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
For example, the belief that the appendix is a 'vestigial' organ that is nothing more than an evolutionary mistake. Same with tonsils. Now we know that both have a role in combatting infection.
Then there was 'Lamarkism' which held that acquired characteristics were inheritable (ie, giraffes stretch their necks to reach higher fruit, their children will grow longer necks). This theory was promoted in the Soviet Union by Lysenko to the great detriment of Russian genetic scientific research.
Just a few months ago, I went to a doctor's office with a severe cold and was refused antibiotics because that would 'evolve' more deadly viruses. Now that doesn't even make sense from an evolutionary point of view, because anti-biotics don't affect the mutation rate of viruses and having one virus doesn't protect your body from hosting others. But if you stand up and point this out in a scientific context, you get hooted down as a 'creationist,' so rational scientists are keeping quiet.
Yet this bizarre doctrine on viruses will withhold antibiotics from millions of people, many of whom will thereupon die from easily treatable illnesses.
Funny how no evolutionary scientists are stepping forward to warn that if we develop a vaccine against AIDS, it will only 'evolve' a more resistant form of AIDS. I guess they're more afraid of gays than they are of christians.
See my post #359.
(mind you, no intelligent scientist claims that it is a mode of origin for life itself, since evolution does not deal with life origins).
First... evolution as it is usually taught, most assuredly DOES deal with life origins. The first cell supposedly originated randomly, and all the new orders of life supposedly originated as a result of accumulated mutations from that. If evolutionists would confine their claims to the verifiable facts of adaptive radiation and other microevolutionary events, I wouldn't have a problem with that. But they don't.
Also... I'm a scientist (Ph.D. Chemist). And I was a convinced evolutionist for a long time. Even after I got religion, I just passed off creation as an allegory and inwardly cringed when I heard fellow Christians using Genesis to make creationist arguments.
Yet when creationists with some real scientific knowledge showed me the problems with evolution, and I really looked at it, my jaw hit the floor! How could I be so blind? How did I fail to see it? I felt VERY STUPID for having fallen for evolution, let me tell you. The fatal flaws in evolution were so blatant, I just about kicked myself for not having seen through it on my own.
One, as you note the Pope said, "knowledge has led to the recognition that evolution is more than a hypothesis. It is indeed remarkable that this theory has been progressively accepted by researchers, following a series of discoveries in various fields of knowledge. The convergence, neither sought nor fabricated, of the results of work that was conducted independently is in itself a significant argument in favour of this theory."
Arguably, the Pope was referring to evolution as a general category. For he notes the concept has found favor "in various fields of knowledge." (Inter alia, the concept has seemingly found favor with certain philosophers, such as Eric Voegelin.) He has not said anything here about the doctrine of natural selection per se, which is an exclusive preserve of evolutionary biology.
So we don't know what the Pope thinks about that, for he hasn't said. At least, not explicitly in these statements.
Arrrrghhh! I read it differently. First, let us note that he says that evolution is "more than an hypothesis." That could only mean that it's a respectable scientific theory, because the term "theory" is one step up from "hypothesis," and it's generally used when an hypothesis has withstood various tests and challenges. When something is more than hypothesis, the only thing it can be is a scientific theory -- which is as high as an explanation can go in scientific terminology.
Also, when the Pope notes that evolution is a concept that has found favor "in various fields of knowledge," I take that to mean that evolution is consistent with, and is therefore supported by, other sciences, such as geology, molecular biology, astronomy, etc.
So I donno. It's a document that can be read by different people in different ways. To me, he's saying that evolution is okay for the physical aspects of the world, but not the spiritual. I can't be certain if that's his meaning, but it works for me.
Not according to evolutionists.
That you have confused this very basic premise shows that you likely don't have the scientific backing to understand evolution enough to discredit it.
No disrespect intended, but I believe that YOU have confused a basic premise. It's not just at the beginning point (the first cell) that evolution fails. It fails ALL THE WAY THROUGH the development of life. Invoking a divine escape to explain the origin of the first cell does not get away from the problem of the transformations and sudden appearances of new orders at pulses all through the history of life. Even if evolutionists conceded that the first cell had to be created, they'd still be in an impossible position explaining the rest of the story.
Darwin, to be fair, made some valid observations based on adaptive radiation. But he mistakenly generalized beyond the evidence. And if evolution had no philosophical implications, his error would have been rejected by later generations of scientists.
Your Ph.D in Chemistry does not make you an expert in matters of Biology
Actually, Biology has been a hobby of mine all through my career, Anthropology in particular. And I do have the training to understand other people's work. But, let us stipulate for the sake of argument, that I know nothing of Biology. But I do know chemistry, which is the foundation of biology. And the chemistry of macroevolution cannot work.
Then what is the scientific theory being taught concerning the origin of life? Or does science not have a discipline to address that mystery?
And I went to school with quite a few. There was some diversity of opinion, but in general the evolutionists believed in random origin from the start. (ALL the textbooks say that, by the way.) But, a few did believe that the first cell could have been created or seeded here and all later life evolved from that.
The essential problem with the "created first cell" idea, is that the same critiques that apply to the "random" origin of the first cell, also apply to later transformations. So if one accepts intelligent-design for the first cell, he/she has implicitly (albeit perhaps unknowingly) conceded the validity of the arguments for intelligent design all through.
A "seeded" first cell is an even tougher problem -- who planted the seed, and who created him/her/it/them? In short, the "seed" theory merely relocates the origin-of-life problem, it doesn't solve it.
What, what what?
Our textbooks are simplifying current, modern, cutting edge, scientific theory for the sake of mere schoolchildren???
No, please, say it isn't so!!!
So the study of life has no scientific explanation for the origin of life?
Antibiotics are not given for colds because........ colds are caused by a virus, and antibiotics, by definition, kill bacteria, NOT virii.
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