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.

[PatrickHenry]

You always have to bring logic into these debates, don't you?

That accounts for my unpopularity in some circles.

[Heartlander]

See?

Aric2000 - Reconcile this:

We can build a computer, the origins of electricity are not necassary, we can build an airplane, a cannon, artillery, a gun, a building, etc etc, but the origins of gravity do not need to be known in order to do any of those things, we can build nuclear reactors, we can build atomic weapons, we can attack cancer cells with radioactive materials, but the origins of atoms is not known. And if someone said that we must or else the theory of gravity, electronics, or nuclear cannot be true, you would tell them that it is patently ridiculous, but, when it comes to evolution, it better explain the origin of life or else it is not true is ridiculous as well.

[Aric2000]

When I was in the military, I was based at Ft. Knox, my girlfreinds grandmother was diagnosed with cancer, they went in and did exploratory surgery, found that the cancer was too much and that she was terminal.

She requested that if that was the case, that they sew her up and send her home. She asked that they do nothing, this was 1987.

Instead they put a feeding tube in, and sent her home for hospice. She was so angry that the doctors had done that to her.

She cried, she yelled, she asked the doctors why they would choose to make her suffer like that.

It was VERY upsetting, I am very glad that your grandmother did not have to deal with this.

She died with dignity, My girlfreinds grandmother took over 6 months to pass away from the cancer, and they continued feeding her through the tube until the cancer had taken her stomach and she was in so much pain that the drugs no longer helped. The sight of it turned my stomach, so I will not attempt to describe it to you.

She died in agony, death was a real relief to her.

If the doctors had listened to her, and allowed her to die the way she wished to, she would not have died angry at the doctors, and in such a horrible and painful way.

I am not sure who it was harder on, her, or those of us who had to watch her suffer.

I am happy for you that you did not have to go through that, and that she was able to die the way she wished.

And your poem was wonderful by the way.

[Heartlander]

Thanks man… Sometimes it’s hard to think things through all the way.

[Aric2000]

A Doctor needs to have a scientific mind, in order to understand diseases and their causes, he must understand microevolution, he must understand that virus's and bacteria will change and become resistant to drugs, and WHY they become resistant.

Evolution helps explain this, and if he does not agree or understand evolution, then how can I think that he can logically diagnose my illness and treat it with the proper drugs?

Ichneumon is right, if a doctor does not understand and agree with evolution, his logic is faulty, therefore I would question any diagnoses that he made, I would demand a second opinion.

[Heartlander]

Aric, my bother understands this and your point is not valid.

[Heartlander]

Bother = brother (Freudian slip : )

[Aric2000]

You know, I really want to agree with you, why? Because you are so easy to debate, you are polite, you are not at all precocious nor arrogant, you are not a no thinking know it all. You are just a nice guy that I happen to disagree with.

Man, how did that happen? ;)

[Heartlander]

We can leave it as an 'agree to disagree' if you wish.

No big deal...

[Aric2000]

I have seen the enemy, and he ain't you!! LOL :)

[Heartlander]

And I am sorry about your girlfreinds grandmother.
I know…

[Aric2000]

Long time ago, then I had to go through almost the same thing as you did with my grandparents.

My grandfather looked at me and said, I am just thankful that I have left the world a better place then I got it in, and he was right, he did.

He invented the waterproof glue for plywood, he created a company from the ground up, that to this day supports the entire family in some way shape or form, and he left a HUGE trust to his church. He helped invent fiberboard, and then invented a laminate machine to put wood grain paper on the fiberboard. His work in wood and chemistry helped the allies create airfields in the jungles of the islands in our fight with Japan. He was a chemical engineer.

He left the world a much better place then when he got it.

Yes, I am pretty proud of my grandfather, I miss him very much, and my grandmother as well.

I hope to someday live up to his example.

[Heartlander]

My Grandfather was an atheist, a poet, and a pioneer in open-heart surgery. Hospital wings are named after him and he died of… a heart attack. It’s actually a (private) long story.

[Heartlander]

BTW He died before I was born and I only have the stories from others to know him. – Along with ‘his’ the poetry.

[Aric2000]

Now that is ironic.

A freind of mine, who has helped in the research of using pig valves in human hearts, just had MAJOR heart surgery, he was VERY upset when he found out that he had recieved Bovine heart valves in his surgery, he said that he almost told the doctors to do it again.... LOL

[Heartlander]

My uncle just had a ‘quintuple bypass’ and was walking around the block one week after surgery. He keeps telling everyone that he feels better than he has ever felt before.

I think I’ll have one next week just for the heck of it…

A friend told me to live every day like it was your last. So I tried it the other weekend. I laid in bed with tubes up my nose. It sucked! LOL!

[Segale2001]

Hodar: Good question. The Bible does not mention Dinosars by name. However we know they exsisted. The Bible does not mention the word Pope, yet Millions of people worship the ground this man walks on. Why do we look for validity or proof in the Bible for Dinosars, while Millions beleive in the Pope as the highest religious Catholic on Earth? The Pope is real and so are the T-Rex bones... yet neither are in the Bible?

[balrog666]

Evolution world domination alert!

[Dark Knight]

Boy, after all those nice things you said about me. I mean being the first one in FR history to have someone change their mind openly, and nicely.

The more I look at the problem of choosing a doctor using TOE as a criterion, the more I think it is problematical. If a physician chooses to bring his religious beliefs up to a patient, without being asked, is that a boundary violation (a serious ethics issue)?

But your last comment, I am in total agreement.

>>Then again, we stay away from Doctors whenever possible anyway.<<

I can say iatrogenic.

[Doctor Stochastic]

I would have to agree with you. If a doctor disagrees with evolutionary theory, I would wonder if that doctor actually grasped things like antibiotic resistance and how such obtains and is spread. Likewise I would wonder how competent the doctor is in the matter of heritable diseases.

I also would not trust a doctor who thought the Earth was flat or that there were Seven Spanish Angels pushing the Moon around in orbit.

Likewise it would be difficult to trust an electrical engineer who denied the existence of imaginary numbers.