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

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.

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.

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.

"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.

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.

Currently available evidence indicates that man and apes both split off from common ancestors, way back there.

Here's where you lose me, PH. What currently available evidence can we possibly have for an event that supposedly occurred millions of years ago? Might this "descent from a common ancestor" business conceivably be a myth? A myth, of course, is something designed to "fill in the gaps," to "round out our knowledge" of things we do not, in fact, directly know -- and which may not now even be knowable by empirical means, given our remote position in time from the putative event itself.

You wrote: "I read [the Pope's] statement to be virtually a complete acceptance of the theory of evolution -- that all living species on earth are related and descend from earlier forms; and that new species emerge from their parent stock by the process of mutation and natural selection."

The Pope is a theologian and a philosopher. I think you're correct in reading his statement as confirming that he believes all living species on earth are related; for they are all participants in one (divinely created) community of Being. I have doubts, however, that he would agree with you that "new species emerge from their parent stock by the process of mutation and natural selection." Christian theology holds with special creation (see Genesis). Whatever our own personal view of the matter may be, it's difficult to imagine the Vicar of Christ arguing against special creation.

As for natural selection, Stephen Wolfram has some interesting things to say on that subject in A New Kind of Science (2002). While he says he believes natural selection plays a role in the evolution of species, his concept of it almost totally inverts the way people have come to understand that term. Instead of being the source of the vast diversity that we see in nature, the fecund ground of new species, Wolfram sees natural selection as operating as a constraint on species, ensuring that new individuals arising in species preserve the already-existing characteristics of the species to which they belong, which (he notes) have been more or less stable for hundreds of thousands of years. He further points out that nature often deals quite harshly with mutations -- which are the things that natural selection "detects" when individual species members do not measure into the extant "specifications" of their respective species. Beyond a certain point, departures from the "specs" are naturally selected OUT of existence.

I'm not in a position to determine who is correct here. I just think that a reasonable case can be made that we may be overburdening the entire notion of natural selection if we expect to find in it the sole or even principal source of the vast diversity and complexity that we see all around us.

Good News For The Day

‘And has made us to be a kingdom and priests to serve his God and Father’ (Revelation 1:6)

"John echoes Yahweh's words, spoken at the Exodus. He told Israel that they would be a kingdom and a priesthood. The same words are now applied to the church. The community of faith is to be a kingdom in the sense that God will reign in it. But there is a sense in which the power of the kingdom will be shared by its citizenry. Compare Revelation 5:10 ‘They will reign on the earth.’

"John lived in the ancient east where kings were proverbial for their absolute power, and splendid lifestyle. For those who join with Christ, life is full of privileges. The first and primary privilege is the liberation from the deadening burden of sin (1:5). But other brimming satisfactions follow."

"Jesus predicted that those who cast their lot in with him, would discover surprising joys. He pictured a poor ploughman; toiling day and night to make ends meet. One day his plough turned up a casket of treasures. From that day forward life was decked with overflowing benefits. Some of them are listed in the Beatitudes. ‘Blessed are the poor, theirs is the kingdom of heaven; blessed are those who hunger, for they will be satisfied; blessed are they that... weep---for they will laugh’ (Luke 6:20,21).

Paul adds this thought: ‘We are heirs of God, and joint heirs with Christ’ (Romans 8:17)

"There is a quality of life that God intends for us. For now, it is principally known in the spiritual blessings that are ours in Christ. A day will come when the material world will correspondingly yield a bounty to us."

Instead of being the source of the vast diversity that we see in nature, the fecund ground of new species, Wolfram sees natural selection as operating as a constraint on species, ensuring that new individuals arising in species preserve the already-existing characteristics of the species to which they belong, which (he notes) have been more or less stable for hundreds of thousands of years. He further points out that nature often deals quite harshly with mutations -- which are the things that natural selection "detects" when individual species members do not measure into the extant "specifications" of their respective species. Beyond a certain point, departures from the "specs" are naturally selected OUT of existence.

If the environment remains unchanged this is predominantly the case. However, if it changes it can happen that some mutants are better suited to the new conditions.
(Besides, we're all mutants since everyone has some mutations if we compare our DNA to that of our parents. But in most cases these mutations are neutral)

Also, natural selection doesn't detect when individual species members do not measure into the extant "specifications" of their respective species (whatever that may be) but how good an individual can cope with the existing conditions.

What currently available evidence can we possibly have for an event that supposedly occurred millions of years ago? Might this "descent from a common ancestor" business conceivably be a myth?

BB, I envy you the intellectual thrill of discovery which awaits you. Briefly, the currently available evidence is: (1) presently-existing fossils, available for investigation now; (2) DNA analysis of the genetic material of the various species on earth, living and dead, available now; and (3) the ages of the rock strata in which the various fossils are found, which is determinable now, from presently existing clues which indicate (to trained geologists) such ages.

From all this presently existing evidence, patterns emerge. One can see a gradual process of various hominid species emerging over time, and one can see the relationships. The process is not much different from criminal detection, in which the detective -- arriving after the crime is committed -- discovers clues and tries to reconstruct the most plausable scenario to account for the crime. In the case of human existence, all the currently available evidence is scientifically explainable only by the theory of evolution.

Here's a website with a load of information that will get you started:
The Evidence for Human Evolution.

I know you have doubts. We all have doubts. Yet, the Pope said this, and I think he's accepting the theory of biological evolution:

I am pleased with the first theme you have chosen, that of the origins of life and evolution, an essential subject which deeply interests the Church, since Revelation, for its part, contains teaching concerning the nature and origins of man.
... fresh 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.
The sciences of observation describe and measure the multiple manifestations of life with increasing precision and correlate them with the time line. The moment of transition into the spiritual cannot be the object of this kind of observation ...

Source: Message from the Pope, 1996.

"Today, almost half a century after the publication of the Encyclical, fresh 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."

"What is the significance of such a theory? To address this question is to enter the field of epistemology. A theory is a metascientific elaboration, distinct from the results of observation but consistent with them. By means of it a series of independent data and facts can be related and interpreted in a unified explanation. A theory's validity depends on whether or not it can be verified, it is constantly tested against the facts; wherever it can no longer explain the latter, it shows its limitations and unsuitability. It must then be rethought."

"Furthermore, while the formulation of a theory like that of evolution complies with the need for consistency with the observed data, it borrows certain notions from natural philosophy. And, to tell the truth, rather than the theory of evolution, we should speak of several theories of evolution. On the one hand, this plurality has to do with the different explanations advanced for the mechanism of evolution, and on the other, with the various philosophies on which it is based. Hence the existence of materialist, reduc tionist and spiritualist interpretations. What is to be decided here is the true role of philosophy and, beyond it, of theology."

"5. The Church's Magisterium is directly concerned with the question of evolution, for it involves the conception of man: Revelation teaches us that he was created in the image and likeness of God (cf. Gn 1:27-29). The conciliar Constitution Gaudium et spes has magnificently explained this doctrine, which is pivotal to Christian thought. It recalled that man is :the only creature on earth that God has wanted for its own sake" (n. 24). In other terms, the human individual cannot be subordinated as a pure means or a pure instrument, either to the species or to society, he has value per se. He is a person. With his intellect and his will, he is capable of forming a relationship of communion, solidarity and self-giving with his peers. St Thomas observes that man's likeness to God resides especially in his speculative intellect for his relationship with the object of his knowledge resembles God's relationship with what he has created (Summa Theologica, I-II, q. 3, a. 5, ad 1). But even more, man is called to enter into a relationship of knowledge and love with God himself, a relationship which will find its complete fulfilment beyond time, in eternity. All the depth and grandeur of this vocation are revealed to us in the mystery of the risen Christ (cf. Gaudium et spes, n. 22). It is by virtue of his spiritual soul that the whole person possesses such a dignity even in his body. Pius XII stressed this essential point: if the human body takes its origin from pre-existent living matter the spiritual soul is immediately created by God" ("animal enim a Deo immediate creari catholica fides nos retinere inhet"; Encyclical Humani generic, AAS 42 [1950], p. 575).

"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. "

Reality does't mean a thing to you!

Thank you for sharing your observations and analysis!

I just think that a reasonable case can be made that we may be overburdening the entire notion of natural selection if we expect to find in it the sole or even principal source of the vast diversity and complexity that we see all around us.

Very well said, betty boop!!!

This article on biological anthropology offers yet another perspective on the human evolution view, that things are not as clear as they might seem to be on first blush:

What It Really Means To Be 99% Chimpanzee

If humans and chimpanzees are over 98% identical base-for-base, how do you make sense of the fact that chimpanzees have 10% more DNA than humans? That they have more alpha-hemoglobin genes and more Rh bloodgroup genes, and fewer Alu repeats, in their genome than humans? Or that the tips of their chromosomes contain DNA not present in the tips of human chromosomes?...
The last point concerns the one way in which one could say with some legitimacy that "we are apes" – as, for example, gene enthusiast Richard Dawkins does. That is, phylogenetically...
But more significantly, since humans are tetrapods, it means that humans fall into that paraphyletic category we call fish.

In other words, we are phylogenetically apes, but only in precisely the same sense that we are phylogenetically fish...

. The uplift that help to create the Coast Ranges also caused the dissection of the older valley floor creating the many stream terraces visible today along the sides of the canyons.

So an uplift of the sea floor caused multi-layered stream beds? Would that not cause the water to run off, not lay down bed of gravel? Would that not cause the gold to be washed from the source to follow the stream bed and not be deposited and dispersedon one side of the canyon vs none on the other? The only way that could happen is if the existing water shed was over run with a flood of water with a direction that caused the gold to settle out on the source side of the water. Water that was so high that it was not channeled by the watershed but OVERRAN the water shed SIDEWAYS.

Now I have spend many a year walking the canyons of Santa Clarita, tell me, how does a stream bed become layed on the TOP of the hills? Does not water flow DOWN HILL? How does an uplift cause dozens of streambeds in a single canyon? If a stream bed is 15 foot thick, and is intersected by 4 others that are 5 to 15 foot thick how did a cut that intersect them (how did they get formed under the sea to be intersected in the first place) create 5 layers that are not PART of the cut. A cut is a cut, a stream bed is a build up. You want to have your cake and eat it too!

There are round placer boulders the size of cars placed in the side stream beds. That is impossible by your explaination. The cut that was the big one is the one that created the boulders, how then are they left in beds on the side of the hills? big rocks go down. They don't float.

Read your own story line and weep.

Just for the fun of it, tell me how to take a bird and make it into a fossil without it rotting first? What keeps the feathers in perfect shape? Want to know? I found the answer once in my goldpan.

It is pretty strange to see a north south stream bed coring a hill that is cut and exposed high on the hillside that is bysected by an east west streambed. All this from a single raised bed event? I will tell you one thing, go for it, north-southers got good gold, and you can tell them by the rocks. The rocks in them are down right pretty. They are pre-Noah stream beds and they almost always have good gold. The rocks are strangly translucent with color marbling that is not matched by modern streambeds.

About the only area that I could point to that I could tell you how to find one of those streambeds easily is the Tabletop mountain formation in Touloumne County in Northern California. It is an ancient streambed that was filled with lava before Noahs flood cut through the area. It wiped away the Basalt baserock the streambed was in but could not cut to the streambed due to the much harder lava. The result was the only underground streambed that is, uh above ground. The old timers dug slanted tunnels up into the base of the old stream bed in the motherload days and pulled out goose egg sized nuggets. The water was flowing so strong from the tunnels that they would dig till they just could not stand in the force of the water. Then they would move to the side and dig another intersecting tunnel.

The streambed was composed of large placer rocks that have that unusual coloration in many of them. Just look in the tailing piles and compare them to normal steambed rocks. When you develop an eye for the difference, you got a real hand up on your fellow gold seekers.

"In the last days, the earth will be a shadow of its former glory". Works even for the rocks...

Now if you want to find a few little nuggets not just flakes like the tourists in that area you need to get a pry bar and work the shale plates in the motherload streambeds. All of maraposa and Toulumne countys were washed over with a green clay during the flood. When you pry a plate and find the clay work it well, clay is greasy and you have to really break it up with your fingers. But you will find the Noah's gold. The color of the gold is a straw yellow, it is very pure and has less of the copper from the vien gold of most of the local structures. The point is that the green clay is in ALL the stream beds. Not one or two. Yet the source is not to be found upstream. It just is there. What ever deposited that clay sealing those cracks was a multiple COUNTY wide flood. As the clay is up above 4500 feet, that means the flood was higher than, you guessed it, 4500 feet. I have worked the hills of California from north to south, and every where I go the flood was there.

Now I really am not trying to convince you about God. That is up to you, and frankly not my problem. But I am trying to show you that your viewpoint of creationists is pretty narrow and not a bit accurate. I have been there, done that. I was not born believing in God, I just came to that conclusion because there was no other excuses left. I was, like you, raised in the evolutionary faith, but sorry, that dog don't hunt.

I have no desire to demean you either, and my skin is asbestos mostly so take what I got to say or leave it. But you leaving it will not make it any less true. What is, just is. Face it.

If humans and chimpanzees are over 98% identical base-for-base, how do you make sense of the fact that chimpanzees have 10% more DNA than humans?

For those of us that relate to more concrete numbers here are some

Taxonomic info	Species	Common name	C-value (pg)	Chrs. (2n)	Reference
Family Cheirogaleidae	Microcebus murinus	Mouse lemur	3.12	66	Pellicciari et al. 1982
Family Hominidae	Gorilla gorilla	Gorilla	3.57	48	Manfredi Romanini 1972
	" "		4.16		Pellicciari et al. 1990a
	" "		4.15		Pellicciari et al. 1990b
	Homo sapiens	Human	3.50	46	Pellicciari et al. 1982
	" "		3.50		Kato et al. 1980
	" "		3.50		Tiersch et al. 1989a
	Pan troglodytes	Chimpanzee	3.63	48	Formenti et al. 1983
	" "		3.63		Pellicciari et al. 1988
	" "		3.85		Manfredi Romanini 1972
	" "		3.76		Pellicciari et al. 1990b
	Pongo pygmaeus	Orangutan	3.66	48	Formenti et al. 1983
	" "		3.66		Pellicciari et al. 1988
	" "		4.10		Manfredi Romanini 1972
	" "		3.60		Vinogradov 1998a
Family Hylobatidae	Hylobates agilis	Dark-handed gibbon	3.48	44	Formenti et al. 1983

Just for the fun of it, tell me how to take a bird and make it into a fossil without it rotting first? What keeps the feathers in perfect shape? Want to know? I found the answer once in my goldpan.

I don't know what you found in your goldpan, but the best way to fossilize something before it rots is to bury it under anoxic conditions. Some of the best fossil beds we have are from former swamps and areas that were suddenly buried in volcanic eruptions.

Swamps and shallow inland lakes tend to have anoxic layers at their bottoms because of the action of decaying plant matter. If something dead sinks into that area, it may be buried in muck before it can rot much. Swamp and lake life are thus seriously over-represented in the fossil record.

Volcanic burial can be even quicker and often preserves wonderful detail. The Liaoning Province fossil beds are from this type of catastrophe, once intermittent in that part of China.

Your confusion on the non-flood geological stuff seems to be an impenetrable defense, given what I posted to you already and what jennyp has posted to you already. You have not explained how flood geology is a viable theory, given what I posted to you in 306.

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Example 3: human-apes