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.

Heaven or Hell..you're going one place or the other for all eternity!

Brushes With Death
Scientists Validate
Near-Death Experiences

Jan. 8 — When a car plowed into the vehicle in which she was riding, Leslie's chest was crushed, eight bones were broken and her heart stopped beating for three minutes. Before she was revived, she says she glimpsed the afterlife.

• Are Near-Death Experiences For Real?

"My next experience was really lying on the ground outside of the car, and it was actually an out-of-body experience that I had," says Leslie, who declined to give her last name. "I was actually floating above my body, and I looked down, and I saw all these men working on this poor girl who was down below, about eight feet below me, and she was struggling."

An estimated 7 million people have reported hauntingly similar "near-death" experiences. And a new study in the British medical journal Lancet gives credence to such accounts, concluding they are valid.

Scientists Study Near-Death Experiences

ABCNEWS' Medical Editor Dr. Tim Johnson says this study lends more credibility to the possibility that these near-death accounts are accurate because the researchers conducted the interviews soon after the experiences occurred. The study does not provide a way to scientifically measure whether or not there is life after death, however.

The study reported in Lancet looked at 344 patients in the Netherlands who were successfully resuscitated after suffering cardiac arrest in 10 Dutch hospitals.

Rather than using data from people reporting past near-death experiences, researchers talked to patients within a week after they had suffered clinical deaths and been resuscitated. (Clincical death was defined as a period of unconsciousness caused by insufficient blood supply to the brain.)

About 18 percent of the patients in the study reported being able to recall some portion of what happened when they were clinically dead; and 8 to 12 percent reported going through "near-death" experiences, such as seeing lights at the end of tunnels, or being able to speak to dead relatives or friends. Most had excellent recall of the events, which undermines the theory that the memories are false, the study said.

"We don't even begin to have the tools to debate the subject on a rational scientific basis," Johnson told Good Morning America. "I don't think our belief on afterlife is defined on a cause of the brain." Johnson, who serves as assisting minister of the Community Covenant Church in West Peabody, Mass., said belief in the afterlife remains primarily a matter of personal faith.

Brain Down, Consciousness On?

Lead researcher Pim van Lommel of the Hospital Rijnstate in the Netherlands said the study suggests that researchers investigating consciousness should not look in the cells and molecules alone.

Even when the brain is not showing signs of electrical activity, it is possible that a person can still be conscious, he said. In other words, people can be conscious of events around them even when they are physically unconscious.

"Compare it with a TV program," he told The Washington Post. "If you open the TV set you will not find the program. The TV set is a receiver. When you turn off your TV set, the program is still there but you can't see it. When you put off your brain, your consciousness is still there but you can't feel it in your body."

Many people describe seeing their own bodies from a distance, as though watching a movie. Others say they felt their bodies rushing toward a brilliant light.

Some who have had this experience say it's a sign there is a tunnel that leads to eternal life, but researchers do not really know what the visions mean. The study does not address whether there is such a thing as the soul, God or the afterlife.

"I think what's happening is that people are trying to validate their experience by making these paranormal claims, but you don't need to do that," said Susan Blackmore, a psychology professor at the University of the West of England in Bristol. "They're valid experiences in themselves, only they're happening in the brain and not in the world out there."

She believes the experiences are like a movie that our brains run at times of extreme traumatic stress. The brain creates endorphins which can reduce pain, and under extreme stress, these large amounts of endorphins produce a dreamlike state of euphoria.

Life Beyond Death

Some of those who described the experiences to ABCNEWS say they feel they were given the opportunity to explore life beyond death.

"I was looking down, and I saw my body, and I saw the doctors," said Jessie Lott, one woman who was resuscitated.

"I had come into this place of brilliant, beautiful life," said another, Dannion Brinkley.

"The feeling of peacefulness, the feeling of utter acceptance, utter — I mean, love, and it sounds so hokey, and I hate that part of it, because there aren't really good words to describe it," Leslie said.

Another woman described how she felt she was being pulled toward a giant tunnel, a common theme in the near-death experiences.

"I couldn't stop it. I didn't know why I was moving. I was just pulled right through this enormous, infinite tunnel," said Diane Morrissey.

Blackmore says science can also explain those tunnels: Electrical brain scans show that in our last moments, as the brain is deprived of oxygen, cells fire frantically and at random in the part of the brain which govern vision.

"Now, imagine that you've got lots and lots of cells firing in the middle, towards fewer at the outside, what's it going to look like? Bright light in the middle fading off towards dark at the outside," Blackmore said. "I think that's where the tunnel comes from. And as the oxygen level drops, so the bright light becomes bigger and more immediate, and you get this sensation of rushing forward into the light."

Scientist Turned Spiritual Healer

But not all scientists are skeptics when it comes to explaining near-death phenomena, and researchers have debated such issues for years.

Joyce Hawkes, a cell biologist with a PhD, had an accident that forever changed her life — and her view of science. She suffered a concussion from a falling window.

"I think that part of me — that my spirit, my soul — left my body and went to another reality," she said. She was surprised at the experience.

"It just was not part of the paradigm in which I lived as a scientist," Hawkes recalled. "Iit was a big surprise to me to have this sense of something different than the body — a consciousness different than the body — and to be in this wonderfully healing, peaceful, nurturing place."

Hawkes now works as a spiritual healer.

"I think what I learned was that there truly is no death, that there is a change in state from a physical form to a spirit form, and that there's nothing to fear about that passage," she said.

The Dutch researchers found that people who had such experiences reported marked changes in their personalities compared with those who had come near death, but had not had those experiences. They seemed to have lost their fear of death, and became more compassionate, loving people.

"I can hardly wait to die, and yet I don't have a death wish. I live my life a hundred percent more now because I have such a fine appreciation about what might happen to us and where we might go," said Morrissey.

http://abcnews.go.com/sections/GMA/DrJohnson/GMA020108Near_death_experiences.html

Luke 16:19 "There was a certain rich man," Jesus said, "who was splendidly clothed and lived each day in mirth and luxury.

Luke 16:20 One day Lazarus, a diseased beggar, was laid at his door.

Luke 16:21 As he lay there longing for scraps from the rich man's table, the dogs would come and lick his open sores.

Luke 16:22 Finally the beggar died and was carried by the angels to be with Abraham in the place of the righteous dead. The rich man also died and was buried,

Luke 16:23 and his soul went into hell. There, in torment, he saw Lazarus in the far distance with Abraham.

Luke 16:24 "'Father Abraham,' he shouted, 'have some pity! Send Lazarus over here if only to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, for I am in anguish in these flames.'

Luke 16:25 "But Abraham said to him, 'Son, remember that during your lifetime you had everything you wanted, and Lazarus had nothing. So now he is here being comforted and you are in anguish.

Luke 16:26 And besides, there is a great chasm separating us, and anyone wanting to come to you from here is stopped at its edge; and no one over there can cross to us.'

Luke 16:27 "Then the rich man said, 'O Father Abraham, then please send him to my father's home--

Luke 16:28 for I have five brothers--to warn them about this place of torment lest they come here when they die.'

Luke 16:29 "But Abraham said, 'The Scriptures have warned them again and again. Your brothers can read them any time they want to.'

Luke 16:30 "The rich man replied, 'No, Father Abraham, they won't bother to read them. But if someone is sent to them from the dead, then they will turn from their sins.'

Luke 16:31 "But Abraham said, 'If they won't listen to Moses and the prophets, they won't listen even though someone rises from the dead.'"

Frog DNA being closer to human than is chimp DNA.
Just was a long article from a non religious source that was discussing the findings. Wish I had it for you.

Cancer caused by the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics, which by the way refutes evolution.
Cancer is a defect in the dna, it is a disorder, its form is disorder and therefor is a great parallel with a bit of irony I figured.
Just think, cancer is a form of mutation from normal, all it ever makes is tumors, never makes a FORM, but a lack of form.

The comment on the second law of thermodynamics is that things go from order to disorder. How then is the law of evolution causing order from disorder? Seriously, an ant is an accident?

Doctors prescribe antibiotics for cancer. I suspect that these statements are there to rationally support your conviction that supernatural intervention exists.

No, I just did not include the sarcasm tag. Doctors prescribe anti-biotics as the miracle drug for the ills they do not understand. Gosh bread mold is smart huh? -grin- I got an odd way of thinking, chalk it up to my indian part. Kinda oriental.

I'm psychologizing, I know. I probably shouldn't do that.

By all means do, it is valid science. Instead I should methodically discuss your DNA/cancer/2LoT claims one by one and hope that you'll see why they're false.

How about you and I just discuss and we see what comes up? Why load the dice?

OK, a couple questions re the gold: I have never prospected, though I've read a little about it and I've always thought it'd be a gas to try.

It is! Do it!!! You only live life once, do it all!

I assume you know that the Placerita area was already mined of placer gold in the 1840's. What makes you think the 2 canyons you found had not already been gone over back then?

First, a good prospector reads the signs of what they did before, why reinvent the wheel.

Second, if you find a nugget, you know one thing. Nobody ever found it before you. Nobody throws them back.

IOW, can you tell how old a placer deposit is just by looking at it?

Answered before I got to this message. First the coloration of the rocks is different in every stream. It tells you its source and era. Now in southern California the rock difference is rare, but in northern calif it is much easier to see as there is not near as much placer. But if you find the "pretty" rocks north or south, pay attention. The rocks tend to be crystalline, the coloration almost mossy with not just color but pattern too. And there is a depth, you can see into the rock to see the pattern. Often the rocks have a shattered pattern in the rock itself that look almost like tempered glass fractures. Tends to make the rocks "light up" in the sunlight compared to the drab, modern era rocks.

You can date them by the north south stream bed vs the east to west run. The California plate shifted during the flood and tilted towards the sea. The old days the streams flowed primarily north south.

One couple found just a circle of placer in the side of a river bank it was where the modern streambed cut right through a north south bed high up on the hillside. I saw a nugget bigger than my hand over a half an inch think come out of there. Ugly thing. It had a real brassy look and poor looking form. But they sure did not complain.

Second the coloration of the gold and its shape tells you which vein it came from. No vein is the same. All veins have different amounts of other metals, and just the slightest touch of other metals changes the color. I have seen gold from chocolate brown to penny red, tree green and almost a pale sky blue.

Gold does not travel far as you think unless it is pinhead size. If you can see a shape with the naked eye, you are within a mile of where it came from. You can follow that color and that shape (rough, spiky, globular, crystalline, stringy) and estimate the distance by how placered or sanded down it is.

How do you know the deposits in those 2 canyons weren't actually laid down after the 1840's?

The water flow was horizontal to the canyon flow, that is why when the water slowed down on the from side of the flow as the flow went over the canyon (water fast and narrow goes over a wide spot and it will slow directly related to the width of the increase. The gold "rains" out of the suddenly slower flow. By the time it begins to narrow again on the other side of the canyon the heavies are gone.

If the flow was over the entire canyon county area, it would have made the papers...

How old were the layers the gold was deposited into? I know you can't date sedimentary deposits directly, but what do mainstream, godless, hurtlin-down-the-road-to-perdition geologists say about when the placer deposits were laid down?

ROTFL! They havent got a clue just like the story posted. They spend a whole lot of time in school and precious little on earth. They are determined to date things by what they are next to and all they are next to is rocks, rocks and more rocks. You have to see it to believe it. The stream beds are not flat things, they look like someone mixed a bowl of spaghetti. In placerita canyon if you go to work it (yeah, I know its illegal, but park rangers go home at night -grin-) you find a short exposed bed with a pay streak and work it with a pan and perhaps a 3 foot hand sluice box for about 15 feet before it is over cut and replaced by another 15 to 30 foot section. Crazy! Nice gold, would make a heck of a great park for city folks to pan but the government is kinda funny about gold. They have spent a couple of mill building a bogus count the butterfly park to protect about a quarter of a mill in placer gold from ever being worked by a few thousand people with a gold pan. Never enough gold to pay for the gas, Sad... Lots of fun for a lot of people...

When you say, in #299, "a high concentration on the upward side of the entire canyon walls and NOTHING on the down ward side", what do you mean by "upward side" and "downward side"?

The water was flowing strong enough to shred mountains and make gravel of them. And it was pushing that gravel far enough that all pieces were ground round, no sharp edges. And it was deep enough to flow OVER the canyons. When it flowed in the direction of the canyons it washed through them at full speed. But when it flowed contra-wise to the canyon flow it caused slow downs on the lower part of the water flow as the canyons acted like giant bars in a sluice box. Those canyons are rare, and if you look for them on the map the gold concentration is many times that of the other canyons.

When it those canyons you find huge placer chunks of magnetite, a reddish or black natural chunks of solid iron complete with crystals. It even ground those round. When you find chunks of that piled up you are in a heavy concentrate zone. You are getting warm. Normally you find chunks the size of say a dime to a half dollar piece in your sluice box and you know you are in the right area. I have seen solid areas in streambeds of magnetite some pieces the size of baseballs in the contra-canyons.

It is not from iron veins as the stones are placered. That does not happen quick with magnetite, the stuff is TOUGH. A stream flow that is strong enough to push magnetite rocks is RIPPIN. Regular rocks are like chunks of wood compared to them.

>I> Do you have any training in geology or hydrodynamics? I.e. what background knowledge leads you to conclude that a 3500' high flood is a good explanation for the deposits? (i.e. is it something more than the feeling that "it looks like a sluice box"?)

I suspect I have explained it enough above. If I am at 3000 feet, and the canyon was Over flooded sideways strong enough to move boulders the size of cars, the water is at least 3000 foot high. Not rocket science.

As for training, I read, a lot, and have spent a few thousand hours studying in the field how water flows and moves things. I lived for over a year off of what I could dig out of the streambeds. I know hydrodynamics. As for your leg...

How much shorter was your shorter leg?
One half inch. Easy to see. Have your hubby check yours. Sit in a chair with a solid square back with your hips all the way back firmly pressed into the chair back.
Put both feet out in front of you straight legged and let him pick up your ankles in each hand holding your feet together. Line up the heels of your shoes and the soles of the shoes. Any difference will be readily seen. Any difference will cause back problems.

In my case the back problem was more from the blown out bottom disk, A price I paid grunting large boulders around in stream beds in my youth... -grin- When I got older I learned where to dig instead of digging under big rocks, like the books say.

How long was it from the last measurement (say, by an MD) that showed the original difference in length, to the first measurement that verified that they were the same length?

3 months, chiropractor. The first one years ago prescribed the shoe prosthesis, It did help. One month after prayer and the leg difference is barely noticeable now. (Hey it was a kid, and I was his first patient!)

IOW how long did it take for the shorter one to grow?
Around 7 minutes. I could not feel the growth at all. But for a couple of days I tended to drag the right foot when I walked. I was not used to the difference.

The guy that was teaching about healing prayer in church (he was a visitor) said if you have to pray for a back problem check the legs first. Most back problems are rooted in leg length problems. Fix the legs first then pray for the back. He used children to show it is not what the kids do, it is what God does. After the leg thing he had the child place his hand over my lower back and command the disk to come back inline in Jesus name. That took about 10 minutes. The kid would, as instructed, pray the prayer commanding the healing by the authority of Christ, wait a bit and ask if it felt better or different. It took three times and then it actually did begin to feel better. I had the kid keep at it then, I know a pay streak when I hit one.

3 weeks later I got the chance to stand in line for a plane ticket adjustment over an hour. I STOOD for over an hour. I got to the ticket line counter and I was about jumping for joy at how long I had to stand. I was so nice to the ticket counter lady that she looked at me in shock! My wife kept offering to stand for me so I could sit but NO WAY! I was diggin it! I was quite the proof for me.

My Chiropractor had warned me that one side of my back had badly atrophied muscles in my compensation for the disk and the leg length. It took a long time for my back to build up. I still have some pain 2 months later, but it is different and in a different spot. There is a lot of difference between muscle pain and back pain.

Have you ever done any kind of exercises/therapy on your shorter leg to lengthen it? Were you doing it at the time it got longer?

Sitting in a pew with my back firmly placed against the pew back.

There is no therapy short of a bone splice to lengthen leg bones that I know of.

Had other people prayed for your leg to get longer at other times, when your leg stayed short?

No, first time anybody paid any attention to it in prayer. I just never brought it up, figured it was no big deal. The disk was the big problem to me. But I have had quite a few people pray for my back pain. Pretty much nothing happened. Some times it felt better but never was healed. Kinda the difference between and aspirin and surgery. One makes it feel better, the other fixes it.

What exactly did your MD say was making your leg shorter? Were your bones shorter, or did you have shorter tendons or muscles, or what?

The one that verified that they were the same length or very close examined my shoes to verify that they were once different lengths. He said He could see by the heel of my shoes that my leg was shorter, but my leg difference was very minor. He thought it very curious and interesting, but then He was not a Christian. He did not praise God or anything. Did look pretty puzzled.

Was this a congenital defect or did it show up later in life?

congenital. Was just the way I was born.

Look, all I can say is I can pick up and carry two 70 pound suitcases now. I could not pick up one without paying for it for days before. I can stand upright for over an hour without my legs going numb now. Before, about 5 minutes and my legs on the sides below my hips felt like lead. I think you could have stuck a pin in my leg and I might not have felt it.

To be honest on the second day I figured enjoy it now, hypnosis only lasts 72 hours. On the fourth day I started getting a clue that this was no fly bye night thing. I was actually healed. I am still waiting for the other shoe to drop. It never has. It is like I got my life back. How did it work? All I know is a little child commanded that my leg grow and my back be healed in the name of Jesus. It did. And the child is just one of the Church goers kids. I watched that kid grow up from a baby to about 7 years old when he and about six others around his age were picked at random to demonstrate. I feel like the blind man that was asked by the Religious leaders how did you get healed. He said I don't know how, I just know I can see and a guy called Jesus did it.

Since then I have tried it myself. It worked! I gotta go back and fine tune the guy, he was much worse than me. His doctor said his leg is still too short. I checked up on him last week and I could not see any difference in length. But his lower spine was so badly curved before it was sunk an easy inch deep. While I prayed for it, it raised before my eyes a half an inch. (That took 15 full minutes) I got a half an inch to go.

He said he was sleeping much better and had much less pain. He also said his blood sugar count was much more stable now. (We prayed for that too)

How the heck do you fool a blood sugar meter? I have determined that I will keep at it till he either stops improving or is right on the mark. I want to see just how far this will go.

This is more fun than prospecting, and I am sure in uncharted waters for me. I am curious to see just what is around the corner. That is, if I survive the war...

Now the rules are, according to the Bible that you are suposto lay a hand or hands on the hurt spot and pray, but I figure God may make an exception for a round the world prayer. If one leg shows up shorter, let me know. I would like to pray and see if a round the world prayer works. This Jesus in action stuff is kinda new to me. For years it was philosophy, now it is physics. The first year I believed God gave a rip about me and decided to return the favor I prayed for a wart on my cousins hand he could not get rid of with compound W or a pocket knife. I put my thumb on it and prayed and when I lifted my thumb the wart was gone. We both about fell over right there. I don't think I ever prayed for a physical healing since then, I guess I was afraid It would not work. I think I blew it... Come to think of it I have, I prayed christian style for a few people with cancer. They died anyway. But this Christian style is different, I commanded by the authority of the name of Jesus, I did not beg God for favors. It is like He wanted me to stand on my own two feet under His authority, not whine for blessings. I am sure I will get flamed by traditional Christians for not having respect. But I do have respect, far more than you can guess. I am jst doing what the Bible said to do, the way it said to do it. It worked that way.

One pointer for any Christian lurker. The interesting key was the teaching by this guy that as Christians we believe that we must have faith and pray in Jesus name. He said that faith was not the key ingrediant to effective prayer. He said take the faith out, it is good, but set it aside and replace it with obediance. If God says Pray, pray. Faith will follow. Trust me, when my back was healed, faith followed. When I saw his backbone raise before my eyes, faith followed. It is a strange faith, it is strong and not something I have to generate on hope. I see, I believe. That kind of faith is unshakeable. God said, lay hands on the sick and heal them. Obey.

Blessings to ya, have a good night, it is 12:20 pm and I gotta crash.

With all due respect, I wager that the renowned French mathemetician Marcel-Paul Schutzenberger's understanding of the mathematics of evolution exceed your own by an order or three of magnitude. Schutzenberger was no creationist. He was hard-headed clear-thinking mathematican, a combinatorialist of the first rank who had no tolerence for his fellow scientists who believed in "just so" magical explanations that did not take into account the length of time necessary for life to have arisen by random chance.

If you are not too close-minded I would suggest you find some materials written by Schutzenberger and give them a fair read. Feel free to find an unbiased excellent mathematician to explain the more difficult parts and tutor you.

Here is what one of his collegues, Herbert Wilf--also no creationist--said about Schutzenberger in a eulogy about the man and his work:

"Marcel-Paul Schützenberger, one of the most creative and influential combinatorialists of this century, died on Monday, July 29, 1996. He was possessed of a lively curiosity, a brilliant mind, a passion for all kinds of mathematics and for substantive intellectual achievement of all sorts, a low tolerance for poseurs and fools, . . .

"I met Marco first in 1973 at a conference in Rome. Over the years we visited each other several times, and I have been privileged to hear his views on a variety of topics. His opinions were numerous, fervently held, ardently propounded, backed up by his extensive knowledge base, punctuated, when delivered in English, by a pyrotechnic display of choice expletives, and utterly compelling, to this listener at least, because of the persona of their bearer and the force of reason and humanity with which they were delivered.

"His contributions to combinatorics are wide ranging and of the first magnitude. In the theory of Young tableaux he discovered the jeu de taquin that became the basis for so many later investigations; he illuminated the Schensted correspondence between pairs of permutations and tableaux by revealing many facets of its fine structure; he created the subject of context-free languages and explored some of its many consequences, as well as finding many results in the theory of combinatorial words and languages of other kinds; with Foata he developed a general theory of counting families of unlabeled combinatoral objects by factoring them into primes, etc. His work has found important and numerous applications. For example his theory of formal languages has spawned many fine successes in the enumeration of various kinds of polyominoes and cellular structures and his work on factorization of families of unlabeled objects has been responsible for methods of selecting such objects at random.

Throughout his life Marco was interested in (and therefore passionately interested in) the many flaws in the Darwinian theory of evolution as it is commonly presented. In 1967 he participated in a remarkable conference at the Wistar Institute of the University of Pennsylvania, which brought together a collection of renowned physical scientists and mathematicians, on the one hand, and life scientists, on the other. At that meeting Marco became one of the first distinguished scientists in the world to point out that a theory of evolution that depends on uniformly randomly occurring mutations cannot be the truth because the number of mutations needed to create the speciation that we observe, and the time that would be needed for those mutations to have happened by chance, exceed by thousands of orders of magnitude the time that has been available."

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