University fires scientist, July 2014

University Fires Christian Scientist for Discovery Proving Creationism
11:00AM EDT 7/29/2014A scientist was terminated from his job at a California State University campus after discovering soft tissue on a triceratops fossil and then publishing his findings. Pacific Justice Institute filed suit last week with the Los Angeles County Superior Court against the board of trustees of CSU, Northridge, citing discrimination for perceived religious views."Terminating an employee because of their religious views is completely inappropriate and illegal," commented Brad Dacus, president of PJI. "But doing so in an attempt to silence scientific speech at a public university is even more alarming. This should be a wake-up call and warning to the entire world of academia," he continued.While at a dig at the Hell Creek formation in Montana, the scientist, Mark Armitage, came upon the largest triceratops horn ever unearthed at the site. When examining the horn under a high-powered microscope back at CSUN, Armitage was fascinated to see the soft tissue. The discovery stunned members of the scientific community because it indicates that dinosaurs roamed the earth only thousands of years in the past rather than going extinct 65 million years ago, as the scientific consensus believes.According to court documents, shortly after the original soft tissue discovery, a university official challenged the motives of Armitage, by shouting at him, "We are not going to tolerate your religion in this department!"Armitage, a published scientist of more than 30 years, was subsequently let go after CSUN abruptly claimed his appointment at the university of 38 months had been temporary and claimed a lack of funding for his position. This was news to him and contradicted prior statements and documents from the university."It has become apparent that 'diversity' and 'intellectual curiosity,' so often touted as hallmarks of a university education, do not apply to those with a religious point of view," said Michael Peffer, staff attorney with PJI's southern California office. "This suit was filed, in part, to vindicate those ideals."Resource: http://www.charismanews.com/...discovery-proving-creationism

Too funny.The scary part is that anyone hired such a loony in the first place.

But this is obviously nonsense. Plenty of scientists have found preserved dinosaur soft tissue over the course of the last decade without being fired. That will be what gave him and his co-author the idea to look for some more. His co-author is Kevin Lee Anderson, also not fired. And the discovery manifestly does not "prove creationism", nor does the paper claim that it does.

Someone's being a total dick here but it's not obvious from the article who - atm, I'm betting it's the uni. Presumably the paper was peer reviewd? You don't get fired for bad religion, you get fired for bad science - otherwise I'm on the streets with a placard.

Here are the 'court documents', which is commonly called 'the complaint'. His story is that after telling students that the fossil's soft tissue had implications regarding its age, his supervisor yelled at him about religion and his 'creationist projects'. 8 months later (two weeks after publication) his employment was terminated. He believes he can make a case that this correlation is sufficient to prove causation in a civil case.We haven't heard the opposing position at this time as far as I know. I'm going to guess two possible avenues: Funding cuts {boring}, and there were complaints that Armitage had crossed the line from expressing an opinion to proselytizing.Either way, I think headlines such as University Fires Christian Scientist for Discovery Proving Creationism are grotesquely misleading as it presents it as a done deal, rather than just an allegation. And also: the discovery doesn't prove creationism or even a young earth. At best it proves recent dinosaurs, and it doesn't even do that.

Mark Armitage: Evolutionists On The RunMark Armitage: “Evolutionists On The Run” | The Sensuous Curmudgeon

This is from Charisma Magazine's website.This is the magazine that recently called for a global holocaust to kill all muslims. Charismanews.com goes full-on Hutu radio
Charisma is trying to get missionaries killed
Charisma gives no apology, no explanation for its deleted pro-genocide article
Charisma’s history of unaccountable dishonesty
Charisma News Publishes a Call for GenocideClearly the Christian Persecution Complex is strong in that report.Here's a different take on Mark Armitage and his firing:
Mark Armitage — Creationism and Bad Science

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Someone's being a total dick here but it's not obvious from the article who - atm, I'm betting it's the uni.

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That's a not very safe bet in cases involving creationists.

Let's get a bit closer to the truth, here.He was not appointed as a scientist by CSUN. He was not employed to do research. He was employed as a technician. He thus was abusing University facilities. Instant dismissal in the country I live in. Lets have a look at his qualifications.Liberty and ICR? And they call him a scientist?With those "qualifications" it was a bad idea to even employ him as a technician. Hopefully this will teach American Universities never to employ "graduates" from Liberty and the ICR; not even temporarily as technicians. Those guys are not there to do science; they're there to preach.

I would have more respect for people who claim they graduated from Hogwarts.

This does not prohibit him from being a scientist. Those credentials serve their own purpose. Credentials don't make someone a scientist.Armitage, M. 1996. Heterophyid trematodes in the Light of Scanning Electron Microscopy. Microscopy and Analysis. July: 54: 43-44. 1 Gable Cottage Post House Lane, Surrey KT23 3EA ENGLANDArmitage, M. 1997. The Euryhaline cottid fish, Leptocottus armatus (Girard), second intermediate host of the trematode Ascocotyle (P.) diminuta. Bulletin of the Southern Calif. Academy of Sciences 96(3) :112-116Armitage, M. 1999. The euryhaline gobiid fish, Gillichthys mirabilis Cooper 1874, second intermediate host of the trematode, Pygidiopsoides spindalis Martin, 1951. Bulletin of the Southern California Academy of Sciences 98(2):75-79 . Cover photo, in addition to article.Armitage, M. 2001. Cercarial emergence from rediae in California snail tissues. Bulletin of the Southern California Academy of Sciences 100(1) 50-58. Cover photo in addition to article.Armitage, M. 2004. The spray nozzle of the Bombardier Beetle, Brachinus favicollis, Erwin. Bulletin of the Southern California Academy of Sciences 103(1): 24-33.Armitage, M. 2004. Artifacts from rapid microwave processing of trematode tissues (Ascocotyle pachycystis and leighi). Microscopy Today 12(5):32-35Doing science? That qualifies, I think, even if it isn't all that exciting. Interesting angle. Although I think him engaging in a 'Socratic dialogue' about the age of the horn while training someone else's students how to use a microscope may have been contributory to his dismissal.

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Armitage, M. 2004. Artifacts from rapid microwave processing of trematode tissues (Ascocotyle pachycystis and leighi). Microscopy Today 12(5):32-35

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I'd say that whether or not he is a scientist is beside the point. He is apparently a more than competent electron microscope technician. I think the people who say he should not be hired because he attended Liberty U are way wrong.But I don't see any particular qualifications to sound off on the topics that seem to have gotten him fired.

There are people with proper qualifications who need jobs.

I disagree.Where I work, "graduates" from Liberty University come around to apply for jobs quite often. They normally claim to be coal Geologists. Yet they are are Christian Missionaries.In the interview phase none of those has ever even tried to answer very, very basic questions. What is a Proximate analysis? What is an Ultimate analysis? They don't know.Imagine employing those and expect coal mining companies to pay for their 'services' on geology.Liberty "graduates" tend to know the same about coal as a two year old child.Those people haven't had even one day's education in coal geology; yet they pretend to know it all. Don't ever hire them.

Of course, the burden-of-proof isn't upon anyone to prove a "recent dinosaur", unless one assumes that fragmentary and tenuous, inductive, historical evidence "proves old dinosaurs". Which it doesn't of course, the only people to believe it does are people who conflate the term, "proof" with "evidence" like the person who started the thread did.Any materialist conclusion is acceptable, no matter how silly, (example: abiogenesis) and any Theistic offerings are rejected, no matter how sound.(Overt information code in organisms)As long as people don't confuse the soundness of a claim with all those that are accepted by mainstream science, as opposed to an actual syllogistic offering, then I'm happy. After all, if history had went the other way, then Darwin would have been thrown out if he was alive today. This in itself tells us nothing about the legitimacy of a claim. It should also be pointed out that evolutionists should try to avoid the Ad Logicam fallacy, which they should read up about if they want to know how that would potentially pertain to an issue such as this. I agree. It would be confirmation evidence represented by the consequent in a conditional implication, because we would expect to find preserved, "less old" tissue if the earth and life is younger, as opposed to millions of years older, because it doesn't makes sense to suspend scientific-laws on behalf of a theory.Dinosaur soft tissue and protein--even more confirmation! - creation.com
worm fossils still soft - creation.comOf course the claims in the links, I wouldn't say are "final proof" by any means. Anyone silly enough to take out a strawman-policy against mike might regret it. my only point is that there are genuine scientists that argue strong arguments in favour of young-dinosaurs.I concede the technicality that this would only prove a younger dinosaur, so you made two logically correct statements;1. It wouldn't be proof.
2. It would be evidence of a young organism.