HT: Jammer, UD commenter
The Clergy Letter Project was organized to help promote Darwinism in the churches. They maintained a directory of Scientists on call to help Clergy. However the clergy letter project has a checkered past of recruiting scientists with dubious ethical standards to help spread the Gospel according to Darwin. Were it not for the diligent reporting of news at Uncommon Descent it is possible that they might not have so swiftly removed the name of Darwin Day Slayer Amy Bishop from their list of Scientists on call to help Clergy.
Amy Bishop was removed from their rolls, but they need to update their directory again as it currently reads:
Name: Stephen Matheson, Ph.D.
Title: Associate Professor of Biology
Address: Department of Biology
Calvin College
Grand Rapids, MI 49546-4403
Areas of Expertise: developmental biology, cell biology, neurobiology, genetics, evolution
Email: matheson@calvin.edu
That’s no longer true. Here is a video and text from Fox News TV: Professor Resigns After Alleged Student Sex Scandal.
FOX 17 received a letter from the college Monday that was sent out to the student body late last week.
According to the letter, allegations of a relationship came to light this past may, when a student revealed to the Provost’s office that Professor Steve Matheson had a sexual relationship with her.
Calvin College initiated an internal review and investigation, and put a special task force together to handle such situations.
The task force will aim to educate students on how to prevent and properly address allegations of sexual harassment.
In the letter, the college says “We are deeply grieved by this news. We want to believe that such behavior doesn’t occur in a Christian community such as ours, but it can. On behalf of the college, we are very sorry that this took place here.”
Fox reported that Matheson resigned under threat of termination. Steve’s own google-plus page previously reported that Steve Matheson lives with his wife and their 4 kids. The letter from Calvin College is here: Calvin College Letter to Students
The college has an obligation to protect our students against sexual harassment that has or may occur and we want to assure you that we take that obligation seriously. Therefore, the task force believes it is necessary to share with you that the professor was Steve Matheson.
Matheson hasn’t issued any public comment. He has debated members of the ID community like Dr. Stephen Meyer. Matheson has presented himself as a Christian who also accepts Darwinism. We learn here
Matheson feels it necessary not just to critique SITC [Signature in The Cell] but to attack Meyer personally. Matheson smears the book as “not a serious work of scholarship,” not “serious science,” “awfully bloated,” potentially “a joke,” “disingenuous,” “sad,” “pathetic,” and “fluffy and vacuous, simplistic at best and not infrequently wrong or misleading.” In case you didn’t get the point, Matheson accuses Meyer of “some combination of ignorance, sloth, and duplicity,” using tactics that require “layers of dishonesty” that are “sufficient to justify a charge of deliberate dishonesty.”
further as reported in The Discovery Institute Needs to be Destroyed, Matheson said:
Your Discovery Institute is a horrific mistake, an epic intellectual tragedy that is degrading the minds of those who consume its products and bringing dishonor to you and to the church. It is for good reason that Casey Luskin is held in such extreme contempt by your movement’s critics, and there’s something truly sick about the pattern of attacks that your operatives launched in the weeks after the Biola event. It’s clear that you have a cadre of attack dogs that do this work for you…I can’t state this strongly enough: the Discovery Institute is a dangerous cancer on the Christian intellect, both because of its unyielding commitment to dishonesty and because of its creepy mission…It needs to be destroyed, and I will do what I can to bring that about.
Steve Matheson,
Open Letter to Stephen Meyer
The point of me posting this is that many Darwinists present themselves as Christians and try to use their affiliation with the church as leverage to promote Darwinism. I respect their willingness to follow their conscience, but sometimes their own words and possibly their behavior (as in the case of Amy Bishop and possibly Steve Matheson), take them out of the debate. I support academic freedom for all scholars including Christian Darwinists, but for the debate to proceed they have to not take themselves out of the discussion in the manner that Amy Bishop and possibly Steve Matheson have taken themselves out of the debate.
I hope for Steve’s sake, the allegations are false and that he’ll return to debating the ID and UD community. He has a fine intellect, and he was the source of many lively scientific exchanges.
PS
Steve Matheson is also on the NCSE’s list of Steve’s. Although, I expect the NCSE to maintain Matheson’s name on their list since the NCSE has no religious affiliation and to my knowledge, being under suspicion of sexual harassment doesn’t disqualify Matheson from being listed by the NCSE:
Stephen Matheson******
Associate Professor of Biology, Calvin College
Ph.D., Neuroscience, University of Arizonahttp://ncse.com/taking-action/list-steves
Update:
Matheson was a contributing author to Pandas Thumb, the longtime rival blog of Uncommon Descent.