La Sierra University April 2011--
L. Lee Grismer, a field biologist at La Sierra University in Riverside, is gaga over a new species of forest gecko from Southeast Asia that he will present in the scientific journal Zootaxa in three months.
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Grismer will test his hypothesis that the forest lizard is closely related to another new species he discovered last June. He will isolate the forest gecko's DNA and compare it to that of a similar reptile he tracked down in a cave at the Malaysia-Thailand border."We're still in the age of discovery," said Grismer, who is credited with detecting more than 80 new species of reptiles and amphibians during the past 35 years.
To us normal, sane scientists (well, as normal and as sane scientists can reasonably be expected to be) this is exciting, but pretty standard news. There is a guy who teaches at some university who is really friggen cool and has discovered over 80 new species of creatures. Thats friggen nuts! And here he found another one. Gonna figure out how the new one is related to all the other ones we know about. Huzzah!
NO HUZZAH! NO!
La Sierra University May 2012--
A La Sierra University professor and three university trustees said they were dismissed for trying to resolve a years-long controversy over creationism and evolution that has threatened the religious institution's accreditation.Lee Greer, an assistant professor of biology, said the Riverside university refused to renew his three-year contract.
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The dismissals appear to be the latest chapter in a struggle by the Seventh-day Adventist institution to reconcile the church belief that God created the Earth in six days with the scientific consensus supporting the theory of evolution.
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Greer said he initiated discussions that led to a statement proposing that creation be taught in university classrooms as faith, rather than science, and that students be told that it could not be proven with scientific methods.
They fired a biology teacher for making sure the kids will get taught... biology... in biology class...
*blink*
They also fired three of the four trustees who approved of his proposal
Before the board voted on the proposal, it dismissed three of the four trustees who supported it.
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Carla Lidner Baum
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Kathryn Proffitt
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Marta Tooma
Last year, this school was *celebrating* yet another discovery made by one of their biology faculty. An amazing man who used evolution to increase the prestige of La Sierra University.
This year, they are firing 'not renewing the contract' of one of their biology faculty for wanting the schools position on evolution clear for the students... And firing 'dismissing' three trustees who supported him.
Curiously, three trustees who are female. Who wants to start a betting pool as to whether that fourth trustee, the one who was not fired, is a male? Considering the fundamentalist turn this university has taken regarding evolution, I assume their tolerance of educated, accomplished women has taken a similarly radical turn. Go on, click the hyperlinks in their names. *points up*
They were fired for supporting evolution.
La Sierra University, your message is clear.
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For what it's worth, they are bound to lose their accreditation for their bullshit. I'm sure they soon be shocked when enrollments plummet as a result.
This is apalling! It's science... How can they "dismiss" great scientists for teaching great science? This scientist obviously know's what he's talking about. Seventh-day Adventist or not, this is unfair. They can believe what they want for as long as they want, but it will be the scientists and logisticians who come up and slap them in the face with the truth. Really...
I'm already on the phone with Ben Stein. Expect part 2 of Expelled by summer.
PS. It seems that in the course of one phone conversation, the new movie is already bankrupt and will need to be sold off. But we won't be stopped by you capitalists!
Wait. We need more Jews on the project - then we can spend Ben Stein's money.
Wow, just wow. I agree w/Lledowyn, the university should lose its accreditation for this shit.
I wonder whether the people running La Sierra University have burned any witches lately. No? Disgraceful.
Hopefully, they will be able to find another job easily with that.
Interviewer:"So why did you quite your last job?"
L. Lee Grismer:"Because I was teaching evolution."
Interviewer:"...What?"
L. Lee Grismer:"Yes I discovered new gecko species and I wanted to test an hypothesis of mine that it was closely related to the forest lizard. Look they even wrote articles about it in the newspaper."
Interviewer:"...Consider yourself hired."
Nononono-- Different Lee Gs!
The scientist finding stuff and using evolution has been at the uni for decades-- L. Lee Grismer
The scientist fired was a new guy wanting to make the schools position on evolution clear to keep the schools accreditation-- Lee Greer
That confused me too-- I knew I should have emphasized the different/same names!
Grismer was smart enough to keep his mouth shut about evolution at work while using this sick, wacko, unauthorized theory to produce publications. The guy has great social/survival skills, he is my kind of accomadationist.
Perhaps he got a reward for turning in those three troublesome females in administration ?
I'm going to have to stop reading your blog if you keep infecting it with reality - depressing as the news is. Let's take a page out of the religious playbook and just make up shit that makes us (well, more importantly me) feel good. I fully expect that by morning I will have a notification that evolution is now no longer "controversial" in the public schools and is taught everywhere.
Also, abstinence only education has died at the hands of a strange disease I'll call 'growing the fuck up'.
RA(wo)men.
Watch Dr. Lee Grismer and his geckos here:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/life/Gecko#p00cqcl0
LOL. Evolutionists can dish it out (Sternberg) but they can't take it.
I was just assuming based on prior news-media experience that 'Greer' and 'Grismer' were typological variants... possibly of 'Wychowski'.
Looks like they're accredited through 2017 or 2018 by the Wikipedia article.
I attended La Sierra when I was in college and chose the college because of what it stands for - I wanted to get an SDA education. If i wanted to learn about evolution, then I would have gone to a non-SDA school. If the faculty want to teach evolution as truth, then teach somewhere else. Do they now know that La Sierra U is an SDA school. Look also at who they chose as CHAIR for the Biology department: Grismer - he is leading the Biology Department away from God.