UPDATE: Art Robinson says: “It worked,”…’ The university “made some re-arrangements with the campus and replaced a couple of deans and did some special things to help my students.” Joshua received his doctorate and Matthew is on track to getting his, according to Robinson, but Bethany “couldn’t take the heat” and left after receiving her master’s degree.’ OSU claims they didn’t respond to his complaints. It must be a coincidence that all three were targeted, then all three were allowed to continue. Sure.
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Ladies and Gentlemen, as the power of big-government comes under threat the attacks on skeptics and free citizens grow worse than ever. We are all busy, but we cannot let this one get past. Art Robinson is one of us, one of the original skeptics, back when hardly anyone else was. He’s been a key player, dismayed, like the rest of us at the way science was being used for political purposes. Indeed, he was so dismayed, he ran for congress as a Republican last year. Against an allegedly full-on smear campaign from the incumbent Congressman Pete DeFazio, Art managed to get 44% of the votes in a long-held Democrat seat.
Oregon State University Library
The shocking thing is that, right now, Art has six children, and three of them simultaneously are getting their PhD projects canceled, snatched, and dismissed. They are or were all studying at Oregon State University, and despite all three having put in years of work and getting great grades, they are now locked out of labs or faced with the prospect of losing all their work.
OSU received $27 million from the same Democrat Congressman Pete DeFazio’s government that Art challenged.
“DeFazio and the other Oregon Democrat congressmen sent a reported $27 million in earmark funding to OSU during the last legislative cycle, and Robinson opposes all earmark funding.” [link]
Note that the issue right now is Art Robinson versus OSU. Robinson is making no comment about DeFazio in connection with this, and focuses on OSU members who are allegedly involved in the problems his offspring are suddenly having.
Political payback – Oregon style
Source: SPPI
by Paul Driessen
The idea that three outstanding students – PhD candidates at OSU – could face dismissal, and worse, shortly before receiving their degrees, is simply shocking. That this could be happening because their father had the temerity to challenge an entrenched 12-term Democratic congressman (and OSU earmark purveyor) could make people think the university is in Zimbabwe, not America.
What are the odds that three formerly outstanding students all suddenly slide to the point of having their projects canceled and simultaneously? And the last name of each student is “Robinson”! Does Jack Higginbotham, professor of one, who stood up for them all, deserve to lose his job too?
We didn’t ask to face this threat, but if we allow it to happen, it makes the next threat more likely, and potentially so much more unthinkably worse. There is something we can do.
The people pulling these strings are not even trying to disguise it. It is an open threat to all who oppose big-government, or who dare to run against a powerful incumbent. The message is that it’s not worth running for office, or voicing dissent on “establishment” topics, because those in power are too powerful already and have patrons who may bring pain to you and your family. How many potentially good candidates would not want to play that game and be dissuaded? Those potential candidates lose, and the voters lose too. No wonder good honest men are deterred from politics.
It doesn’t matter what side of politics you are on and whether you are a skeptic or not. Only the corrupt benefit from this injustice. If you believe in democracy this kind of attack is simply not-on.
Only a Russian could sum things up this pointedly.
From Paul Driessen:
As one reader – a Russian, in St. Petersburg! – wrote to me after seeing my article online over the weekend: “I’ve seen a lot of Edward Ray’s in schools and universities of my Soviet Russia. The only really shattering piece of news is that the painfully familiar situation is happening not in some Communist hell, like Cuba or North Korea, but in the USA – IN THE USA!!!” This is what we are up against. The only question is, What are we going to do about it?
The details of Joshua, Bethany and Matthews work are described on the Oregon State Outrage blog. They are all working towards PhD degrees in nuclear engineering.
The work of the three younger Robinson students is already being “assigned” to other students, without their credit. The machine that Joshua helped design is now off-limits to him. Without it, he can’t finish his work and he can’t complete that work at any other university.
What kind of man is Art Robinson?
Let the record speak. This man is a go getter, self-starter, hard-worker to the core. But more-so, he’s a man of integrity.
- Art Robinson is a true scientist to the core — last year he wrote a document about the current state of science that was so insightful I blogged part of it in: The truth shall make you free.
- Art was the man who set up the Petition Project — the mass volunteers effort to collect and verify signatures of scientists in the US who are skeptics. I quote it all the time: 31,500 scientists, including 9,000 PhDs.
- Art is a man who raised six children, mostly single-handedly, because he lost his wife and their mother, in 1988 when the youngest was just 18 months old. He home-schooled them. As he describes it, he realized he could not keep teaching them one by one, so he wrote a home-schooling curriculum where they teach themselves. Over 60,000 children have used the Robinson Curriculum. It is still in use today.
- Art Robinson is best known in science for his pioneering biochemical research work on the amide molecular clocks that are built into almost all protein molecules, work that has been brilliantly extended by his son Noah Robinson. In addition, Art is known for originating and carrying out much of the original work in the field of metabolic profiling, which is now a large part of the discipline known as “metabolomics.” This work involves the quantitative measurement of human health and disease by means of the quantitative analysis of biochemical patterns that are imprinted in the amounts of thousands of metabolic substances that can be measured in human breath, blood, urine, and tissues. [From Oregon State Outrage].
The PhD work of Bethany, Joshua and Matthew
(From Oregon State Outrage)
Joshua began research work under Assistant Professor Michael Hartman, and together they developed and built a Prompt Gamma Neutron Activation Analysis Facility, a spectrometer that uses the OSU nuclear reactor as a source of neutrons for unique analytical work. Joshua’s building of this machine received an OSU award; and Joshua, still mentored by Hartman, began collaborations in its use with the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in Richland, WA, and the National Bureau of Standards in Washington, D.C. Joshua now requires about one more year of work with this spectrometer to complete his PhD work.
Bethany, on the basis of her outstanding undergraduate record, received an excellent OSU fellowship. She, too, wanted do her PhD work under Hartman, who had directed her first experiences in research as she carried out calculations for the OSU reactor refueling project. Professor Todd Palmer, however, told Bethany that it would not look good for her and her brother to have the same advisor and also that he would give her a mathematical calculation problem that could be used for both her MS and PhD degrees, so she could finish her PhD more quickly. He also repeatedly told her that she was his best student.
Since Bethany likes and is very skilled in mathematical work and she wanted to complete her PhD as soon as possible, she accepted Palmer’s offer.
When Matthew later arrived, he began research work under Professor Jack Higginbotham, who, in addition to being a 24-year veteran of the OSU faculty, is President of the OSU Faculty Senate and director of the Oregon Space Grant Consortium, a large OSU NASA program. Matthew’s research under Professor Higginbotham involves conceptual and design work involving the use of nuclear propulsion for unmanned exploration vehicles in far outer space.
Matthew had turned down an offer of $57,000 per year from the MIT graduate school in preference for OSU.
By the way, two of the three older Robinson children, Zachary and Arynne, became Vets, while the third, Noah earned a PhD in Chemistry.
This is bigger than just the gross injustice against three students
The way this issue is settled sets a precedent for any future candidate fighting an incumbent.
We didn’t ask to face this threat, but if we allow it to happen, it makes the next threat more likely, and potentially so much more unthinkably worse. There is something we can do.
A group of alumni at OSU are so incensed they have formed a group to take action.
Citizens everywhere who want less corruption, and a fair break for hard work, need to let OSU know that if these PhD’s are lost, the university will become a laughing stock. Who would want a degree from such a corrupt institution? What uni wants to be boycotted by the smartest students, consigned to the dustbin, known for being a tool of tyrants? How many prospective OSU students would now weigh up their choices differently if they know that capricious whimsy could destroy their work.
What we can do
From the site set up specially to help these students: http://www.oregonstateoutrage.com/
Please help us. Only public pressure can save these students and also the career of a prominent professor at OSU who warned them and tried to help them. In retribution, these same people are poised to destroy his career, too. Please ask these people why the destruction of the academic work and careers of the Robinson students and Professor Higginbotham is so important that they are willing to sacrifice the good name of Oregon State University.
Please ask them to stop the attacks on the Robinson students and Professor Higginbotham.
Contact information for the
OSU nuclear engineering department is:
Phone: 541-737-2343. Fax: 541-737-4678. E-mail: [email protected].
Mailing address: 116 Radiation Center, Corvallis, OR 97331-5902.
Please also contact the President of OSU, Edward Ray. Phone: 541-737-4133. Fax: 541-737-3033. E-mail: [email protected]. Mailing address: 600 Kerr Administration Building, Corvallis, OR 97331-2128.
The email address of the OSU Vice-President for University Relations and Marketing, Todd Simmons, is [email protected]
Department of Nuclear Engineering
and Health Physics Professors:
| David M. Hamby, Ph.D. [email protected] (541) 737-8682 |
Kathryn Higley, Ph.D.
[email protected]
(541) 737 0675
Steven R. Reese, Ph.D.
[email protected]
(541) 737 2344
Todd S. Palmer, Ph.D.
[email protected]
[email protected]
(541) 737 7064
Abi T. Farsoni, Ph.D.
[email protected]
(541) 737 9645
Andrew C. Klein, Ph.D.
[email protected]
(541) 737 2343Camille Lodwick, Ph.D.
[email protected]
(541) 737 7059
Wade Marcum, Ph.D.
[email protected]
Alena Paulenova, Ph.D.
[email protected]
(541) 737-7070
Jose N. Reyes, Ph.D.
[email protected]
(541) 737 7065
Brian G. Woods, Ph.D.
[email protected]
(541) 737 6335
Qiao Wu, Ph.D.
[email protected]
(541) 737 7066
Thank this man for speaking out:
Jack Higginbotham, Ph.D.
[email protected]
(541) 737 2414
Image Credit: The_Valley_Library_OSU.png: author Parhamr
H/t to SPPI, Paul Dreissen, Bob Malloy, and Curt.
UPDATE: OSU responded here which says that ““The university has found no factual basis for the accusations made against those faculty members,” but pointedly does not say all three students are welcome and are expected to be able to complete their studies.
Afterthought: I’ve done a little editing to make it clear that for this issue the focus is on Robinson vs OSU, not Robinson vs DeFazio.
UPDATE #2
Thanks to Sierra you can see this video and watch the Uni-spokesman say that “they don’t know what he’s talking about” and “the students face no impediments”. Then a segment later see Art Robinson speak. All the students have lawyers now. When the uni spokesman says Bethany is working towards a Masters Degree, and “it is misinformation that she’s working towards a PhD”, bear in mind, she’s been there for 5 years, was enrolled in a PhD, and according to Bethany has faced many delays, was asking to convert to a Masters, and was refused that”. It’s all too easy to make life tough for a student, then when faced with public pressure, simply deny it. In the end it’s impossible for outsiders to know exactly what happened, but in the end, even if Art Robinson’s children all graduate eventually from OSU with their qualifications, people who are thinking of speaking against the Establishment can see that they face penalties for speaking freely. Who would want to run a campaign to keep public pressure on a university, just to keep your kids enrolled? Even if Professor Higganbotham is not sacked, he’s hired lawyers too. Speaking out to stop injustice also carries a price. Many people would feel the price is too high. Ultimately we are all poorer.