Fundamentalist Insanity

Today’s Virginian Pilot has a story on the type of science being taught at the late Jerry Falwell’s Christianist Liberty University (in my opinion, one of Virginia's significant embarassments), which I find down right frightening. (http://content.hamptonroads.com/story.cfm?story=125584&ran=220383&tref=po) Here’s a portion of the story:

Marcus Ross, 30, is an assistant professor of geology at Liberty University, founded by the Rev. Jerry Falwell, who died May 15. He also is a young-Earth creationist who tells students he believes the planet is 6,000 years old. He earned a doctoral degree in geosciences from the University of Rhode Island last year after completing a dissertation on mosasaurs, a marine reptile that, as he wrote, vanished at the end of the Cretaceous era 65 million years ago.

Search for his name on the Internet and you'll find a vigorous debate: Should universities deny degrees to people based on their religious beliefs? Is it intellectually honest to submit a dissertation based on facts the author believes to be wrong? Is Ross seeking to cash in on his science by discrediting it?

"We believe Dr. Ross is doing a tremendous disservice to his students and the public," Nick Matzke, a spokesman for the National Center for Science Education, a nonprofit group in Oakland, Calif., that promotes the teaching of evolution, said in a telephone interview. Michael Dini, a professor of biology education at Texas Tech University, said Ross should not have been awarded a doctorate. "Anyone who uses religious scripture or theological doctrine as a litmus test to gauge the validity of a scientific theory is no scientist," he wrote in an e-mail. "Is this discrimination? Yes! It's discrimination against bad science."