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.
But it meant something different, then, now didn't it? Or maybe you aren't aware of this.
The word "evolution" comes from a latin word, "evolvere," meaning "unrolling," as in "the unrolling of a scroll." In line with this etymology "evolution" carried a sense of the unfolding or unfurling of what already existed in fact or in programmatic potential.
Prior to Darwin the common scientific and biological usage of the term was with respect to the growth and development of organisms, for instance in embryology. Indeed this is the way Darwin himself most commonly used the term.
Others came to use "evolution" (or "development") to refer to the "transmutation" of species and to common descent, but Darwin long resisted this precisely because the sense of "unrolling" was contrary to his own view of evolution as a process resulting from variation and selection operating among the vicissitudes of reproductive competition.
Admittely the term "evolution" had been used, before Darwin, by Lammark to describe his own theory, but this was more appropriate. Lammark's theory was very different from Darwin's in certain respects, and Lammark did indeed envision that evolution followed a programmatic development, being channeled necessarily along the course of a universal "scale of being".
The point I'm getting at here is that the sense of the term "evolution" is different when referring to cosmic versus biological evolution. With respect to the former, evolution retains much of the orginal sense of "unrolling," since we dealing with the realm of universal, physical laws, whose effects are typically mathematically predictable. In the case of biological evolution we are dealing, to a much greater extent, with processes (such as natural selection) that are not predictable as to their specific results.
Your implication that the term evolution carries the same sense in both cases (the evolution of the universe according to physical law, and the origin of species according to random variation and environmentally driven selection) commits the fallacy of equivocation.
Nicely put.
Now unless you can prove biological evolution has nothing to do with "the order and course of nature" (which is absurd) - biological evolution does have something to do with cosmology.
Oh boy, the pick-your-definition game! I just love that one. Ok, here's *my* dictionary's definition:
Cosmology: a branch of astronomy that deals with the origin, structure, and space-time relationships of the universe; also : a theory dealing with these matters (Merriam-Webster)Now unless you can prove biological evolution has something to do with "space-time relationships of the universe" (which is absurd) - biological evolution *doesn't* have something to do with cosmology.
So much for the definition game... Most amateur philosophers outgrow that one pretty fast, I see that you haven't yet.
You're right - that was amusing.
Just not in quite the way you intended.
Proving a know-it-all is wrong is fun.
You've got a lot to learn about the nature of "proof", son. And it's a more rigorous thing than just picking the broadest definition you can get your hands on in order to stretch a word beyond any useful meaning (i.e., by your definition and argument, *car repair* is related to cosmology). When a word is expanded that far, any "connection" you've claimed to have demonstrated is a Pyrrhic victory, at most.
Is this a relative of yours?
"There's glory for you!""I don't know what you mean by 'glory,' " Alice said.
Humpty Dumpty smiled contemptuously. "Of course you don't—till I tell you. I meant 'there's a nice knock-down argument for you!' "
"But 'glory' doesn't mean 'a nice knock-down argument,' " Alice objected.
"When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, "it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less."
"The question is, " said Alice, "whether you *can* make words mean so many different things."
-- From Through The Looking Glass by Lewis Carroll
The ancient Chinese attempted to measure the circumference of the Earth by walking around it (glub, glub) and the Indians reportedly tried to measure the circumference of the giant turtle that the Earth rode on but, as they tended to fall off the edge, they had to abandon the project.
Happy to help.
Ah, riiiiigghhhtt... The old "no, I wasn't being stupid, I was being, um, *ironic*, yeah, *that's* it..." excuse.
Sure, I buy that. You betcha.
BTW: your “biological evolution has no connection to cosmology” is a snipe. It is a factually incorrect statement meant to disrupt the debate.
No, actually, it's your grossly inaccurate twisting of what I *actually* wrote.
Why are you anti-evolutionist zealots always so fond of making up false "quotes"?
I don't recall the source of my information, but I believe that Aristotle's reasoning was based on the earth's shadow on the moon during an eclipse (timely topic). The shadow was *always* circular. Aristotle reasoned that the earth must be a sphere because a sphere is the only geometric solid that *always* casts a circular shadow.
Good question, seeing as how there is no such thing as the (or a) "Theory of Cosmological Evolution". There are various theories within the field of cosmology that attempt to explain the evolution of the universe, or of galaxies, or of stars, etc, but these theories all have names (few of which include the word evolution, and NONE of which include the word "darwinism," "orthodox" or otherwise).
Evolution is that biological organisms give rise to different biological organisms ...
the big guns are loaded with poppycock !
Main Entry: pop·py·cock
Pronunciation: 'pä-pE-"käk
Function: noun
Etymology: D dialect pappekak, literally, soft dung, from Dutch pap pap + kak dung
Date: 1865
: empty talk or writing : NONSENSE
Apparently I've been reading the same literature as you, because I see the same problems with T-of-E
"In all the thousands of fly-breeding experiments carried out all over the world for more than fifty years, a distinct new species has never been seen to emerge ... or even a new enzyme."
(Gordon Taylor, The Great Evolution Mystery (New York: Harper and Row, 1983, pp 34, 38)
I think that means the word has more than one meaning - therefore your comment that evolution has nothing to do with cosmology is false (all that was needed is one definition - not all of them)
BINGO!
There for the statement "evolutiuon has nothing to do with cosmology" is false.
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