Free To Think |  | Author: Caroline I Crocker
Publisher: Leafcutter Press
Category: Book
List Price: $19.95
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Rating:  6 reviews
Sales Rank: 450,089
Media: Paperback
Pages: 330
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1
Dimensions (in): 9 x 6 x 0.9
ISBN: 0981873448
EAN: 9780981873442
ASIN: 0981873448
Publication Date: July 4, 2010
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Product Description
The true story of Dr. Caroline Crocker's experience as an adjunct science professor at George Mason University. Addresses her teaching techniques, methodology, and perceived discrimination. Also provides a semi-biographical account of her experience with students.
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Showing reviews 1-5 of 6
A book all patrons of science needs to read July 23, 2010
John Calvert (Lake Quivira, KS United States)
6 out of 7 found this review helpful
Free to Think is a book everyone interested in science and freedom should read.
Science is the one enterprise that we should be able to trust.
It is an enterprise that holds itself out for its supposed open-mindedness and objectivity.
One is reminded of Sgt. Friday, the detective who's only interested in getting "just the facts, Ma'am."
We are told that all scientific explanations are developed using rigorous empirical tests based on data that is intersubjectively accessible to all. If one wants reliable explanations go to science.
Then we read Caroline Crocker's riveting story. The first thought that comes to mind is Galileo.
Galileo was a scientist who was excommunicated because he brought to light data, which contradicted a particular religious preconception of the universe. In response Francis Bacon wrote an essay in 1620 which urged the removal of biases and preconceptions from science so that it could seek knowledge with an open mind. His essay was the foundation for the scientific method and caused the eventual removal of theistic preconceptions from science.
Unfortunately, the removal of the theistic preconception has caused science to embrace a non-theistic one. The preconception is called methodological naturalism or scientific materialism. Its irrefutable dogma promotes a different kind of religion called Religious/"Secular" Humanism. It is the religion of Atheists, Freethinkers, Agnostics and a variety of other materialistic religious belief systems. It has moved science from an open-minded search for truth to an enterprise that promotes an Atheistic worldview.
So, like Galileo, Dr. Crocker, a brilliant and gifted microbiologist, was excommunicated for opening her mind to data inconsistent with the religious preconception that now infects the fabric of science.
It robs science of the objectivity it needs to enjoy the trust of its patrons.
Hopefully others will read about Dr. Crocker and be moved to do what Francis Bacon did. Seek to banish from science a preconception, which closes its mind as it addresses the ultimate questions of life.
John Calvert, J.D., author of Kitzmiller's Error: Using an Exclusive rather than Inclusive Definition of Religion; Liberty University Law Review, Vol 3, No. 2, pp 213-328 (Spr 2009). [...]
Will make your blood boil July 8, 2010
Darwin Researcher (London)
12 out of 16 found this review helpful
Free to Think is about one politically incorrect professor's foray into the academic world. Dr. Crocker, a widely published scientist with numerous peer reviewed publications, goes into detail about both what she taught at George Mason University and how she taught it. In the end, the University did not like her challenging dogmatic fundamentalist Darwinism. What is really upsetting, documented by pages of photocopies of University documents, is how they ended her career. To be blunt, they unethically connived to censor her by very underhanded and unethical tactics, to say the least. To detail what they did here would cause one to lose credibility. You must read the original documents to comprehend what the University did to this excellent professor and how. Reading this book will make your blood boil and, if it doesn't, you need to take a good look at yourself. No one should be treated the way she was in America, the land known for its freedom to think. The book also documents the failure of the American "justice" system. The introduction by Ben Stein was also very helpful in understanding what happened to this bright scholar.
It ain't necessarily so July 25, 2010
Theodore J. Siek (Philadelphia, PA)
4 out of 5 found this review helpful
"It ain't necessarily so, the things that you're liable to read in the Biology book, it ain't necessarily so." This is essentially the suggestion Dr. Crocker made to her class while lecturing in cell biology. For this minimal questioning of orthodox evolutionism, Crocker was dismissed from her faculty postion at George Mason University (GMU). What is so ironic about this academic despotism is that George Mason was an author of our US Constitutional Bill of Rights which includes the right to free speech. This reviewer has a Ph D in biochemistry and found the book exhibited Crocker's ability to teach cell biology at the graduate level.
"Keep at it, Dr. Crocker" August 17, 2010
Jeffrey Brown
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Sometimes a little controversy helps. Dr. Caroline Crocker has set one rolling that probably will not stop with the publication of her book. Having studied Biology on the undergraduate level, I can only say that Dr. Crocker is one classy teacher: knows her field, is a proven scientist, and wants to reach for all she can to make her students learn. She does not just teach, she cares. Her help to students with heart-wrenching life stories has won her long term admiration and friendship. Any Ph.D. who is so successful at developing the uninitiated into competent scholars of the complexities of biology, is what most colleges and universities crave. It is unfortunate that George Mason University gave Dr. Crocker the boot. They lost one of their best professors. Caroline Crocker is obvioulsy a person who challenges others to think. That brought her to grief in the university (and she has since not been able to find another faculty position elsewhere). But don't expect her to stop now that she is outside of it.
"Free to Think" is the stimulating story of a highly motivated college prof, who ran into trouble through a little naivete. She raised questions about Darwinian evolution in some of her lectures. The university's loss is our gain. We get to see from the inside how sometimes the hallowed halls of the pursuit of ideas become machines of dogma. We also get to know what it is like to run afoul of one's superiors. We get treated to humor in tense situations: like meeting the Ebenezer Scrooge of the academic world in the grievance committee. He declares her cartoons are degrading for a university lecture. You will not find a bitter vent in this book. It presents instead, the fascinating story of being the center of controversy on campus. We get to learn how the lady thinks, and how almost irresistably she gets others to think as well. When you finish, you will probably say with me, "Keep at it, Dr. Crocker."
Important Topic, Excellent Book July 13, 2010
W. Basener
7 out of 12 found this review helpful
Censorship of challenges to Darwinian evolution are one of the greatest hindrances to science and free thinking. This is a beautifully written book about a powerful true story.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 6
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