I notice something in the complaints and comments in this case that highlights the most common inconsistency that EA purists indulge in - the Chicken Little act about American hegemony in science and how because secondary science education is so bad, the US no longer produces enough scientists to maintain it.

The complaint here is that a YEC was admitted to a Ph.D. program when there are limited available positions and more qualified applicants [metaphysically speaking] who end up doing something else with their lives because Ross got the spot.

IOW, our higher education system is producing way more qualified Ph.D. candidates in science than there are Ph.D. programs and post-grad research jobs to accommodate them! Let's face it. Only in such conditions would a candidate's personal metaphysical beliefs be more important than his/her knowledge, understanding and ability in the science, as evidenced by master's-level accomplishment and methodological criteria.

The same situation has decimated university departments in humanities and other disciplines that attracted too many students in the past. Eventually glutting the fields beyond carrying capacity and leaving many qualified young graduates without a prayer of livelihood in their chosen professions. Supply and demand. Looks like some fields of science have now maxed out their limit and are in the very same predicament.

So much for the "American hegemony in science" canard. Guess I'll have to have a serious talk with my grandson about his paleontological ambitions.

And what makes the story even more interesting is another personality quoted in the NYT story - Eugenie Scott. She comes across as someone who is on PZ's side on this one. Could the leading type A critic be making signs that she is ready to throw methodological naturalism overboard?

As with Sternberg, this is another case where, given how she portrays herself and her organization, you'd expect her to come down on a different side from what she actually did. Personally, I've always had serious doubts about Scott's Type-A status (even before you named it such). From her signing of the Humanist Manifesto III, to her participations in the pseudo-religious Darwin Day, to her participation with the Jesus Seminar, I've long suspected that her agenda and reasons for being in involved in this whole thing are not as pure as the wind-driven snow, as she'd like to present them. Seems to me she's just been doing the present-yourself-as-friendly-to-Christianity thing for PR reasons, not because she believes in it. She's only been acting as a methodological Type-A critic

Like Kurt Wise, Ross's YEC views were public knowledge for years. Even before receiving a PhD, he was co-author with Paul Nelson in a Chapter of Darwin's Nemesis. The chapter was titled, "YEC and ID" but the bulk of the written material was published May 2005 here in Journal of Geoscience Education, v. 53, n. 3, May, 2005, p. 319-323.

The article mentions Dr. Case, who thinks it is frightening if universities begin enforcing belief systems. Then, we read:

But Dr. Scott, a former professor of physical anthropology at the University of Colorado, said in an interview that graduate admissions committees were entitled to consider the difficulties that would arise from admitting a doctoral candidate with views "so at variance with what we consider standard science." She said such students "would require so much remedial instruction it would not be worth my time.

Dr. Dini, of Texas Tech, agreed. Scientists "ought to make certain the people they are conferring advanced degrees on understand the philosophy of science and are indeed philosophers of science," he said, "That's what Ph.D. stands for."

Could the leading type A critic be making signs that she is ready to throw methodological naturalism overboard?

Hey that is a really good point. Now if there was just some way to point this out to her ?

And what makes the story even more interesting is another personality quoted in the NYT story - Eugenie Scott. She comes across as someone who is on PZ's side on this one. Could the leading type A critic be making signs that she is ready to throw methodological naturalism overboard?

If it is reasonable for his segment of the academic community to behave like this and deny tenure/PhD's, etc, to those he disagrees with, regardless of the actual quality of the work, but just on ideological grounds, does he realise that there are whole humanities departments that are willing to do the same thing to him and his peers, and this sort of behavior will justify them doing the same sort of thing.

If ideology is legitimate in science as PZ is contending, then he may find himself hoist by his own petard.

Because that would be hyperbole. PZ and Dini are narrowminded bigots, but calling them "thought police" would be an insult to anyone who's ever suffered under a real thought police. It would make me no better than the critics who complain about the "Christo-Taliban" or the "Jesus Gestapo".

(Although, on second thought, maybe I should have called it, "Creationist earns Ph.D., gets attacked by fellow scientists" instead.)