The Dini-gration of Darwinism

AgapePress ^ | April 29, 2003 | Mike S. Adams

[Remedy]

Texas Tech University biology professor Michael Dini recently came under fire for refusing to write letters of recommendation for students unable to "truthfully and forthrightly affirm a scientific answer" to the following question: "How do you think the human species originated?"

For asking this question, Professor Dini was accused of engaging in overt religious discrimination. As a result, a legal complaint was filed against Dini by the Liberty Legal Institute. Supporters of the complaint feared that consequences of the widespread adoption of Dini’s requirement would include a virtual ban of Christians from the practice of medicine and other related fields.

In an effort to defend his criteria for recommendation, Dini claimed that medicine was first rooted in the practice of magic. Dini said that religion then became the basis of medicine until it was replaced by science. After positing biology as the science most important to the study of medicine, he also posited evolution as the "central, unifying principle of biology" which includes both micro- and macro-evolution, which applies to all species.

In addition to claiming that someone who rejects the most important theory in biology cannot properly practice medicine, Dini suggested that physicians who ignore or neglect Darwinism are prone to making bad clinical decisions. He cautioned that a physician who ignores data concerning the scientific origins of the species cannot expect to remain a physician for long. He then rhetorically asked the following question: "If modern medicine is based on the method of science, then how can someone who denies the theory of evolution -- the very pinnacle of modern biological science -- ask to be recommended into a scientific profession by a professional scientist?"

In an apparent preemptive strike against those who would expose the weaknesses of macro-evolution, Dini claimed that "one can validly refer to the ‘fact’ of human evolution, even if all of the details are not yet known." Finally, he cautioned that a good scientist "would never throw out data that do not conform to their expectations or beliefs."

The legal aspect of this controversy ended this week with Dini finally deciding to change his recommendation requirements. But that does not mean it is time for Christians to declare victory and move on. In fact, Christians should be demanding that Dini’s question be asked more often in the court of public opinion. If it is, the scientific community will eventually be indicted for its persistent failure to address this very question in scientific terms.

Christians reading this article are already familiar with the creation stories found in the initial chapters of Genesis and the Gospel of John. But the story proffered by evolutionists to explain the origin of the species receives too little attention and scrutiny. In his two most recent books on evolution, Phillip Johnson gives an account of evolutionists’ story of the origin of the human species which is similar to the one below:

In the beginning there was the unholy trinity of the particles, the unthinking and unfeeling laws of physics, and chance. Together they accidentally made the amino acids which later began to live and to breathe. Then the living, breathing entities began to imagine. And they imagined God. But then they discovered science and then science produced Darwin. Later Darwin discovered evolution and the scientists discarded God.

Darwinists, who proclaim themselves to be scientists, are certainly entitled to hold this view of the origin of the species. But that doesn’t mean that their view is, therefore, scientific. They must be held to scientific standards requiring proof as long as they insist on asking students to recite these verses as a rite of passage into their "scientific" discipline.

It, therefore, follows that the appropriate way to handle professors like Michael Dini is not to sue them but, instead, to demand that they provide specific proof of their assertion that the origin of all species can be traced to primordial soup. In other words, we should pose Dr. Dini’s question to all evolutionists. And we should do so in an open public forum whenever the opportunity presents itself.

Recently, I asked Dr. Dini for that proof. He didn’t respond.

Dini’s silence as well as the silence of other evolutionists speaks volumes about the current status of the discipline of biology. It is worth asking ourselves whether the study of biology has been hampered by the widespread and uncritical acceptance of Darwinian principles. To some observers, its study has largely become a hollow exercise whereby atheists teach other atheists to blindly follow Darwin without asking any difficult questions.

At least that seems to be the way things have evolved.

[Remedy]

Nothing + Nobody + Eons = Particles + Laws + Chance = The Deaf, Dumb and Blind Faith of the Fundamentalist Fossil Thumpers. Deafened by it's own shrill rants, it became too dumb to know the difference between theory and conjecture, and too blind to design.

CREATION : EVOLUTIONARY ARROGANCE (SHAMAN ALERT)

One of their communicants, in fact, calls them its "shamans." He says,

We show deference to our leaders, pay respect to our elders and follow the dictates of our shamans; this being the Age of Science, it is scien-tism's shamans who command our veneration. . . . scientists [are] the premier mythmakers of our time.¹

The investment of these leaders of the evolutionary faith with such pontifical authority, however, tends to generate in them an attitude of profound impatience with such heresies as creationism. Instead of opposing the creationists with scientific proofs of macroevolution, they resort to name-calling and ridicule. A professor at a Missouri university fulminates at the "lunatic literalism of the creationists,"⁴ especially "the weirdness produced by leaders such as Henry M. Morris."⁵

And even such an articulate and highly revered evolutionist as the late Stephen Jay Gould, in a voluminous book of 1433 pages published just before his death, referred angrily to "the scourge of creationism."⁶ He had refused many invitations to debate a qualified creationist scientist with the self-serving and misleading explanation that it would be a mistake to dignify creationism and its scientists in this way.

Dr. Massimo Pigliucci, who has lost a number of debates with Dr. Gish and other creationists, laments the fact that, "many Americans are still enchanted with dinosaurs such as John Morris and Duane Gish of the oxymoronically named Institute for Creation Research."⁷

Although Dr. Gould would never debate a creationist scientist, despite the inducement of large financial incentives to do so, he was quick to criticize them in print, calling them "fundamentalists who call themselves `creation scientists,' with their usual mixture of cynicism and ignorance."⁸ Gould often resorted, in fact, to the standard debate technique of name-calling and ad hominem arguments commonly used when one has no factual evidence to support his position.

One writer laments that even after the pope reaffirmed the commitment of the Catholic Church to evolution in 1996,

40 percent of American Catholics in a 2001 Gallup poll said they believed that God created human life in the past 10,000 years. Indeed, fully 45 percent of all Americans subscribe to this creationist view.¹²

But why would the public favor creation? Only a statistical minority of the "general public" attends church and Sunday school. Could it possibly be that evolution is so contrary to evidence and common sense that people intuitively know that evolution is wrong? And could it be that many of these have studied the evidences for themselves and thereby found that evolution is not really scientific after all?

Anti-Creationists Backed Into a Corner? Forrest Turpen, executive director of Christian Educators Association International, says it is obvious the evolution-only advocates feel their ideology and livelihood are being threatened.

Media Bias Stifles Creationists' Scientific Findings, Perspective He explains that the secular media -- which he describes as atheistic and anti-Christian -- publishes most anything it can that appears to indoctrinate people and "hits against the Bible."

Loosening Darwin's GripA poll released in May 2002 by Zogby International found that nearly eight out of every 10 Ohioans supported the teaching of intelligent design in classrooms where Darwinian evolution also is taught. A survey by The Plain Dealer newspaper in Cleveland offered similar findings: 74 percent of Ohioans said evidence for and against evolution should be taught in science classrooms, while 59 percent said intelligent design should be included in origins study.

Intelligently Designed Films The two videos complement each other well. Unlocking the Mystery of Life develops all of Intelligent Design's major molecular-based arguments for an "intelligent cause" of life's complexity, and thus presents the positive case. Icons of Evolution, on the other hand, spotlights the problems of Darwinism: its censorship of key scientific information in public schools, and the scientific misinformation it spreads through public textbooks.

• Institute for Creation Research
• Christian Answers
• Creation Research Society
• True.Origin
• CARM
• Revolution Against Evolution
• International Society for Complexity, Information, and Design (ISCID)
• Answers in Genesis

How Does the World View of the Scientist & the Clinician Influence Their Work?

Does the world view of the scientist influence his work as an investigator conducting research and as a clinician treating patients? Many scholars in the history of science would answer that question with a resounding "Yes." Some, like Thomas Kuhn in his widely quoted "The Structure of Scientific Revolutions," have argued that the scientific process is less than an objective critical empirical investigation of the facts. They claim the work of scientists is greatly influenced by their culture, by social and psychological environment, by what Kuhn calls the "paradigm"--that is to say, the preferred or prevailing theories, methods and studies of that particular discipline, and above all by their world view--their specific beliefs about "the order of nature." Kuhn writes that two scientists with different views of the "order of nature" . . . see different things when they look from the same point in the same direction . . . they see different things and they see them in different relations to each other." And we might add that they tend to see and to accept those data that conform to or make sense in light of their world view. So evidence exists that the world view of scientists and the presuppositions that view implies may influence not only the problems scientists choose to investigate but also what they actually observe and fail to observe.

[Hodar]

Texas Tech University biology professor Michael Dini recently came under fire for refusing to write letters of recommendation

These are not required to graduate, nor are they required to continue your education. If he refused to 'sponsor' a Masters, or PhD; you'd have a case. Anyone may refuse to write a letter of recommendation to anyone, for any reason, or no reason. Granted, he's acting like a jerk; but he has the right to do so.

[ibme]

Darwinism is a radical religious cult that is afraid of scientific reason

[Libertarianize the GOP]

http://www.freerepublic.com/perl/bump-list

[Doctor Stochastic]

Previous discussion on Free Republic would seem to indicate that the Creationists believe that a letter of recommendation is an entitlement. They also claimed that such letters could not be refused on the basis of civil rights.

[f.Christian]

Darwinism is the atheist religion ... bolshevik monoploy that forbids all others --- fascism !

[Lurking Libertarian]

In the beginning there was the unholy trinity of the particles, the unthinking and unfeeling laws of physics, and chance. Together they accidentally made the amino acids which later began to live and to breathe. Then the living, breathing entities began to imagine. And they imagined God. But then they discovered science and then science produced Darwin. Later Darwin discovered evolution and the scientists discarded God.

Total strawman. This is not the theory of evolution. Some evolutionists are atheists, but many are believers. Evolution may be inconsistent with a hyperliteral reading of Genesis 1-2, but is in no other way inconsistent with a belief in God or creation.

[Hodar]

Darwinism is the atheist religion

No, I have no idea where you came up with that thought. Go to any museaum and you can actually LEARN what you are talking about. Darwinism need not cause you to reject creationism any more than chemisty does. You can easily see that the fossil record shows that animals change over time. This is what Charles Darwin noted. Survival of the fittest, and animals changing characteristics that aided in survival are hardly a religon. The bible makes no references to dinosaurs, so are they a religous fanatics fantasy too?

[js1138]

Let's see if I can follow this logic: First, grades are stipulated as a reasonably objective measure of competence and performance, therefore graduate schools don't consider them as sufficient for admission. Second, letters of recommendation -- which are entirely subjective and can be obtained through butt-kissing, bribery or sexual favors -- are the preferred qualifier for graduate school.

Therefore it follows that the subjective admissions criteria should not be questioned, but rather the process for doling out the letters should be brought under federal control.

Makes sense to me.

[f.Christian]

SOUPERSTITION ... baloney science (( atheist // evolution )) ---

A smart God // science doesn't -- can't evolve ...

evolution (( Godless )) is inherently stupid --- impossible !

[Hodar]

And dinosaur bones, fossils, petrified shells and all other evidence showing evolution are really just mass hysteria, huh? Amazing that so many museaums around the world would buy into the impossible. The frozen mammonth in Siberia is really just a hairy sardine. A little education on your part would do wonders. You can actually learn from a visit to any neighborhood museaum. And evolution is not necessarily an Atheistic pursuit, you would know this if you bothered to investigate for yourself.

[f.Christian]

First Amendment groups hailed the ruling.

"This is extraordinarily important," said Barry Lynn, a lawyer with Americans United for the Separation of Church and State, which filed a brief in support of the two cadets who brought the case. "It essentially says that ... public universities have no business promoting religion --- at mealtime or bedtime or any other time."

No religous liberty ... Atheism // evolution is a hate crime --- cult !

[PatrickHenry]

Another wild and whacky ping.

[This ping list is for the evolution -- not creationism -- side of evolution threads, and sometimes for other science topics. To be added (or dropped), let me know via freepmail.]

[balrog666]

Idiots on parade. Again.

[f.Christian]

hd ...

are really just mass hysteria, huh?

fC ...

exactly ---

Brainwashing (( Truth // Theism // conservatism )) ...

INDOCTRINATION (( liberalism // atheism // lies )) ...

forced too !

[f.Christian]

No religous liberty ... Atheism // evolution is a hate crime --- SATANIC cult !

[LiteKeeper]

YEC read later

[js1138]

Any time the First Ammendment is used to justify the coercion of speech, and "conservatives" celebrate this event, something is deeply wrong with the world.

Next up, Rush Limbaugh.

[Rebel_Ace]

To f.Christian,

I have read many of your replies, and for the life of me I cannot understand why you post things with such an arcane pattern of wording and punctuation. The whole point of posting is to COMMUNICATE with the reader. Your arguments are not well represented with the bizzare syntax you choose to implement.

For example, you stated:

"...evolution (( Godless )) is inherently stupid --- impossible !..."

Do you mean that believing in NO God is on it's face stupid, and that believing in God is automatically a sign of intelligence? Then I would have to ask, would belief in TWO Gods be even smarter? How about THREE?

A reader is left by your posts with the impression that either:

(a) English is not your first language -or-
(b) English is your first language, you just never bothered to learn the rules -or-
(c) You know the rules, but are too lazy to adhere to them while writing -or-
(d) You are masking poor or weak arguments in hard to read sentences.

COMMUNICATION ... (((talking // speaking // writing))) requires (needs // depends upon) MUTUALLY ACCEPTED Language Usage.

There, is that better?

Rebel Ace

[PatrickHenry]

A very few links from the famous "list-o-links" (so the creationists don't get to start each new thread from ground zero).

15 Answers to Creationist Nonsense. From Scientific American
Arguments we think creationists should NOT use from Answers in Genesis.
300 Creationist Lies.

The foregoing is just a tiny sample. So that everyone will have access to the accumulated Creationism vs. Evolution threads which have previously appeared on FreeRepublic, plus links to hundreds of sites with a vast amount of information on this topic, here's Junior's massive work, available for all to review:
The Ultimate Creation vs. Evolution Resource [ver 21].