Posted on 10/06/2002 8:16:21 AM PDT by hispanarepublicana
Professor rigid on evolution </MCC HEAD>
By SEBASTIAN KITCHEN </MCC BYLINE1>
AVALANCHE-JOURNAL </MCC BYLINE2>
• 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/
On the Net
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
That's right but aruanan's statement doesn't preclude the existence of theistic evolutionists. I would agree with you if I thought that's what aruanan was saying.
This is how I read the post:
The main purpose today and when Darwin proposed his theory was to provide a means of escaping the idea of a creator.Right or wrong the post does not preclude theistic evolutionists. As I see it that's a completely different issue. Now, I'm not familar with aruanan or his worldview and maybe he meant what you think he said. Perhaps aruanan will explicate...
I wanted to expand on something...
If in proposing their theories Darwin, Gould and others were providing a means of excaping a creator, that doesn't mean everyone who buys the theory of evolution holds to the same worldview.
Junior posted that he was a Catholic and was promptly excommunicated by Pope Gore the MMMth. Two or three times now, in fact. Gore's fellow Cs roll their eyes and pretend that nothing unreasonable is going on. Very telling.
Quite true. If Junior isn't a sufficent example, then consider The Pope's 1996 statement on evolution.
Because I don't believe in evolution, I can't understand the value of experiences or experiments involving animals??? You are kidding, right?
Not believing in evolution does not mean a person cannot observe and make a decision based on real time experiments, unlike all the different types of "evolution theory" that are conclusions draw from pieces of artifacts dug up somewhere and claimed to be "fact"
You must be the type of person who thinks because I don't believe a "theory" I have checked my brain at the door or didn't have one to begin with.
....I was hoping you just forgot your sarcasm tag........I guess not.
Without the anchor of evolutionary descent, experiments on animals might as well be on aliens. Or do the gods reuse genetic code for other reasons?
Junior and other friends of mine are sufficient and not all are Catholic. It doesn't matter if they are Catholic or who they are, whether Junior, the Pope, gore3000 or whoever, I look at what the Bible says is the main issue: Christ. Sorry, the Great Commission commands me to put a plug in for Him. If one has received Christ a belief in evolution is okay from my detailed studies of the Bible. I just wish they'd take the red pill. :-)
In reference to the link you posted, what do you think the Pope means with this statement in context with the entire article?
Consequently, theories of evolution which, in accordance with the philosophies inspiring them, consider the mind as emerging from the forces of living matter, or as a mere epiphenomenon of this matter, are incompatible with the truth about man. Nor are they able to ground the dignity of the person.
What is "the truth about man"?
What type of scientific experiments on animals were conducted before Darwin?
Strawman argument and a dumb one at that.
Ha-Ha!
So? What related the results to man? You know, individual and special creation and all that idiocy?
Strawman argument and a dumb one at that.
BWAAAAAAAAAHAHAHA! Then refute it...
So how come he didn't just ask other professors for recommendations and if he couldn't lie to the professor and tell him he believed in evolution, wasn't anwering the test relevant test questions correctly also just as much of a lie?
I'll go slow so I won't trip you up
Before Darwin, scientist's actually did experiments on animals.
Did you know that?
Based on your comment above, it was as worthwhile as examining a space alien.
So why would scientist do such silly things for, they didn't have Darwin to guide them in their quest for knowledge. Without Darwin how could they draw any scientific conclusions at all. My God the horror of it all
If evolutionary descent was unknown at the time, they must have been puzzled that all vertebrate animals have many of the same type systems in their biological make up as man does. I mean how stupid could they be??? Of course God could not have designed all living creatures in such a order
How could that be?
Maybe, just maybe the scientist who did experiments on animals realized that all things were created by the same hand so all things were designed from the same building blocks. So in conclusion, since all things have similar makeup, they could draw scientific conclusions, even without evolutionary descent.
I hope I was sufficiently condescending.
Nope. Water off a duck's back after medved, gore3000, a few idiots of that ilk. Try the f.Christian approach of babbling inanely. Oh, wait, that's what you did. Let me see if I have it now:
Animals are related to man by the divine choice of the gods. How fortuitious for all those medical studies!
And current creatures, including man, are related to past creatures solely by the choice of the latest gods who were too stupid to do it themselves? I guess they just used the crib notes of DNA from all those past creation events, huh?
Oh, wait, how about the past history of life on Earth, as laid out in the fossil record, the tree of life, and DNA relationships between species, is that just a happy coincidence? All specially made 6000 years ago to look like an old universe? Or maybe it was all made on Holy Last Thursday by Twinky the Wonder God?
My, how interesting is your world view! Tell us more!
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