BOSTON - A Christian biologist is suing the prestigious Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts, claiming he was fired for refusing to accept evolution, lawyers involved in the case said on Friday.

Nathaniel Abraham, an Indian national who describes himself as a "Bible-believing Christian," said in the suit filed on Monday in U.S. District Court in Boston that he was fired in 2004 because he would not accept evolution as scientific fact.

The latest U.S. academic spat over science and religion was first reported in The Boston Globe newspaper on Friday. Gibbs Law Firm in Florida, which is representing Abraham, said he was seeking $500,000 in compensation.

The zebrafish specialist said his civil rights were violated when he was dismissed shortly after telling his superior he did not accept evolution because he believed the Bible presented a true account of human creation.

Creationists such as Abraham believe God made the world in six days, as the Bible's Book of Genesis says.

Woods Hole, a federally funded nonprofit research center on Cape Cod, said in a statement it firmly believed its actions and those of its employees in the case were "entirely lawful" and that it does not discriminate.

Abraham, who was dismissed eight months after he was hired, said he was willing to do research using evolutionary concepts but that he had been required to accept Darwin's theory of evolution as scientific fact or lose his job.

The Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination dismissed the case this year, saying Abraham's request not to work on evolutionary aspects of research would be difficult for Woods Hole because its work is based on evolutionary theories.

Abraham said this condition was never spelled out in the advertisement for the job and that his dismissal led to severe economic losses, an injured reputation, emotional pain and suffering and mental anguish.

The case underscores tension between scientists, who see creationist views as anti-science, and evangelical Christians who argue that protections of religious freedom enshrined in the U.S. Constitution extend to scientific settings.

Abraham, 35, is now a biology professor at Liberty University, a Baptist school in Virginia founded by the Rev. Jerry Falwell, a Christian pastor and televangelist.

I'd like to think that the guy has a case. This excerpt is a little bit confusing:


Was he or was he not willing to perform work based on the idea of evolution (regardless of whether he believed it or not)?

I can see both sides of the argument, but I definitely sympathize more with the guy who was fired. As a Christian engineer, I've had more than one person tell me that because I resort to faith in any aspect of my thinking, it damages my credibility as a rational person. Granted, this guy's irrational thinking directly relates to the subject matter that he was hired to research, so his situation is a little bit clearer. Where should the line be drawn, though? Should the line be drawn at all?

Religion + biology = oxymoron. NO.

Religion is the act and will of good works with compassion and sympathy in motive, at best.

Biology is a science exploring observations of natural living organisms and their mechanics, at the very least.

To be an oxymoron, there must be a contradiction between the two.

Religion and biology are neither contradictions, nor redundancies.

They are two deliberate disciplines of two different observations about life as we know it.

One is spiritual and the other is physiological.

They are both distinctions made of certain components of the observations made about the natural world as we know it.


That a lawsuit was engendered and motioning the stipulation that he was injured, ignores his subsequent employ and therefore is without merit in a court of law.

The court would view this case as one of conjecture over hypotheticals in the end, and not give it standing as a breach of law.

There is no case there. If you are a scientist who doesn't accept the certian parts of science they cant work in that feild. It is not discrimination. This situation is like working as a docor but not accepting that medicine really works, and that the only thing that heals is God. While there is nothing wrong with believing that who is going to the doctor who doesn't give out medication to heal?

Did Jesus say you can't have two masters? You can't both believe in the religious story of creation as fact and work toward an advancement of evolution theory. That's the oxymoron in the story.

I disagree.

One could viably employ scientific examination and observation and experimentation and pursue evidence that will lead to the judgement necessary to support and defend the model thesis or refute it as not credible.

There is no oxymoron, only emotional disagreement in this case.

You can, however, perform good science by gathering evidence, making observations, and drawing conclusions. It so happens that this scientist has drawn the conclusion that the evidence and observations point to God and not to evolution. Most people in the scientific community would disagree with him, but that doesn't mean that he's engaged in junk science. If he has a plausible, rational argument to support his case, he's not a bad scientist. (Okay, I'm playing the devil's advocate here. Ultimately, I agree that good science is probably not going to point to God in the sense that this gentleman is suggesting.) On the other hand, if he believes in the operation of evolution, but not, necessarily, the mechanism of random mutation, I'd say he could still make worthwhile contributions to his field.

Science is not the opposite of religion. Science is trying to explain the universal rules that God created. They are not out to prove God doesn't exist.I know many religious people who accept evolution as a tool of God to create humans.

While it is more of an absolute irrelevence, most could easily make-out the latteral use of oxymoron is this context.



That might be a your very personal interpretation of religion 'wouldee', and you are certainly entitled to it, but for the rest of us, religion is based on faith and beliefs and requires '... the recognition on the part of those practicing it, of a controlling superhuman power entitled to obedience, reverence and worship; a particular sustem of faith in and worship of a supreme being or god or gods ...'




And to present a clear and unarguable oxymoron, we simply have to oppose the following roots of both elements:

Beliefs and Faith (Religion) and Scientific Facts (Biology)

'Oxymoronic' obviously!!! Where there is faith, there are no facts. And where there are facts, there is no faith.


The insistence on the part of militant 'faith' and religions to 'control' its disciples through every domain and dimension of life, is the source of many a delusion and oxymorons.

Dissection of a subject title - dun, dun, daaaaaaa........., sorry struck me as amusing, carry on gentleman.

Pffffft. So it should be perfectly OK if a doctor decides to treat all his patients through the use of voodoo dolls. I see.

How can I work on something I believe doesn't exist???

There is 'THE' divine oxymoron, delivered to this thread by an angel of god, nothing less!!!

He had no clue evolution would be an aspect when he was hired for this gig? Only half the story is told and bottom line depends on the content of papers he signed when he was hired case-wise.

I would imagine one could work with something they did not believe in, merely to in an attempt to disprove the more popular belief. Gives another angle to the work versus the way others will look at it.

this concept is incorrect

that is like saying

you can not debate a subject

on the argue side for the subject

when you are against said subject

------------------

as long as the firing company can not prove

he refused to do the assigned work

he wins

like i said

they have to prove

he would/could or did not do his assigned work

belief is irrelevant

Well, would you start to work for a company when you don't even know what they are doing?
And what about interviews, a tour, and all the head ups you are getting before you even start????

Invisible, what is a "head up"?

it still goes back to did he do his job or not

it really is that simple

This is a straw man argument. Nobody is saying anything remotely like this. I would go to a doctor who believed in the use of voodoo and recommended it to all of his patients, as long as he still used accepted medical techniques despite his personal angle.