Caroline Crocker

Dr. Caroline I. Crocker, born 1958, is an American researcher in immunopharmacology who taught in biology at George Mason University in 2005. She also held another teaching position at Northern Virginia Community College. She is also an entrepreneur and writer. She was falsely accused of teaching creationism in the classroom. In fact, Crocker showed some slides briefly illustrating the concept of intelligent design. In January 2006 she began a postdoctorate year at the Uniformed Services University. Her case has been presented in a Discovery Institute intelligent design campaign and features in the movie Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed.

Dr. Caroline Crocker Evangelical Fellowship in the Anglican Communion Falls Church, Virginia

Career

Crocker graduated in 1979 Bachelor of Science in microbiology and virology from the Warwick University, obtained a Master's degree in medical microbiology at Birmingham University, and obtained her PhD in immunopharmacology from the University of Southampton in 1999. She now lives in southern California and has four children. She founded the American Institute for Technology and Science Education (AITSE), a nonprofit educational foundation with the goal of improving scientific understanding and integrity. The episode of her expulsion from George Mason University is reported in Ben Stein's documentary, Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed, which was released in 2008. Dr. Caroline Crocker now is the Director of Communications of The Evangelical Fellowship in the Anglican Communion.

George Mason University

Crocker had a position as a part-time faculty member of George Mason University, Fairfax, Virginia. She alleges that, in December 2004, her department barred her from teaching evolution and intelligent design after she mentioned intelligent design while teaching her second-year cell biology course. The dean of the College of Arts and Sciences stated that the university did not have a policy or a rule on whether certain topics should be discussed, but questioned whether a concept with theological underpinnings belonged in a science course.

Her lecture which raised concerns, as repeated at Northern Virginia Community College, included controversial arguments. Her claim that microevolution is quite different from macroevolution is a common contention. She represented peppered moth evolution experiments to claim that they were falsified. She asserts that the Miller-Urey experiment was irrelevant as views on the atmospheric composition have been revised. Having claimed that many scientists believe that complex life reveals the hand of an intelligent designer, she said that "The problem with evolution is that it is all supposition – this evolved into this – but there is no evidence".

On 28 April 2005 Crocker was reported as stating that being prevented from teaching the hypothesis of evolution and intelligent design was "an infringement of academic freedom," and appealing the case to a grievance committee. A university spokesman said this dismissal was for reasons unrelated to her views on intelligent design.

Northern Virginia Community College

At the same time Crocker taught at GMU, she was also an adjunct professor at Northern Virginia Community College(NVCC). On November 2, 2005, she gave a lecture which she told a reporter was the lecture that had led to her losing her job at a previous university. She said "I lost my job at George Mason University for teaching the problems with evolution. Lots of scientists question evolution, but they would lose their jobs if they spoke out." Crocker had described the lecture beforehand as teaching "the strengths and weaknesses of evolution", and when asked afterwards if she would be discussing the evidence for evolution in another class, said that she would not as "There really is not a lot of evidence for evolution." Myers remarked that this statement was grounds for her dismissal.

Subsequently, she resigned from NVCC and began work for the Department of Defense in cancer research.

Intelligent design

Crocker became the Executive Director of the Intelligent Design and Evolution Awareness Center in early 2008. She left the Center in the summer of 2008 to pursue other endeavors. She appeared in a Coral Ridge Ministries video entitled The Intelligent Design Controversy in Higher Education and in the movie Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed. The claims she made in the Coral Ridge video about transitional fossils (and specifically Archaeopteryx and the evolution of the horse) were criticised by PZ Myers as being factually incorrect. Crocker ran a promotional website advertising her public speaking. According to the website topics include: The Censorship of Science, Evolution: Fact, Science, or Religion, along with an Alpha course.

Publications

• Caroline Crocker, PhD (2010). Free to Think: Why Scientific Integrity Matters. Leafcutter Press. ISBN 978-0981873442. 
• Caroline Crocker, PhD (2017). Growing The Church 101: Being Disciples Who Make Disciples. CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform. ISBN 978-1974058617. 
• Caroline Crocker, PhD (2017). Clemmy the Brave: Clemmy Gets a People Family. CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform. ISBN 978-1974156795. 

External links

• the real story of how Caroline Crocker was expelled from George Mason university.
• Free to think.
• Caroline Crocker at Free Science