re: #278 J.S.

I think that at times what happens is that insults and abuse are hurled one side versus the other — and everyone’s caught up in the heated exchanges, and meanwhile the more important aspects are overlooked. For example, I don’t care about her beliefs about invisible entities or what she claims took place in year X, etc, etc. What I do care about (and perhaps what others should care about) are things such as

But I don’t see how these beliefs that you diminish in importance can be divorced from everything else. Certainly this woman would not separate them out.

1) How, precisely, do her beliefs impede her scientific inquiries? This needs to be specified; it needs to be pinpointed; elaborated. If necessary, perhaps her “research” needs to be re-examined. Examined rigourously…perhaps including her PhD dissertation.

Granted, she could do “research” of the sort that is done by research assistants, cataloging chemical reactions and biological interactions. She herself said that understanding broader issues was not necessary and didn’t enter into her work (I paraphrase).

2) How are such individuals (assuming that question number 1 has been addressed) allowed to obtain advanced degrees? Is some sort of disciplinary action required? Who were her supervisors?

It would be interesting to hear if someone can play detective and follow that up, but we have had stranger people in academia in many fronts.

(imo, these matters may be more important than whether or not she’s believing that “sin causes cancer.”)

They are important in understanding how our education system fails, but in this case my reaction was simply due to the fact I sometimes get pissed off when fanatics tell me, directly or indirectly, that I’m going to burn in hell because of their loving yet unforgiving god. It is a vain conceit (a sin I believe) that deserves no respect.