Coyne: AAAS and Swamidass in WIRED Article

What about a neutral position for AAAS like its mission statement says. I have real concern about the long reach of Templeton funding. That is the problem. How can AAAS allow Templeton to come in and fund inniative within AAAS? I am an IEEE member, Templeton would not be allow to come in an support an outreach program in engineering to Christian students. It would be against the bylaw of the inherently secular organization. While I am not oppose for Dr. Swamidass to do science out reaches at Christian schools, him taking Templeton funding via AAAS can be problematic.

I am a member of that group on facebook. Thanks it is a good group.

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Who gets to define “neutral”?

Not Templeton. I would think AAAS member will be applauded at this initiative. I predict general member of AAAS will call for it’s termination.

I don’t believe that Templeton is attempting to define “neutral”.

I much prefer the judgment of AAAS over the judgment of Jerry Coyne, on the question of what is neutral.

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I want to be clear about this, I did not take templeton funding to do this. I recieved two or three very small honorariums that might trace funds back to Templeton. If there is a true conflict of interest here, I would gladly return these checks. I do not however believe there was a conflict.

One of the entertaining ironies of this situation is that Coyne and @patrick might have found common ground with Ken Ham on this one. He too was very concerned with Templeton funding collaboration between scientists and seminaries.

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For full disclosure, please list dates, amounts, and source of the honorariums that you accepted. Thank you.

This was years ago, and I do not have records. My recollection is that this was less than $1000 total, if even that. I’m not even sure if this was from Concordia or AAAS. The number from AAAS might have been zero.

The more central point is that I recieved zero finding for this effort. Small honorariums do not count as funding.

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Thank you for your openness and honesty.

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I see you have been silenced at Jerry Coyne’s blog. Of course he can do whatever he likes on his blog, but to write a post criticising someone and then limit their ability to respond is bordering on the “authoritarian leftism” that he so often criticises. Unfortunately, he has built up a sort of echochambre there as you can see from most of the comments.
Disclaimer: although I agree with a lot of what he says on many topics, I have been banned from commenting there firstly for unintentionally insulting him (my fault - it was a joke that misfired), after which I was put in permanent moderation despite my sincere apology; and then totally banned for disagreeing with him for putting up the comments of posters he had just banned for criticism by his regular readers.

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Welcome to the club. In my opinion, Coyne is far too hasty in banning people.

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Wait, he banned you too? Why?

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@BillyJoe.

He did not ban me, per se. He just asked me not to post so much. He might want more of a response now.

Well just don’t insult me here and we will be fine :stuck_out_tongue:.

Honestly, we have a lot of people here of a wide range of views. I’m sure you will fit in just fine. Welcome.

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You been limited. No he does not want more of a response. You already said too much. Can’t you just be a working scientist who happens to be Christian? There is a lot of work to do in science and we need scientists like you to help solve real problems. This GA stuff is really a waste of your talents. Do science and educate the public about science. Talk to kids, students about science. Inspire them to go into science careers.

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He actually invited me back, but I declined. I don’t want to give the impression that he banned me. He did not.

The GA stuff is temporary. After this book, I won’t have to put nearly as much energy into it. Other people will take it forward.

That is my focus, and where the bulk of my efforts go.

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Drop the book. Work on real science book on your subject matter if you want to publish a book. Get away from Theistic Evolution of Biologos, special creation of Adam and Eve, and GA. These can only cause your great harm and ridicule.

If I don’t set the record straight on this, perhaps no one will. If honestly about science brings me ridicule, then so be it. I’ll do what is right. I trust my colleagues to be fair.

I declined because blog comments are very poor way to hash out anything significant. Invited him to dialogue with me sometime on a videocast or podcast. Maybe he will. That could be fun.

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I don’t know. I just discovered that my attempts to post there all silently disappeared. I suspect that it was from disagreeing with Coyne about free will. But I’m not sure of that.

I’ll note that I was always polite and I was not repetitive.

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What record straight? Are you obsessing on the Biologos thing again? Get over it. The stakes are much higher for you now. Biologos is dead. You won. Move on. There are much more important things to do than to set some record straight about a pissing contest you had with Biologos two years ago.

You are getting hammered in the comments on the Coyne site.