Professor Rigid on Evolution (must "believe" to get med school rec)

The Lubbock Avalanche Journal ^ | 10/6/02 | Sebastian Kitchen

[hispanarepublicana]

Professor rigid on evolution </MCC HEAD>

By SEBASTIAN KITCHEN </MCC BYLINE1>

AVALANCHE-JOURNAL </MCC BYLINE2>

On the Net

• Criteria for letters of recommendation: http://www2.tltc.ttu.edu/dini/Personal/ letters.htm

• Michael Dini's Web page:

http://www2.tltc.ttu. edu/dini/

Micah Spradling was OK with learning about evolution in college, but his family drew the line when his belief in the theory became a prerequisite for continuing his education.

Tim Spradling said his son left Texas Tech this semester and enrolled in Lubbock Christian University after en countering the policy of one associate professor in biological sciences.

Professor Michael Dini's Web site states that a student must "truthfully and forthrightly" believe in human evolution to receive a letter of recommendation from him.

"How can someone who does not accept the most important theory in biology expect to properly practice in a field that is so heavily based on biology?" Dini's site reads.

Dini says on the site that it is easy to imagine how physicians who ignore or neglect the "evolutionary origin of humans can make bad clinical decisions."

He declined to speak with The Avalanche-Journal. His response to an e-mail from The A-J said: "This semester, I have 500 students to contend with, and my schedule in no way permits me to participate in such a debate."

A Tech spokeswoman said Chancellor David Smith and other Tech officials also did not want to comment on the story.

At least two Lubbock doctors and a medical ethicist said they have a problem with the criterion, and the ethicist said Dini "could be a real ingrate."

Tim Spradling, who owns The Brace Place, said his son wanted to follow in his footsteps and needed a letter from a biology professor to apply for a program at Southwestern University's medical school.

Spradling is not the only medical professional in Lub bock shocked by Dini's policy. Doctors Patrick Edwards and Gaylon Seay said they learned evolution in college but were never forced to believe it.

"I learned what they taught," Edwards said. "I had to. I wanted to make good grades, but it didn't change my basic beliefs."

Seay said his primary problem is Dini "trying to force someone to pledge allegiance to his way of thinking."

Seay, a Tech graduate who has practiced medicine since 1977, said a large amount of literature exists against the theory.

"He is asking people to compromise their religious be liefs," Seay said. "It is a shame for a professor to use that as a criteria."

Dini's site also states: "So much physical evidence supports" evolution that it can be referred to as fact even if all the details are not known.

"One can deny this evidence only at the risk of calling into question one's understanding of science and of the method of science," Dini states on the Web site.

Edwards said Dini admits in the statement that the details are not all known.

Dini is in a position of authority and "can injure someone's career," and the criteria is the "most prejudice thing I have ever read," Seay said.

"It is appalling," he said.

Both doctors said their beliefs in creationism have never negatively affected their practices, and Seay said he is a more compassionate doctor because of his beliefs.

"I do not believe evolution has anything to do with the ability to make clinical decisions — pro or con," Seay said.

Academic freedom should be extended to students, Edwards said.

"A student may learn about a subject, but that does not mean that everything must be accepted as fact, just because the professor or an incomplete body of evidence says so," Edwards said.

"Skepticism is also a very basic part of scientific study," he said.

The letter of recommendation should not be contingent on Dini's beliefs, Edwards said.

"That would be like Texas Tech telling him he had to be a Christian to teach biology," Edwards said.

Harold Vanderpool, professor in history and philosophy of medicine at the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston, said he has a problem with Dini's policy.

"I think this professor could be a real ingrate," Vanderpool said. "I have a problem with a colleague who has enjoyed all the academic freedoms we have, which are extensive, and yet denies that to our students."

Vanderpool, who has served on, advised or chaired committees for the National Institute of Health, the Food and Drug Administration and the Department of Health and Human Services, said the situation would be like a government professor requiring a student to be "sufficiently patriotic" to receive a letter.

"It seems to me that this professor is walking a pretty thin line between the protection of his right to do what he wants to do, his own academic freedom, and a level of discrimination toward a student," he said.

"It is reaching into an area of discrimination. That could be a legal problem. If not, it is a moral problem," Vanderpool said.

Instead of a recommendation resting on character and academic performance, "you've got this ideological litmus test you are using," he said. "To me, that is problematic, if not outright wrong."

William F. May, a medical ethicist who was appointed to President Bush's Council on Bioethics, said he cannot remember establishing a criterion on the question of belief with a student on exams or with letters of recommendation.

"I taught at five institutions and have always felt you should grade papers and offer judgments on the quality of arguments rather than a position on which they arrived."

Professors "enjoy the protection of academic freedom" and Dini "seems to be profoundly ungrateful" for the freedom, Vanderpool said.

He said a teacher cannot be forced to write a letter of recommendation for a student, which he believes is good because the letters are personal and have "to do with the professor's assessment of students' work habits, character, grades, persistence and so on."

A policy such as Dini's needs to be in the written materials and should be stated in front of the class so the student is not surprised by the policy and can drop the class, Vanderpool said.

Dini's site states that an individual who denies the evidence commits malpractice in the method of science because "good scientists would never throw out data that do not conform to their expectations or beliefs."

People throw out information be cause "it seems to contradict his/her cherished beliefs," Dini's site reads. A physician who ignores data cannot remain a physician for long, it states.

Dini's site lists him as an exceptional faculty member at Texas Tech in 1995 and says he was named "Teacher of the Year" in 1998-99 by the Honors College at Texas Tech.

Edwards said he does not see any evidence on Dini's vita that he attended medical school or treated patients.

"Dr. Dini is a nonmedical person trying to impose his ideas on medicine," Edwards said. "There is little in common between teaching biology classes and treating sick people. ... How dare someone who has never treated a sick person purport to impose his feelings about evolution on someone who aspires to treat such people?"

On his Web site, Dini questions how someone who does not believe in the theory of evolution can ask to be recommended into a scientific profession by a professional scientist.

May, who taught at multiple prestigious universities, including Yale, during his 50 years in academia, said he did not want to judge Dini and qualified his statements because he did not know all of the specifics.

He said the doctors may be viewing Dini's policy as a roadblock, but the professor may be warning them in advance of his policy so students are not dismayed later.

"I have never seen it done and am surprised to hear it, but he may find creationist aggressive in the class and does not want to have to cope with that," May said. "He is at least giving people the courtesy of warning them in advance."

The policy seems unusual, May said, but Dini should not be "gang-tackled and punished for his policy."

The criterion may have been viewed as a roadblock for Micah Spradling at Tech, but it opened a door for him at LCU.

Classes at LCU were full, Tim Spradling said, but school officials made room for his son after he showed them Dini's policy.

skitchen@lubbockonline.com 766-8753

[Lurking Libertarian]

1001 Placemarker

[<1/1,000,000th%]

Did I get 1001?

[<1/1,000,000th%]

e. coli!

[Right Wing Professor]

From your pro-Damadian link

But Dr. Damadian's initial work had several flaws. His scanning method relied on a point-by-point analysis of the entire human body, which proved impractical.

Exactly.

This is simply not imaging, in the sense in which everyone in the field describes it, any more than taking an individual X-ray of every small part of the body is a CAT scan. As far as I can tell, Damadian does not even understand the mathematics of reconstructing a three dimensional image from two dimensional projections. And Damadian's contention that he would have 'eventually' come up with Lauterbur's insight is an admission of failure. The fact is, he didn't, and then he disgraced himself by fighting a 25 year campaign to steal credit for another man's work. But you can take in a lot of suckers with a $100m bankroll.

[VadeRetro]

OK, that N.H. Nilsson may not have been N. Heribert. The same web page elsewhere says "N. Hjalmar."

Ur Luzula albidas arträtt i vår flora av N. Hjalmar Nilsson (Botaniska Notiser 1882)

But the real guy, Heribert, goes back at least as far as 1898, when he collected the specimen below. My point still stands.

A specimen catalog.

I wasn't impressed with medved citing this guy when I thought his earliest work was in 1908. Now it's pushed back another ten years. How old did he live to? When did he write about his "forty year" search?

That quote is all over the web--on creationist web pages. The same little snippets passed around. Have any of the people offering them read the original works? Does any creationist really know who this guy was? When he lived? What he believed? Hah!

Here's a search on "boy from Tukana." What is "Tukana?" A misspelling of "Turkana," as in "Lake Turkana" in Africa, site of a famous Leakey find.

So what we have is a collection of material assiduously combed for by a few drudges, massaged as needed to the desired effect, and passed around mindlessly forever by the faithful.

Should anyone be impressed? After you've seen a few of these things, you know what you're seeing.

[f.Christian]

Wrong country...

Evolution, reason, and liberty. Placemarker.

That was the France--Russian--chinese--Vietnamese--Cambodian--Korean...ect---revolution!

Even Nazi Germany was a reaction to it(Russian/German evolutionists)!

Why does evolution have to be govt---tax supported---enforced?

You are TYRANNY!

[VadeRetro]

I don't know how many times I have to say this - I don't read every post in every thread or every thread for that matter.

You show less awareness of what's going on than most posters, I'll admit. But you joined Pietro in pretending that whattajoke's refutation of Ready's post--my own was ignored--is wholly refuted by merely supporting the continued brandishing of the late Colin Patterson. Real cluelessness would be more random, I sometimes think.

If I check into another supposedly out of context quote you listed and find out it isn't really out of context, I'm going to be all over you like flies on, um, roast beef.

Feel free. Try the Tom Kemp quote Ready posted, and read my link in 955. Refute my refutation and I'll slink away, muttering. Or something.

[AndrewC]

I've embraced neither your nor RWP's position.

Fine, then I apologize for misinterpreting your comments.

I really don't care who gets credit for the invention. My heartburn is seeing someone being marginalized unfairly.

Then I take it your view is the Mounds/Almond Joy dichotomy. Sometimes you feel like a nut, sometimes you don't...

[f.Christian]

Even Nazi Germany was a reaction/version to/of it(evolution)!

[Right Wing Professor]

I consider the attack on Damadian as a "nut" a very telling indication of the objectiveness of the attacker.

Damadian calls himself the inventor of MRI., and has spent enormous time and money trying to present his case. And yet, when asked about Lauterbur, he says had Lauterbur never lived, he (Damadian) 'would have gotten there eventually'.

'Nut' seems a fair description of someone who claims to have discovered something because he thinks he would have discovered it if someone else hadn't discovered it first. But maybe you have a better word?

[f.Christian]

Slander/LIBEL too...using a good name--person--FR for evil!

[f.Christian]

Main Entry: 1li·bel
Pronunciation: 'lI-b&l
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English, written declaration, from Middle French, from Latin libellus, diminutive of liber book
Date: 14th century
1 a : a written statement in which a plaintiff in certain courts sets forth the cause of action or the relief sought b archaic : a handbill especially attacking or defaming someone
2 a : a written or oral defamatory statement or representation that conveys an unjustly unfavorable impression b (1) : a statement or representation published without just cause and tending to expose another to public contempt (2) : defamation of a person by written or representational means (3) : the publication of blasphemous, treasonable, seditious, or obscene writings or pictures (4) : the act, tort, or crime of publishing such a libel

[Right Wing Professor]

I didn't take you up on it because it's a pretty subjective question, which has a lot to do with how you value individual creativity versus collective effort. Lauterbur was the first to make an image using NMR. Lauterbur figured out the physics of making a 3D image (without knowing it had already been worked out for another purpose). He simply sat down and tried to work out mathematically if you have a bunch of photographs of a semi-transparent object, how can you turn that stack of 2D photos into one three-dimensional image. His way of reconstructing the image was actually a rediscovery of 'projection reconstruction', which was what made CAT scans possible. But this fundamental insight, that you can construct a 3 dimensional map from a set of two dimensional data sets, completely escaped Damadian, who instead of getting a simultaneous scan of every cell in the body, wanted to go around point by point and measure every small part of the body in sequence.

It turns out Ernst's method is far more efficient. But the first NMR image was taken by Lauterbur, and his method is the first published way of obtaining such an image. In both of these matters, his achievement is an individual one.

[AndrewC]

But maybe you have a better word?

I don't answer loaded questions. I just note that others applaud and give other accolades to Damadian. For what reason? Obviously to you, it is for being a nut.

[Nebullis]

My heartburn is seeing someone being marginalized unfairly.

I'm not sure anyone is being unfairly marginalized. But I am inclined to trust those familiar with the field over a Google search.

[VadeRetro]

Just tipped off by jennyp,

AnswersinGenesis.org and Kent Hovind are in a knock-down drag-out over AiG's earlier 15 arguments creationists should not use. Also, Kent has been arrested for "burglary and assault" after a very crude, spontaneous eviction attempt on some tenants in a house he rents out. Bwahahahaha!

[VadeRetro]

And, guess what? AiG doesn't like the way Kenty-boy quotes them!

[BMCDA]

Dang! You beat me to it ;)

[VadeRetro]

Kent Hovind Arrested!

[VadeRetro]

You can do the FR THREAD. :P