Should those of religious faith be allowed to run this country?

Not a useful quote I'd say. I don't think the student gets the idea of the bill of rights. David Horowitz has no gripe with evolutionism. It probably didn't even cross his mind. He's addressing the common complaint of political indoctrination in the classroom and the intimidation of students whose political views differ with the professor's.

Given to me by whom? I could call what you've swallowed by the same name with a lot more justification. Yes I put in my time at university, arguably one of the most liberal leftie universities in the country at the time. By then I took the leftie stuff for granted. I thought I agreed with it.This message has been edited by Faith, 06-08-2005 12:21 AM

*shrug* i'm just reporting the words of the congressman who's backing it.like i said, where in the bill it says anything about that is a mystery to me.

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אָרַח

How the liberals howl when sound policy is enacted; after all, some of their favorite courses, taught by their favorite lecturers may be supressed.

Not true. There is a blatantly biased political agenda here that seeks its own indoctrination.
Horowitz has pretty much stated he is on a crusade to corrrect this 'perceived liberal bias' in academia - to the point of trying to install a quota of conservative faculty in land-grant universities.Do you really think that giving students the right to sue their professors, or encouraging them to snitch on them if they say anything that can be politically construed, is going to improve the quality of education in our universities? Professors have enough to worry about in the current system without that.Besides. What if the field is political science. Can the professor no longer present his/her analysis of current events without worrying about some little neo-con stooge in the class going to file a complaint because he/she said something they didn't like about old Dubya? Why is freedom of speach such a threat to conservatives that they feel compelled to deny it to the most educated sector of our society?Finally, if this was something good for higher education, don't you think more professors would actually support it? They are almost all uniformly opposed to it (This I can tell you because I am one of them, and I don't even have any teaching responsibilites, so it wouldn't affect me). Believe me, a lot of things get discussed and argued at faculty meetings without much consensus of opinion - but not in this case. But I know, I know - the vast liberal conspiracy of the academic elite...This message has been edited by EZscience, 06-08-2005 06:03 AM

It is not sound policy and I can assure you it will never be 'enacted'. And I don't see anything wrong with that course description."911 was a catalyst for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq as well as the attack on civil liberties in the United States. We will examine each of these with a critical eye. The goal of this course is to arrive at a solid understanding of how 911 has shaped our political future and to promote critical analysis by students of this catastrophic event and its aftermath."If you 'promote critical analysis', you have to look at both sides. That shouldn't prevent the professor from arguing either side they see fit.

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Therefore, academic freedom is most likely to thrive in an environment of intellectual diversity that protects and fosters independence of thought and speech.

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Translation: we have to treat everybody's stupid ideas as though they had the same factual basis.

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In the words of the report, Students should be free to take reasoned exception to the data or views offered in any course of study and to reserve judgment about matters of opinion.

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Translation: students can't be graded poorly for being wrong.

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Students will be graded solely on the basis of their reasoned answers and appropriate knowledge of the subjects and disciplines they study, not on the basis of their political or religious beliefs.

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Translation: students may hold any ridiculous idea they choose, and can't be graded down for promulgating it, so long as they're able to claim it as a "religious position."As creationists have shown us here, literally any position in any subject can be argued to be a religion.

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Curricula and reading lists in the humanities and social sciences should reflect the uncertainty and unsettled character of all human knowledge in these areas by providing students with dissenting sources and viewpoints where appropriate.

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Translation: because we don't know everything about everything at this time, bullshit is to be taken at the same face value as factual instruction.It's no wonder that you Christian jihadists have a hard-on about this stupid "Bill of Rights"; it's a mechanism for vetoing a professor's curriculum. Can't have our precious youngsters exposed to actual facts, now can we?

That is exactly the point. The conservatives don't like critical thinking. They want to eliminate critical thinking. They realize that when expose to critical thinking the myths and slogans they spout wither.No one has ever explained how it is that "liberals and leftists" are predominately represented on university faculty. Here in the US, every state has its own system of universities and colleges, run independently of all the others; some states have several systems and individual colleges, all run independently of all the others. There are a multitude of private, independent colleges and universities in this country. There is no single, central hiring agency. Yet, somehow few conservatives can find a non-biased university that will hire them on the strength of their academic work.There are hundred of journals that publish in each of the relevant fields. Every one of these journals is governed by an editorial board that is independent of all the other journals. Every academic researcher in each of these fields is called upon regularly to review submitted papers for publication in these journals. There is no central agency that is responsible deciding which papers get published. Yet somehow few conservatives can find a non-biased journal in their field that will publish their work.The truth is, the conservative positions are rarely backed up by quality research. That is the purpose of the "academic bill of rights". As Faith writes: Which is exactly right. There already exist procedures and mechanisms that protect the integrity of the courses, and they work pretty well. In fact, the problem for the conservatives is that they work too well. They allow the conservative ideology to be exposed as the shoddy, illogical work that it really is. So the conservatives need to try to put into place mechanisms to initimidate those that would expose lies for what they are, who would puncture meaningless, empty slogans for what they are.

I agree, I don't see anything amiss in those links. Perhaps redseal linked to the wrong pages?

Please explain the position OPINION plays in Science.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

Are you on the wrong thread? Who said anything about opinion in science?If you mean the opinions that profs are likely to give in a science course or any other course, that have nothing to do with the science or anything else except the professor's own desire to indoctrinate the students in his/her political views, the answer is obviouslyNOTHING. That's why an academic bill of rights is needed.This message has been edited by Faith, 06-08-2005 11:56 AM

Do you mean opinions like the Earth is over 4 billion years old and that all life is related and the result of common descent and that what is seen is the result of evolution?

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

Absolutely no quota is involved. This is leftist paranoia. Yes, the starting point is to correct the bias that has led to the preponderance of liberal professors, a preponderance which demonstrates bias in hiring and tenure, which he has documented thoroughly on his websites. But the correction that is laid out in the Academic Bill of Rights is merely a policy of ensuring FREEDOM AND EQUALITY AND DIVERSITY OF OPINION, good old American standards, by keeping irrelevant political and religious topics out of the classroom, and as such applies to all points of view across the board.At the moment the universities are stocked with leftists, a situation that has been growing since the Sixties generation got into those positions, but should the situation be reversed and conservatives dominate, the same rules apply. At the moment it's the conservative and religious students who are being intimidated, but liberal students would be equally protected from a conservative professor's rants and unfair grading policies. The idea is simple: KEEP YOUR POLITICS AND RELIGIOUS OPINIONS OUT OF THE CLASSROOM, whatever they are. We're talking about egregious offenses that have been reported by many students, not just the occasional political comment let loose in a classroom. The stories that are reported involve whole class periods being given over to the political rants of professors, and direct intimidation of students by unfair grading based on their political and religious views rather than the course material itself.This isn't about a professor's letting loose with an opinion in an unguarded moment. Nobody's going to sue over that minor a thing. I don't even know where this idea of suing anybody comes in. How hard is it to stick to the course curriculum anyway? What are you worried about? This is about patterns of abuse over long periods. How about a whole semester's worth of anti-Dubya rants and a punitive refusal to tolerate another point of view? Yes this happens. Obviously freedom of speech is a threat to the leftists who are up in arms over this proposal to protect that freedom in the classroom. Since when is freedom of speech equivalent to a person in authority's having the power to ridicule the views of a student and grade him on his opinions instead of his knowledge of the course material? This is what is happening now. Yes, that's all liberal bias talking, liberal paranoia, liberal refusal or inability to respect views contrary to their own. The misrepresentations of what this Bill of Rights would accomplish are absurd in the extreme. Few seem to care to read it and think about it.It protects freedom of thought, belief, opinion of the student who is at the mercy of professors after all, against the abuses of power by those authorities, perfectly liberal concerns one would think.This message has been edited by Faith, 06-08-2005 12:22 PM

No, Jar, the Bill of Rights is clearly talking about religious and poltical opinions, the rants that some indulge in just before elections for instance, the grading policies based on political and religious views.The evolution thing hasn't even been discussed that I've been aware of, it's not the concern of those promoting students' rights. They're all pro evolution I think and it hasn't become an issue. One would expect the relevant sciences to be taught from the evolutionist point of view of course.The only thing I can think of that might be affected would be a professor's ridiculing or grading down a student because he doesn't believe in evolution even though the student could demonstrate an understanding of the course material from an evolutionist perspective. Wouldn't that seem fair to you? The point should be the ability to demonstrate an understanding of the evolutionist view despite personal beliefs.

Any chance of some evidence to back these assertions up? I'm not necessarily disputing whether they are true - I'm on the other side of the Atlantic after all - but it would be good to see some actual examples.Well you knew somebody was going to ask didn't you?

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