Re: [asa] Expelled finale

I, too, enjoyed the review. You weren't kidding about the length; between interruptions from
my kids and dog I think I spent more time reading it than I would have spent watching the film!
(I haven't gone and don't intend to.)

My major sticking points with the review were the repeated use of "Darwinism" as an evolution
synonym which 1) minimizes the many advances made in evolutionary biology over the last
century and a half and tends to reinforced the notion of stubborn and close-minded academics
clinging to a 19th century idea and 2) is too often conflated with social Darwinism. I also think
it could have been mentioned that, in addition to being clearly behind the curve on funded,
Gonzales had never trained a PhD student. In my experience, the basic message to junior
faculty in the hard sciences at research universities is that three things are important for
getting tenure 1) publishing 2) getting grants and 3) training PhD students. Maybe, in some
schools, you can be deficient in one and still get tenure if the other two are strong, though
that's unlikely given that the PI needs the grad students to do the studies that get published
and the grant money to fund them. Be notedly lacking in two and you're a goner, unless you've
brought so much money to your institution that they can't afford to lose you. But how likely is
that level of funding likely to happen with low numbers of papers and trainees?

I've sent the review link to a couple of friends who are enthusiastic about the movie; I'll be
interested to see how they respond.

Louise (ASA member)
__
Louise M. Freeman, PhD
Psychology Dept
Mary Baldwin College
Staunton, VA 24401
540-887-7326
FAX 540-887-7121

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Received on Wed May 7 00:01:23 2008