Don’t look now math and science majors and Biola professors but once again Richard Dawkins is calling you out. And this time he’s bringing some Shakespearean language out of the holster.

In a blog post he penned last month for the popular tech blog BoingBoing.net, Dawkins addresses the case in which young earth creationist Martin Gaskell applied for a job teaching astronomy at the University of Kentucky.

He was denied the job despite being, according to the chairman of the committee Thomas Troland, “so superbly qualified, so breathtakingly above the other applicants in background and experience,” that he would have been the obvious choice if not for his religious beliefs. Gaskell took the university to court for discriminating against him on a religious basis, and denying him employment at a position he was beyond adequately qualified for. The case was eventually settled out-of-court for $125,000.

Dawkins delivers opinion

Dawkins, who perhaps regards himself as a sort of philosophical superman these days, leapt dramatically to the defense of the university’s decision, and expressed disappointment when it “caved” and settled with Gaskell.

His blog entry is nothing we haven’t seen before, in terms of style, from the man who has done for atheism what The Beatles did for rock ’n’ roll. The article is similarly cold and straightforward and uses a lot of allegory to devastating effect as usual. Underneath the logical, heady overtones there is a brooding undercurrent of bile for the theist population, especially those who want to invade the sciences like so many Huns of yore, toppling everything the man has worked so hard for.

Frauds, fakes, and accusations

A little of that bile seeps through to the surface, though. Given that Gaskell has proven himself able to teach and research effectively on premises that as a Young Earth Creationist he might hold to be false, he seems qualified. Dawkins objects:

“My colleague takes the view that this [young-earth creationist] is entitled to a job as a professor of astronomy, because he keeps his private beliefs to himself while at work. I take the opposite view. I would object to employing him, on the grounds that his research papers, and his lectures to students, are filled with what he personally believes to be falsehoods. He is a fake, a fraud, a charlatan, drawing a salary for a job that could have gone to an honest astronomer. Moreover, I would regard his equanimity in holding two diametrically opposing views simultaneously in his head as a revealing indicator that there is something wrong with his head.”

So, in Richard Dawkins’ estimation, we are a university of charlatans. Forsooth! Yea and verily hath we professed to disciplines for which ill-prepared are we!
Sorry about that…

But let’s extrapolate that out for a moment. Dawkins’ claims in this single paragraph are chock-full of implications, and they accurately sum up his and many of his colleagues’ feelings toward employing a theist in a scientific or academic field.

A disclaimer

First, though, let me remind myself that the Internet is a vast and magical place where the things I write might actually be read by somebody who takes offense at a liberal arts undergraduate university like myself trying to go toe-to-toe with a professor emeritus at Oxford. In neither rhetoric nor in scientific nor philosophical knowledge do I consider myself equal with Dawkins. He’s a brilliant man.

A response

However, I think there’s something to be said here. Dawkins himself is offended when somebody like a Young Earth Creationist tries to live and breathe in the world of old earth, evolutionary and Darwinian sciences.

I would be beyond intrigued, then, to discover just why exactly Dawkins feels compelled to tell me about God when Dawkins himself holds him to be false. By his own metric, he is not qualified to talk about him. About his existence, sure. That’s a metaphysical study, rather than a theological one. But not about his nature, or the qualities of his character.

In his massively popular book “The God Delusion,” and other places, he slams the God of the Bible in many ignorant and offensive ways. He makes appeals to God’s character as “a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully.” His lack of understanding about God and theology is probably as offensive to me as it would be to him for me to give a talk on the biological principals of evolution or something.

A conclusion

But I’m sure Dawkins would sooner perish than lay down his sword when it comes to taking his rhetoric to the big, bad theists. So either Dawkins is a massive hypocrite, or the University of Kentucky’s science department overlooked a perfectly competent employee.

Oh well. $125,000 seems like a pretty sweet parting gift. Huzzah!