Peter Nyikos Professor, Department of Mathematics University of South Carolina Columbia, SC 29208 SHARE |
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I am a Professor in the Department of Mathematics, University of South Carolina, Columbia, SC 29208. I have had this job since 1979, and have over a hundred peer-reviewed reseach papers, over half of them solo and some in world-class journals. I come from humble beginnings. I was born a child of Hungarian WWII refugees, who fled because my father was active in both the anti-Nazi and anti-Soviet movements. He barely escaped the firing squad for his anti-Nazi activities, and didn't want to take his chance with the Soviets and their stooges like Rakosi. When we finally got to the USA I was three years old, and distinctly remember our first living quarters: an abandoned one-room schoolhouse in rural Illinois, no running water, an outhouse, a wood-burning stove for the kitchen, mouse-infested and fly-infested. My father was essentially a slave to a stingy farmer who never paid him, except "in kind": he bought our groceries, and we didn't have any say in what they were. It was a long struggle out of poverty, but I was an avid learner in school, and once I graduated from college, I was self-sufficient and even helped my father get out of debt. I have debated and discussed a huge range of issues intensely on the internet in 1992-2001 and again from late 2008 to the present, and am often isolated because I have no truck with dishonesty or hypocrisy no matter who is guilty of these things. This is especially noticeable on forums that argue evolution. I have an enormous interest in paleontology and have been convinced since childhood of the reality of evolution from the beginning of life on earth, and have argued effectively against creationists for it. Some are honest and I treat them with respect, but I come down hard on the dishonest ones. In spite of this, I have numerous opponents among the anti-creationists who are openly dishonest, many because they cannot argue for evolution like I can, and I keep correcting their misrepresentations of creationists. I want creationism defeated fair and square, they want it defeated by hook or crook
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