Are Christian Born Again Professors discriminated against at the highest level academic teaching institutions?

Question

That the theory of intelligent design is a serious scientific alternative to the Darwinian theory of evolution is supported by 30.6 percent of professors at the community college teaching level.

Born-again Christians are not only to be found at religiously-affiliated institutions however, though they are present there in greater numbers. 17 percent of professors at secular schools describe themselves as born-again Christians, as compared to 29.6 percent at religiously-affiliated schools.

At elite doctoral institutions however, the numbers are significantly smaller

Professors who are born-again are extremely rare at elite doctoral institutions, composing only about one percent of professors at such institutions,

The study from which the above data was obtained was done by two sociologists, Neil Gross of Harvard University and Solon Simmons of George Mason University.

So going up an apparent quality scale of faculty at differing accademic levels of teaching institutions it appears that Christian Born Again Professors are employed substantially less and less the higher the school's accademic standards.

Is this anti Born Again secular predjudice or .....?

Answer 1

Yes, there is a bias. But it is not religious. It is scientific.

ID is not a theory. It makes no predictions, it offers no tests, it brooks no dissention. ID backers cannot find a single falsifiable test they can put it to. ID is not scientific.

It's funny that you mention 30.6% of community college teachers.

First, did you include only the science instructors, or did you include humanities instructors as well? If you included all, why should we care about the scientific beliefs of those who specialized in teaching remedial English, or those who specialized in teaching Latin? Would you want an automechanic doing your open heart surgery?

Second, you are aware, I'm sure, that many community colleges will accept even those holding only a bacchelaurete to stand as instructors of the introductory course work in a field. Only the second level and above will require the masters or PhD. So you're not really talking about the 'creme de la creme' here.

Third, community colleges are not generally institutions of research, they're institutes of teaching and learning. Your major biological breakthroughs will happen at the university level simply because those are the institutions that have the research facilities and funding to make the big breakthroughs. The instructors at a community college are usually book-educated, but not laboratory or field educated; their knowledge is theoretical, they've never personally directly applied their knowledge.

You also manage to fail utterly to recall well quoted research that shows that the higher the educational level, the lower the expression of fundamental religion or even spirituality. As you reach the PhD level, even in the humanities, that number drops to extremely low levels. To detect an anti born again correlation, you'd need to see what rate of professors are born again, then compare that to the rate of all PhD's, professors and non professors, who are born again. If 5% of PhD professors are born again, but 6% of all PhDs everywhere are (these are just for compare and not based on real research), then you cannot say there is discrimination -- the born agains are represented in kind in the small population as they are in the large population.

In short, your statistics are so horribly flawed to begin with that I can't believe I wasted my time answering this question. Ah well, two points is two points.

Answer 2

Well honestly, I don't think this has anything to do with discriminatory colleges, but I would be quicker to guess that there are not that many Intelligent Design professors because elite scientists who support Intelligent Design are low in number. I know there are some top scientists in various scientific fields that support Intelligent Design, but I think most Christians who get prestigious degrees either go into ministry or history, or they are happy enough teaching at lower college levels. Many Christians probably feel they wont be respected in the science field anyway so the vast majority simply avoids it. Besides, since the numbers of elite professors teaching Intelligent Design are few in number, naturally they would train only a few elite replacements.

Answer 3

The higher one get's in "price" of education the more smug the teachers tend to be. If religion were left completely out of secular education the actual academics tend to favor the smaller schools. Being in education for a lifetime myself I see as many mistakes from the status mills of the northeast (one of which I attended) as from anywhere else. It's probably no less myopic to be a social liberal than to be a religious fundamentalist. Both are forms of intellectual limitation implying arrogance. When considering a school for yourself or your kids make sure the prof's are as conversant with Plato as with Marx or Ingles, otherwise you'll have no way of comparing doctrines and will wind up with a lopsided view of the human condition. When such thinkers as Steven Hawking freely admit that their own education is a perpetually continuing effort it exposes the lack of depth of the liberal institutions as well as the "born agains". Don't be taken in, think for yourself, beyond the basics the hope of all good thinkers is to rise above the foundation layed by their teachers. Knowledge is not the exclusive property of the acadamy, the acadamy is nought but the next level above highschool, and there are much higher levels of learning. Believe it.

Answer 4

I am a former pastor (15 years), and current staff at a secular state sponsored university(5 years).
In my position I often manage searches for professors. While we have a non-discrimination clause, there is kind of an unwritten rule. Not so much just against born again Christians, but against anyone who is viewed as conservative or traditional.
I regularly have to listen to condescending comments about anyone conservative or "faith-based". That is unless you are Jewish or Muslim.
So, I think there are at least two things are work here - Supply and Demand.
1. On the demand side there is the anti-traditional bias.
2. On the supply side, there is the isolationists tradition among evangelicals. Read Mark Noll's "Scandal of the Evangelical Mind"
This is probably changing somewhat. However, for generations, evangelical scholars have not been encouraged to serve in secular institutions. So, we are playing serious catch-up in this regard.

Answer 5

I know of a person who was encouraged to leave his PhD education program because he home schooled his children and the University felt it was an embarassement to them

I think it depends on the field... probably less so in mathematics, physics and engineering... probably astronomy and biololgy moreso

It's funny when scholars change there was a classic text in the 60s called "Biochemical Predestination" about the inevitableness of evolution from a Californian college dept head... years later he changed his position and now wrote the home school science text "Of Pandas and People" which is more a creation/intelligent design curricula... sound schoarship yes but not taken so seriously by secular schools

Some Christian Creationists in astronomy have written about ther views under a pen name until getting their PhD. But probably in the fields of geology, biology and astronomy its challenging for creationists.

Truthfully it isn't only secular schools.... Christian schools might be a surprizing tough place for some Chrsitian views... one science teacher became a Christians and Creationists at a Christian school and it was the religion department that gave him the most flack.

Some outspoken scholarly Christians might be opposed by more liberal ones even at a Chrsistian school and there was a surprizing case inthe south this year about a very well researched but conservative pro life professor who was well published and was denied tenure apparently largely because of his political views too strong for some liberal tastes

Answer 6

I think it has more to do with the calibur of their thoughts and the ability of their ideas to withstand scientific scrutiny. Intelligent Design is a pretty flawed scientific premise. I've been following this broohah for three years. Behe is the most credible they have come up with. His basic premise is "irreducible complexity" which mainly involves looking at complicated processes or systems (particularly biochemical) in biology that we don't yet understand the evolutionary pathway. He says since we don't know how it could have evolved and it looks too complicated to have evolved on its own it must be God. This was torn apart on the stand in the trail to push ID into schools in PA. There are many things that we formally didn't understand how could have evolved but have now developed understanding. It is reasonable to think that we will continue to unravel the process of evolution rather than just because we don't know now it was God.

Answer 7

Perhaps, it's the fact that Intelligent Design isn't science. It's an untestable political doctrine designed to slip religion into public schools. I haven't seen a single quantitative measure of God's intervention proposed.

Answer 8

The answer to your question is not only yes, but it is prophesized in the bible in reguards to all Chrsitians.

Luke 21:12 But before all these, they shall lay their hands on you, and persecute you, delivering you up to the synagogues, and into prisons, being brought before kings and rulers for my name's sake.

Persecution can come in different forms and descrimination is one of them. So God has given us a tool to use when that happens....

Matthew 5:44 But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you;

1 Thessalonians 5:17 Pray without ceasing

But the true Born again Christian professor already knows this, Praise the Lord!!

Answer 9

Is this anti Born Again secular prejudice or Discrimination against crackpots.....?

Love and blessings Don

Answer 10

Interesting facts....but cause will take a lot more digging....that is the start of the scientific process...we see a pattern, now let's see what is the cause and the reason...