Hinckley fired BYU Prof. Scott Woodward over DNA

[_Simon Southerton]

The claim that you edited Scott's emails and sent them to leaders in SL is really weird. Did he see these emails? How did he know they were edited? Is he saying you admitted to editing them when you all met in 2004?

He's making crap up. When I met Scott and Perego in 2004 the emails were not mentioned. I had written to other scientists at BYU about the DNA and assumed that letter (which was totally harmless) had caused Scott trouble. I apologised for that, not for sending copies of the emails to the Brethren.

This sounds like a really sad event though. I'm sorry it hear of it. Sounds like someone needs to reach out to Scott and see if he will refute Perego's accusations.

Scott has had ample time to correct Perego. I have also asked Perego to talk to Scott. Nothing has happened. I suspect Scott blames me because my emails alerted the Brethren to the DNA problem. If I hadn't sent the emails he may have slipped under the radar...for a little longer.

I admit though, that is absolutely fascinating what you revealed here. Scott was doing DNA research and came up with nothing. The Church fired him because he came up with nothing? Its not his fault. How cold is that? Did they feel it wasn't so bad because they moved him or created a new research firm?

This is interesting stuff. Thanks for sharing.

I think there are two issues. Scott's research team probably had to move off campus because there were all sorts of ethical problems brewing for the DNA genealogy research. They copped a lot of flack for the way they went about collecting DNA in New Zealand. But I don't think this was enough of a problem to justify kicking Scott out of BYU completely. I think the Native American DNA issue was what clinched it if we are to believe Perego. Maybe it was something else altogether and I'm the convenient scapegoat. Until Perego alters his statements on the FAIR site, I will continue to assume it was the emails, which were only about Lamanite DNA, that led to Scott's dismissal.

Note: I contacted Perego via Facebook about 6 months ago and explained in detail where he is wrong in his conclusions about my motives and actions. His only response was to block me.

[_Simon Southerton]

PEREGO OUTS THE PROPHET
On a FAIR blog created in 2009 Ugo Perego, who worked with Woodward at the SMGF (now closed), made the following outrageous and false claim.

“Woodward’s emails from 1998 were eventually edited by Southerton and forwarded to LDS Church leaders in Utah, with the objective of hurting Woodward’s teaching position at BYU. This event greatly upset Woodward.”

Is it possible Woodward forgot what he said in the e-mails and thinks they were edited, or that he did not want private conversations sent to church leadership?

It's quite possible Scott has forgotten the details in the emails but he would remember what they were about. Scott has never made the accusations that Perego made in the FAIR article, but he was angry with me in 2004. This suggests Perego is getting second hand accounts of what happened and is just shooting his mouth off.

[_Simon Southerton]

Wow, Ugo. Who knew he was such a snake in the grass?

From someone on reddit who took a class from Perego.

I took a Book of Mormon class from Perego recently - although he was only at BYU briefly before returning to Italy. He was nice enough, but always tied his lessons back to the fact that he was a “geneticist” and therefore an expert on everything.

I remember during one class period when we discussed the ‘curse’ of black skin. He called out the only Polynesian boy in the class and had him come to the front of the room. I wish I could remember everything he said, but it was hard to glean anything due to his heavy accent and nonsensical rambling. I only remember the look on this kid’s face: he was dejected, embarrassed. He booked it to the door the moment the bell rang. I walked out of that classroom feeling awful.

So. Yeah. Your post gives his behavior in that classroom much more context - turns out he was crappy from the get-go. And BYU rewarded him for it.

Perego is loving his time in the sun. He is proud of the fact that he is the main author of the Church's DNA essay, although it would have been heavily edited and polished by the PR department.

Another observation from Facebook.

I've been blocked by Ugo as well. After having a few very cordial conversations with him about Native American DNA and other Mormon issues, I dared write a dissenting opinion on one of his posts and got the ax. He basically admitted to me in our private interactions that he just chooses to stay in the church because it works for him. He doesn't see how it all fits together, but it works for him and he thinks that there is some way it may all make sense in the end. He's basically living out a Pascal's Wager without admitting it publicly.

As a church employee in the CES in Rome, the church has bought his loyalty for life. Follow the money...

[_Lemmie]

PEREGO OUTS THE PROPHET

On a FAIR blog created in 2009 Ugo Perego, who worked with Woodward at the SMGF (now closed), made the following outrageous and false claim.

“Woodward’s emails from 1998 were eventually edited by Southerton and forwarded to LDS Church leaders in Utah, with the objective of hurting Woodward’s teaching position at BYU. This event greatly upset Woodward.”

It's quite possible Scott has forgotten the details in the emails but he would remember what they were about. Scott has never made the accusations that Perego made in the FAIR article, but he was angry with me in 2004. This suggests Perego is getting second hand accounts of what happened and is just shooting his mouth off.

That seems the most likely. If i am understanding his accusation correctly, think what it would have to entail for it to be true: that lds church leaders would accept, and then make a decision based upon, altered emails received from a third party, without verifying the content of the emails with the person who sent them. That is not plausible at all. Alternatively, if it was simply the content of the emails that prompted church leaders to fire Woodward, that's a risk solely upon Woodward. He knew who he worked for. Perego's version of the story is simply not credible.

[_Physics Guy]

According to Wikipedia, Woodward left BYU in 2003, having been on faculty since 1989. Doesn't BYU offer tenure? How could a professor who had been there for 14 years get fired?

Also from Wikipedia, Woodward published a paper in Science in 1994 claiming to have sequenced dinosaur DNA, but it was debunked in 1995 by papers that were also published in Science. That's embarrassing, but I doubt it was really a black mark against Woodward, just a failure to secure a gold star. Most scientists never get published in Science. My own two attempts so far were rejected within 24 hours, and this is the usual fate, because Science makes its first cut based on whether your paper would be important enough for them if it were valid, and if they decide it would not be, they don't even bother sending it out for peer review. I have a hard time believing that this disappointing dinosaur episode could have cost Woodward his job, even if he somehow wasn't protected by tenure.

It's not as though Woodward got dumped on the street. This Sorenson Foundation seems to have been his baby; it started up within BYU, in 1999. What happened in 2003, again according to Wikipedia, is that the Foundation got moved out of BYU. According to the 2004 Church News article cited by the Wikipedia article on the Foundation, Woodward was still a BYU professor then but he was on leave to work at the Foundation as chief scientific officer. To me it looks as though Woodward simply chose to stay full-time at the Foundation after BYU decided he had been on leave long enough.

Woodward might have been angry that the university was not so thrilled to be associated with his Foundation work that they were prepared to extend his leave indefinitely, but no-one can really expect a university to keep someone on the books as a professor if they're not actually doing anything at the university. Even if his department didn't have to pay his salary while he was on leave, they would likely have been unable to replace him, because he would have had the right to come back at any time. So they'd be down a professor, making more work for everybody else. They could bring in adjunct lecturers to teach his courses but that's a problematic solution in several ways.

I don't really know how BYU works, but at this point I'm wondering whether "Woodward got fired" can really be an accurate headline for what happened.

[_Simon Southerton]

According to Wikipedia, Woodward left BYU in 2003, having been on faculty since 1989. Doesn't BYU offer tenure? How could a professor who had been there for 14 years get fired?

Also from Wikipedia, Woodward published a paper in Science in 1994 claiming to have sequenced dinosaur DNA, but it was debunked in 1995 by papers that were also published in Science. That's embarrassing, but I doubt it was really a black mark against Woodward, just a failure to secure a gold star. Most scientists never get published in Science. My own two attempts so far were rejected within 24 hours, and this is the usual fate, because Science makes its first cut based on whether your paper would be important enough for them if it were valid, and if they decide it would not be, they don't even bother sending it out for peer review. I have a hard time believing that this disappointing dinosaur episode could have cost Woodward his job, even if he somehow wasn't protected by tenure.

It's not as though Woodward got dumped on the street. This Sorenson Foundation seems to have been his baby; it started up within BYU, in 1999. What happened in 2003, again according to Wikipedia, is that the Foundation got moved out of BYU. According to the 2004 Church News article cited by the Wikipedia article on the Foundation, Woodward was still a BYU professor then but he was on leave to work at the Foundation as chief scientific officer. To me it looks as though Woodward simply chose to stay full-time at the Foundation after BYU decided he had been on leave long enough.

Woodward might have been angry that the university was not so thrilled to be associated with his Foundation work that they were prepared to extend his leave indefinitely, but no-one can really expect a university to keep someone on the books as a professor if they're not actually doing anything at the university. Even if his department didn't have to pay his salary while he was on leave, they would likely have been unable to replace him, because he would have had the right to come back at any time. So they'd be down a professor, making more work for everybody else. They could bring in adjunct lecturers to teach his courses but that's a problematic solution in several ways.

I don't really know how BYU works, but at this point I'm wondering whether "Woodward got fired" can really be an accurate headline for what happened.

Its accurate enough for me given the bullcrap and lies Perego and other apologists spew out. We are never going to get the full story out of Perego, Woodward or Hinckley for that matter. If I am wrong Perego is welcome to correct the record. Its possible Scott lost his position at BYU because his publication record was very poor, particularly after his dinosaur DNA paper was found to have fatal flaws.

Scott was totally pissed about losing his professorship. Perego blames me for editing Scott's emails in order to hurt him. The email only discussed Lamanite DNA. I'm just joining the dots.

[_Kishkumen]

According to Wikipedia, Woodward left BYU in 2003, having been on faculty since 1989. Doesn't BYU offer tenure? How could a professor who had been there for 14 years get fired?

BYU does not offer tenure.

[_The Dude]

On a FAIR blog created in 2009 Ugo Perego, who worked with Woodward at the SMGF (now closed), made the following outrageous and false claim.

“Woodward’s emails from 1998 were eventually edited by Southerton and forwarded to LDS Church leaders in Utah, with the objective of hurting Woodward’s teaching position at BYU. This event greatly upset Woodward.”

Which LDS Church leaders received the emails?

Is it possible that the emails were edited by Church leaders, with the objective of hurting Woodward's teaching position at BYU?

[_RockSlider]

According to Wikipedia, Woodward left BYU in 2003, having been on faculty since 1989. Doesn't BYU offer tenure? How could a professor who had been there for 14 years get fired?

BYU does not offer tenure.

Yes but they do have the 'Honor Code' ... wow honor, much like love in a 'Court of Love'

[Guest]

BYU does not offer tenure.

Whoa. I didn't realize that. That kind of changes things.

The sequence of events is still not clear to me. If the Church News was right about Woodward being on leave in 2004, then it doesn't exactly seem that he was fired in 2003.

But maybe he was effectively fired by being pushed out to the Sorenson Foundation. Without tenure, the potential threat of firing somebody also lets an institution push people around in a lot of ways short of literally firing them. If professors are working 14 years at BYU without tenure then it's a pretty different kind of university from all the ones I know and I have to disclaim any insight into what might or might not happen there.

It is disturbing that BYU does not offer tenure. Even if people don't think they are in fear of losing their jobs for the results of their research, it's hard to avoid a certain chilling effect, where people just never quite get around to looking in directions that could be dangerous. You can't even be sure that the chilling is restricted to certain obviously hazardous fields like human ancestry or New World archaeology. Something tricky might pop up anywhere.

The problem with the chilling effect isn't particularly that BYU will miss out on discoveries that threaten Mormon doctrine, but that fear of threatening Mormon doctrine will make all BYU researchers generally less curious and creative, so that they will tend to make fewer discoveries of any kind. It's hard to see into the darkness when you have to keep looking over your shoulder.

EDIT: Now I'm again unsure. I've seen a number of references to tenure at BYU, but on the other hand the official BYU policy refers only to "continuing" status, with provision for "continuing" faculty to be dismissed if they fail to meet professional standards for three years in a row. I don't know if that's a weak form of tenure, or if it's not unusual in North America. I've never held a faculty position in North America myself, but my impression from friends (and from my wife) was that it was more ironclad than that. In Germany it takes something like a felony to remove a professor.