Josh Benner

Tag: higher ed

  • Best of 2018. #1 Researchers troll academic journals with ridiculous hoax papers, they still get published

    As 2018 comes to a close, I am sharing some of my top posts from this year. 

    A trio of concerned academics has published seven intentionally absurd papers in leading scholarly journals as part of an investigation to expose extreme bias in fields that study race, gender, sexuality, and other politically-charged topics.

    The trio say the papers, which used fabricated authors and credentials, highlight that these fields are being misled by politically-motivated research and biased methodologies.

    –Media Release – James Lindsay, Peter Boghossian, and Helen Pluckrose

    This is the summary from a group of researchers who set out to expose some of the pitfalls within humanities and liberal studies academic disciplines. They submitted a series of papers to various journals. There work was published in seven of them. (more…)

  • Mary too? Professor argues Mary carried Jesus without consent

    Came across a story this morning about a recent Tweet from a college professor at the University of Minnesota Mankato.

    Eric Sprankle talked about the virgin birth of Jesus and said: “The virgin birth story is about an all-knowing, all-powrful deity impregnating a human teen. There is no definition of consent that would include that scenario. Happy Holidays.”

    “There is no definition of consent that would include that scenario?”

    First of all, he’s entirely missing the point. Second of all, he’s wrong. In the Gospel of Luke, Mary actually does say “I am the servant of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word” (Luke 1:38).

    People have brought that up. But that doesn’t count, according to Dr. Sprankle who says, “The Biblical god regularly punished disobedience. The power difference (deith vs mortal) and the potential for violence for saying “no” negates her “yes.”

    Seriously?

    Christians believe that before the conception of Jesus, an angel of God appeared to Mary and told her that she had been chosen for this once in human history task of being able to carry the Lord.

    And this professor is essentially arguing that because of a power imbalance, she didn’t really have a choice?

    His Tweets are incoherent. In the first one, he says that God is all-powerful and all-knowing (both of which are true). But then he argues against the divine plan of an all-knowing God in choosing Mary to give birth to Jesus. She wasn’t chosen at random.

    And God is all-powerful. Men are not all-knowing nor are we all-powerful. We are unworthy of God. We are created for God. There is a power imbalance. We are not equal to God. And when I say the Tweets are incoherent, I mean that it’s incoherent to say that God is all-knowing and then to question his wisdom of morality and his plans.

    Sprankle’s definition of consent is so radical and limited that even giving consent doesn’t count. It’s intellectually dishonest. It’s referring to a once-in-human-history event. Also, this has nothing to do with sexual consent anyway!

    But if you continue to read in the gospel account, Mary continues to be perfectly happy with this situation.

    “My soul magnifies the Lord,
     and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,
    for he has looked on the humble estate of his servant.
    For behold, from now on all generations will call me blessed;

    -Luke 1:46-48

    She didn’t give consent? Mary seems pretty ok with the arrangement. And it was through this act that the savior of the world came into the world to save the world from sin.

    One day we will all be held to account for our lives and actions. And there won’t be equality with God then either. God is awesomely powerful, righteous, and holy. We are not. We are sinful. We are so sinful that the only way we could be redeemed was for God to come into the world. The birth of Christ shows us that from beginning to end, Jesus had a divine ministry. Jesus came into a world that was so sinful that the world killed him. He did that so we could be forgiven. We are sinful and cannot make ourselves right with God. But Jesus came so that we could be with God. Not because we deserved it. Not because we are God’s peers. But out of his goodness and grace.

    Jesus did that to save sinners. Even sinners who mock the gospel and the righteousness of God. But we must repent of our sins and turn to Christ and trust in the life that he promises.

    Thanks for reading! I’d love to hear what you think, and don’t forget to subscribe! 

    Josh Benner is the associate pastor at Cornerstone Evangelical Free Church in Fergus Falls, Minnesota and has a Master of Divinity from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. He enjoys writing about faith and culture. He lives with his wife Kari in Minnesota.

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  • Researchers troll academic journals with ridiculous hoax papers, they still get published

    A trio of concerned academics has published seven intentionally absurd papers in leading scholarly journals as part of an investigation to expose extreme bias in fields that study race, gender, sexuality, and other politically-charged topics.

    The trio say the papers, which used fabricated authors and credentials, highlight that these fields are being misled by politically-motivated research and biased methodologies.

    –Media Release – James Lindsay, Peter Boghossian, and Helen Pluckrose

    This is the summary from a group of researchers who set out to expose some of the pitfalls within humanities and liberal studies academic disciplines. They submitted a series of papers to various journals. There work was published in seven of them.

    The scholars really are professors who do research. Their press material also identities them as all being liberal. Despite their political leanings, the researchers see issues in the manner in which academic studies are done within certain academic fields. From their “fact sheet:”

    We prefer to call it “grievance studies” because many of these fields refer to themselves as “[something] studies” and because they operate primarily by focusing upon and inflaming the grievances of certain identity groups. We think it represents a significant and influential subset of the scholarship coming out of cultural studies within the humanities, sociology, anthropology, and other social sciences and that is
    gaining increasing power over our universities, institutions, media, and culture.

    The researchers argue that there needs to be reform in the methodologies used to do research within these disciplines. Because much of what comes out is biased. And some of the “academic” studies that get published need to be viewed critically (you might be thinking “well articles in good journals get peer reviewed.” Do they? Because the researchers were given opportunities to peer review articles based on their own bogus scholarship).

    They say:

    “That problem is that a political bias which intentionally blends activism into scholarship (sometimes described as “academic leftism”) has become dominant and entrenched in varying degrees within those fields it has successfully corrupted. Moreover, it aims to spread its assumptions and methods into other fields, including the hard sciences. This, in turn, delegitimizes this scholarship and casts serious doubt upon its conclusions and results. These results and methods are therefore in need of reconsideration.

    And their articles were over the top crazy.

    One of the papers talked of dog mating habits in dog parks being symbolic of societal toxic masculinity. Another published paper dealt with fat bodybuilding and the need for such competitions for overweight people. Afterwards the researchers argued that the fact that this paper was published indicated: “Journals will accept arguments which are ludicrous and positively dangerous to health if they support cultural constructivist arguments around body positivity and fatphobia.”

    Another article was published in a leading feminist philosophy journal arguing that “social justice activists can make fun of others, but no one is allowed to make fun of social justice.”

    The issue with this that the researchers found is that this is indicative of a current problem which is that it’s difficult to critique social justice scholarship. They ironically entitled the bogus and satirical paper “When the joke Is on you.”

    I do think that it exposes the subjectivity and lack of academic rigor that can happen in these disciplines. And this is harmful to any meaningful conversation. As I read their summaries and consider some of the ridiculous ideas I’ve seen written up in recent years that are based off of a study someone did, it makes me question if these disciplines are just spreading a political philosophy as if opinions are grounded in reality.

    Another problem is that these classes are being taught by professors who are peddling this anti-intellectual nonsense and people are going into huge debt to subsidize them.

    I’m sure that it’s only a matter of time until these writers are subject of scorn and articles in these same types of journals about their hierarchical dominance making a mockery of these legitimate academic fields. I think the people who are the targets of this brilliant critique will do more to prove their point than to work for reform within their disciplines.

    Thanks for reading! I’d love to hear what you think, and don’t forget to subscribe! 

  • Things I won’t watch this year: Heisman and NCAA title game

    The NCAA is the most legalistic entity that man has ever created, with the possible exception of the Sanhedrin. The fact that Cameron Newton is eligible is unconscionable. It was no surprise this weekend when Newton was awarded the Heisman Trophy, but i did not watch. Just as I will not be watching him play in the national championship game next month. Why? Because I’m not in the mood to watch auburn win knowing that the title will likely be stripped away from them in the future. If that happens, it is as if this game will have never happened, so what is the point of waisting my time now to see something that will have not have officially ever existed in the future?

    Did Newton have the best season of any player in the country? Absolutely. But in the same season when Reggie Bush became the first Heisman winner to return the award ever as a result of being ruled ineligible for the 2005 season, giving the Heisman to someone who has a high likelihood of later being ruled ineligible is highly irresponsible.

    But that’s not fair to Cam.

    Fair? Fair? This entire situation is completely unfair to the fans. College football is not a perfect mirror of the civil society, and I think organizations should be looked at from a more utilitarian view. In the NCAA, if an athlete’s family receives funds, the athlete is ineligible. Regardless of if the athlete knows.

    If Cam’s father, Cecil Newton took funds, Cam is ineligible. But that’s not fair either. No, it’s not fair, but it’s not worth the entire sport taking another major credibility hit for the sake of waiting until we know beyond the shadow of a doubt that he broke the rules when we do know that they attempted to break the rules.

    That’s the price you pay for trying to break the rules.

    The NCAA knows the Cecil Newton solicited money from Mississippi State. Mississippi State was originally Cameron Newton’s top choice after he left Florida, and his father wanted to get a six figure sum of money. Mississippi State wouldn’t pay.

    It’s interesting. It’s interesting that Mississippi State was Cam’s top choice but they wouldn’t pay, however Cam went to Auburn. If Cam’s father didn’t receive money after he solicited money from Mississippi State, but Mississippi State was Cam’s top choice, why is Cam at Auburn?

    Let’s recap:
    top choice: Mississippi State.
    Then your dad tries to get money from Mississippi State.
    Mississippi State says “no.”
    Newton goes to Auburn.
    If Mississippi State was your top choice and wouldn’t pay you, why wouldn’t you still go there?
    Could it be that Auburn boosters were willing to pay?

    I know Cam doesn’t know about what’s going on. But he also transferred away from Florida before the university could have an expulsion hearing for academic dishonesty. Newton said that he had transferred, not because of the fact he faced expulsion but because Tim Tebow was coming back.

    Interestingly he transferred before Tebow ever said he was returning for his senior year.

    The feel good part of the Cameron Newton story has, for a long time, been a story about a bond between father and son and how Cameron has said on multiple occasions that he had given his father the reigns of selecting where he would play football. However this weekend, Newton cont stayed he had decided himself.

    There was the stolen laptop.

    There is a history of times when we know he has lied, where he has done things that are shady, where we KNOW that his dad tried to get money, and where a church of which his father is pastor seemed to magically receive a donation in order to keep its doors open.

    But everything is on the up and up.

    It is not Worth further diminishing the NCAA for the sake of being “fair.”

    The NCAA has strict rules about families taking money and the rules are in place regardless of if the athlete knows. As I’ve said before on my website, this is the way it has to be. Otherwise, the athletes could play dumb, or even legitimately be unaware, but in either situation, the family’s could take bribes. As a result, the rules must be very strict and enforced across the board.

    If the NCAA keeps throwing away its credibility, it is going to get progressively harder to get back. If Cameron Newton and his father truly are innocent, I think the fact that they attempted to break the rules is enough to make him ineligible. Their original sin was when Cecil Newton initially attempted to break the rules. That action, and their previous histories give a lot of circumstances that bring their honesty into question and it is because of all of the controversy which they have brought upon themselves, that people should not have cast Heisman votes for Newton and why he should not be playing for a national championship.

    John Stewart Mill would be proud of me.

    jrb

    sources: some of the points in this article, I have heard made by local Columbus radio show host Scott Torgerson.