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
exactly who's is longest?
RMMC DANIEL, Would that be Radioman Master Chief? I was a radioman in Taiwan and in the San Diego founding CREDO program. Someone told me recently Radiomen got merged with something else. What?
Oh, come now! Next thing, you'll be using that kind of reasoning trying to convince us the world isn't nescessarily flat.
{:-)
Wherefore by their fruits shall ye know them - Mat 7:20
This is the basis of scientific observation, laid out by Jesus himself. Although he was referring to false prophets at the time (teachers of false belief), the principle is the same. Observation of the results disclose the nature of the cause. Evolutionists, whether they acknowelege it or not, are attempting to apply this religious principle to their theories. I just don't think they are doing so properly, and nothing they argue hs convinced me otherwise (I'm an ex evolutionist, BTW).
Theories are tools used to explore and explain the natural world. As any tool from hammers to fire to nuclear fission, they can be used for both good or evil. That people attempt to use the theory of evolution to justify, say eugenics (a common anti-evo cannard), does not invalidate the mechanisms of variation and selection.
I also think there's more gone on--on this globe--in eons past that are not even hinted at in the fossile or any other record we have detected.
I don't mean to insult your intelligence, but you are aware that this can only be a matter of personal belief? And that because we have not detected these events, even indirectly, the realm of science must necessarily remain silent on the matter until evidence of such is brought to light?
What Professor Dini shows as his "evidence" is of course total nonsense. The problem with antibiotic resistance does not give proof of evolution. The changes that allow antibiotic resistance make the viri and bacteria much less viable because they invariably make them weaker in normal settings. Further, while many viri and bacteria manage to adapt to new circumstances, in spite of billions of dollars spent every year by the government, by universities, by private corporations to study viri and bacteria, in spite of them being bombarded with chemicals, radiation, and everything up to and including the kitchen sink, not a single one of them has ever transformed itself into anything other than what it was before. So in spite of his claim and that of evolutionists, no one has seen any kind of transformation even in these, the simplest organisms.
Professor Dini is therefore trying to force his atheistic beliefs unto his students. In addition to which, if his 'evidence' was so powerful to justify such extraordinary measures - how come in all his teachings was he not able to convince these students?
This professor should therefore be dismissed. He is not educating, he is indoctrinating and abusing his office as well as his students. He is a petty tyrant and has no place in a learning establishment.
Have you read that stuff Patrick? Anything worthwhile in it? Guess not, otherwise you and your friends would discuss the issues instead of degrading these discussions with insults and ad hominems.
Interesting point. How can evolution be called science when the idiots who call themselves scientists propose that you can add genetic information by destroying it (natural selection)? Evolution does not even pass the logic test that is why its proponents have to indulge in the thuggish tactics which Dini is engaging in and which the evolutionists on these threads engage in.
What you call a 'spam essay' is directly relevant to the discussions on each of the threads mentioned. Seems that your sole role in these threads is to insult people and try to silence opponents for telling the truth. You are nothing more than a petty tyrant trying to cover up the flood of truth with your little finger.
What good has evolution ever been used for? Let's see ONE (1) example. There are 100 million examples of its being used for evil, and their bodies are all in graves left unmarked by the followers of Darwinism.
The sliming, liar is at it again totally turning around my statements - and of course he is too much of a coward to make them when I am around or to direct them at me.
The challenge I have posted to evolutionists numerous times Patrick and which you in your total lameness have never been able to refute is as follows:
EVERY DISCOVERY IN BIOLOGY IN THE LAST 150 YEARS HAS TENDED TO DISPROVE EVOLUTION
Refute my statement above slimer.
More insults from Patrick, what else is new.
Simple, the same guy that made giraffes made people using the same system, carbon based organic-chemistry controlled by dna. I point that giraffes have the same number of vertebra in their necks as you, yet the DNA of a green tree frog is numerically closer that that of a chimpanzee to human. By judging from the outside evolutionists thought the warm blooded chimpanzee is closer to humans genetically than the cold blooded frog. Since their entire belief structure is being shaken by modern science they are left with faith in the face of reality, and their arguments are getting more shrill than real, unlike creation science which is being augmented by science more in these modern times.BZZZZZZZZTTTTT!!!!!!! That is quite false. Please provide a reference or link to that claim.
ROFL! some things are not from the flood even though most are, so there is no flood? Let me guess, this guy owns shares on the brooklyn bridge.
It all sounds so well and good, but I spent many years as a prospector going all the places that evolutionists don't go. Matter of fact, never I met a single one in the field. Guess they don't exist.
I applied the theory of the flood to prospecting and found it works incredibly well. Nothing else explains the distribution of placer gold. I have dug a few hundred tons of rock and gravel looking for the elusive "yello poo" and besides finding gold, found more than a couple of fossils.
The biggest test for me was a project we did on placerita canyon park. It was a very unusual concentration of placer in the Los Angles area. (of course the govt made a lizard counting park there to close it down). We noticed that the canyon was turned 90 degrees in retrospect to the other canyons in the area that showed only very minor amounts of placer. We then took the topo-maps of the entire county and looked for another cross-wise canyon. It had no name, but it sure had a lot of gold. Some how the govt beat us to that one too, it was called a "future equestrian area" (horse path) and closed down too. But we did the survey anyway.
The key for me was that the canyon had in addition to its concentration in the watershed in the bottom of the canyon, a high concentration on the upward side of the entire canyon walls and NOTHING on the down ward side. You have to understand sluice boxes to know why that shows the water flow direction.
In short, we prospected the entire canyon structure of the Grapevine area with a perspective of the entire mountain structure being under water. The distribution of Gold proved that all of Canyon Country was under water so deep that the canyons did not influence the water flow direction. I can tell you without a shadow of doubt that the water on the earth was well over 3500 feet high from the fossils in those mountains and from the geographical distribution of gold.
I find it humorous that a bunch of people who most likely never walked a hundred yards from a road or ever did any original research can "refute" creationism by looking at a pile of dusty books. I look for gold in creation, they look for answers in the sewers of men's minds.
Anybody who has spent any quality time in creation instead of a city with half a brain open will become convinced evolution is foolish.
I am a creationist, but not because someone has proven it, just because it is. Where are all the useless appendages that evolutionary experimentation would have generated? Ever studied the sleek design of an ant? Incredible! Our own creations are a joke next to the bugs we walk on and we think they are better engineers than us? That makes either us dumber than a bug or there is a God, you take your pick. Evolutionist are nothing but a bunch of "flat earthers" screaming for the status quo, time changes but man is still the same...
Trillions of dollars have been spent to prove creation in research, but beyond the tendency to find what you are looking for in an empty box (talk to any hunter that "sees" a buck in a moving bush until their dog walks out,) there is more proof every day of creation generated by accident that is being generated willfull intent by science.
My wife said once apon reading an article about trying to create life in the laboratory with chemicals and lighting bolts, why don't they just kill a rabbit? It has all the right parts and pieces in place and in order, make it live.
I have seen a little child pray for a man with a bad back and a short leg in church. I saw his leg grow longer with my own eyes. He walks upright and healed to this day. I am that man. (right now with tears in my eyes for joy) I was not able to stand for more than 10 minutes without my legs growing numb. I have no problem to this day. I no longer need an insert in my shoe so that I can walk better.
Go ahead, find in some book why I can not be healed, why I am not really walking, why I really do hurt but just don't know it. What a sad pitiful life man leads without God...
I started posting on Freeper in the foreign affairs section because of the lies of the Palestinians. I HATE lies. I have intentionaly kept away from the Evilootanry threads because I considered it a waste of time. Never teach a pig to sing, it is a waste of time, and the pig will only hate you. But This CRAPOLA that is being posted in such plastic science terms is downright irritating.
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