Posted on 04/29/2003 10:43:39 AM PDT by 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.
Sure you do. There's a whole cottage industry of people peddling that line of snake oil.
Great line, Remedy.
Rather it would seem that bigotry backed by "science" is acceptable.
OK. Where is my nearest museaum?
Then why I can't I register for the ICR's message boards If I'm an evolutionist? Who's the bigot there?
If what you say is true, ICR isn't a tax-funded institute.
How can you miss a point like this. By the same standard you are imposing on Prof. Dinni, then I can demand that you write me a letter of recommendation (without regard to my qualifications, your opinion of my qualifications, your opinion of my skills, ect.). A letter of recommendation is NOT an official form, it is not required, and it is a GIFT that may be freely given, or witheld by anyone, for any reason. Do you give a personal recommendation to everyone, regardless of your opinion of them? If so, your recommendation would soon be totally worthless.
evolution, as I have said many times is ANTI-SCIENCE.
The central point of science is the discovery of causes and effects and materialist evolution denies it. It proposes random events as the engine of the transformation of species.
This is totally unscientific, it is an attack on science which in order to expand human knowledge and human health and living standards needs to find the causes and effects of how our Universe functions.
Randomness answers nothing and leads to no discoveries.
In fact it opposes scientific inquiry and is a philosophical know-nothingism.
That is why evolution has been popular with the masses and virtually ignored by scientists.
It is ... pseudo-science (( source )) --- for morons.
With a few words such as 'survival of the fittest' and 'natural selection' it seeks to make idiots think they are knowledgeable.
We see the idiocy of evolution and evolutionists daily on these threads. That is why they all repeat the same stock phrases, throw a few links (because they cannot even understand the concepts being discussed), but never give any facts showing their theory to be what they claim it is - the center of science. If it was, they should have no problem doing so. It is not, that's why they cannot.
sop ...
The theory of evolution is just that - a theory.
g3 ...
It may be a theory, but it is not a scientifically supported theory which is what evolutionists claim it to be. Anybody can have a theory about anything. It is whether a theory is valid that is the point. So you have not given any evidence for your side. All you have done is indulge in rhetoric, but you have not shown that evolution is science or have in any way refuted my statement that evolution cannot in fact be science because of its central proposition that 'evolution just happens'.
Such is not science.
539 posted on 03/13/2003 8:59 PM PST by gore3000
My understanding is that these letters of recommendation are required to enter most medical schools.
The only thing bones and fossils prove is that something lived, then died. The rest is assumptions about those bones and fossils.
You may have found a counter-example.
True, the theory of evolution does not generally attempt to explain how life first began. Evolutionists just skip over anything that would cause someone to question the theory.
They may, or may not help. Of the MD's I know personally, the opinions they expressed as to who got into Med School were based on grades, scores and the personal interviews. However, undergrad grades and scores on the MCAD are going to be the primary determing factor, unless you are a minority (but that's an unrelated topic to this article). The overall feeling was that unless the letter of recommendation was from a REALLY well placed researcher (Nobel winner for Cancer research as an example) the letters were of little significance.
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