law says you can't discriminate based on religious belief. If he did the job he was hired to do, he should not be fired for his beliefs. I keep getting back to this same point. It's all about what he was told when he agreed to take the position. If the job description stated that he would be required to write such a paper, then it's all good. He had the choice to not take the position based on his beliefs, in the same way a Jew might choose not to take a position in a pork processing plant based on his religious beliefs. There's no law that says that every job must comply with every possible religious belief, but it's the employers responsibility to ensure that enough information about the job is available to a prospective hire so that they can make that assessment prior to starting work.





Which has zero to do with macro-evolution. This is the "adaptation" issue I talked about earlier. Creationists have no problem with this biological concept.



Not really. They're dependent on an assumption that biological organisms are related. Once again, creationism does not violate the classic "Family, Group,... phylum, species, etc..." structure of biology. Nor does it have any problems with genetics, common traits, or the grouping of organisms based on those common traits and similarities.

Creationists simply don't believe that the organisms got that way via a process of evolution. Paralogous relationships only require evolutionary assumptions if you start with them. The relationships are just as valid if you believe that God just made the creatures with those relationships from the start.

Also, you have to remember that not all creationists absolutely refute all evolutionary models (even macro-evolutionary ones). They simply don't believe that all species evolved over time from common ancestors. So a species can certainly change over time, but that does not preclude God creating everything in a week. It only means that after that initial creation, some species may have changed a little bit. It's quite possible for someone to extrapolate evolutionary effects going forward in time, but still not accept that this assumes that this single process accounts for all species that exist today. Such a person would have no problem discussing how environment and mutation may affect changes in a species and how those may change the relation between that species and others. He just would not agree that this proves anything about how those species got to where they were in the first place.




That's a heck of an assumption. This guy apparently was able to get a degree in this field without changing his views on creationism. We can speculate on how that happened, but clearly he was able to balance the science with his own beliefs. Again. It comes down to what he was actually hired to do, and whether he actually refused to do so at any point.

I agree...



I agree...



And that's the point at which you've committed discrimination and can be sued.


Replace "Creationists" with "Jews", and you're a half step away from Godwins.

Pretty sure if the job as advertised had to do with biocreationism, or however the hell you'd even say that, an informed researcher would understand from the jump that results are to be interpreted at least in part from a creationist perspective.

And if it wasn't? That's the point I'm trying to get at. It all comes down to what exactly the job description was when he was hired. Clearly, he's able to do the work and understands the subject. The only point of contention was when he was asked to co-write a paper extrapolating those results in a context that he didn't agree with.

You can assume from a common sense perspective that he should have known that, but legally you can't. If his contract didn't specify this, he's not required to do it. Period.

No. It's not. Amazingly enough, about 99% of the basic classifications and concepts within the field of biology were developed *before* a theory of evolution arose. The fact that different species of animals have common traits is what allows us to sort them into different groups (which is what biology does among other things). That doesn't actually require any specific theory as to *how* they ended up with those traits.

If you were talking about paleontology, you might have a point. There is very little in the field of biology itself that actually rests on any assumptions about evolution.


It would be like arguing that a NASCAR driver couldn't possibly compete in a race if he didn't understand how the internal combustion engine worked. It's simply not true. He could believe that his car runs on magic fairies in the engine and still be just as successful at actually driving the car. If, after winning a big race, his manager fired him because he refused to give an interview in which he talked in detail about how some new engine design helped him win (because he believes that his car runs on magic fairies, right?), you might say he'd have a valid suit against the manager. His job description did not preclude his personal beliefs. While that may seem like a stretch, from a legal perspective he'd have a case depending on the terms of his employment.

Edited, Jan 17th 2008 7:18pm by gbaji

Not a valid comparison.

In the NASCAR analogy, the fired researcher would be the driver's pit crew. And the pit crew damn-well better not think that the car runs on pixies.

Gbaji...are you insinuating that fairies are incapable being part of the Nascar world?

Because just like your crap explanation of why this delusional Bob-botherer should keep a job in the real world, when he himself is living in a fantasy one you're wrong, Again.

Evolution is still just a theoretical model though. Admittedly, a well founded one that works well at explaining the data around us, but then all currently used models do that. Newtonian physics worked great at explaining the world around us until Einstein came along and upset his apple-cart (so to speak) with a better and broader model.

It's a mistake in science to interpret any and all research only within the context of a model you're using. Model's derive from the data, not the other way around. That's not to say that the data is suddenly one day going to show that creationists are right, but that's not the point.




Sssshhh! ;)

Now you're just confusing science with politics.

Bush introduced gravity to hold fence posts in the ground at the messican border.