|
(Leave The Left Behind) |
||
 |
FreeRepublic , LLC PO BOX 9771 FRESNO, CA 93794
|
|
|
|
||
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
Don't take my number, weirdo!
The creationists on this board don't seem to question their good fortune, so I'll turn the problem around. Let's suppose there was a supposed YEC who bought the creation doctrine line and sinker, except he was heretical on some minor detail that didn't change the expected results noticeably. Let's say he thought God delegated some creation to the angels and that's why some things were less than perfect.
The problem starts when any of the usual evidence for creation gets introduced. Someone mentions changes in the speed of light as a possible means to a young universe. Mr. Oddball joins the Es in attacking CDK and slaps high-fives with them after every volley. The behavior is repeated for every C mantra right down the list.
I suspect some BS detectors would light up that aren't lit now.
If you're going to protest that you don't want to talk about this then stop talking to me, because all I can think about is how you drip drip drip cynical dishonesty.
#104!
Do you post in complete sentences there?
Do you hide your real identity as a complete whacko here when you're over there?
Mojo waning---banned!
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.
IIRC this claim came up in an FR thread many moons ago. I think it was a misstatement of a true finding, but I can't find any reference to it. It was either that one specific frog protein (or its gene) was more similar to the analogous chimp protein than to the human one, or the chimps version was closer to a frog's than to a human's, or something like that. The problem is, since mutations are random, there will always be a few outliers that don't conform to the true relationship tree (and which creationist then jump on loudly). You have to compare a range of genes or proteins to get the true picture. (See this comparison of mouse vs. human genes for instance.)
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.
It can make a pretty impressive looking tumor! :-) Seriously, in information theory "disorder" has a specific meaning, and it has nothing to do with what the "message" is representing in some external context.
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?
The 2LoT implies that in order to get from disorder to order, you'll have to input energy somewhere in order to move the molecules around. That's all the 2LoT has to say about life or evolution: All living things must eat. (Speaking of which, I'll respond to the rest of your post after dinner...)
Actually religion should be a requirement for practicing medicine. It is a well known scientific fact that faith heals and helps keep people alive. An atheist cannot heal the sick. As usual, the materialists have things backwards - and if you were in medicine you would not be saying that belief in God prevents one from practicing medicine.
I missed it. Whatever it was, he's no loss. If I were a creo, I'd feel about him the way as a conservative I feel about TLBSHOW. Then again, if I were a creo I'd either be irrational or an oxymoron.
|
(Leave The Left Behind) |
||
|
|
FreeRepublic , LLC PO BOX 9771 FRESNO, CA 93794
|
|
|
|
||
And now, as Mr. Harvey used to say, the rest of the story:
It would be unfair to suggest that Darwin condemned these merciful acts; that was not the intention of the quote presented above. He was simply providing evidence for the theory that humans have evolved a more sophisticated moral sensibility than other animals. In the passage following the quote above he states that eliminating acts of human sympathy would result in the "deterioration in the noblest part of our nature." Even though some intelligence theorists advocating the hereditarian position have used Darwinian ideas to support eugenicist goals like forced sterilization, it is very likely that Darwin himself would have objected to these practices:
That's good for the TOS just like medved being banned has improved the atmosphere here. Unfortunately, unlike FreeRepublic, they seem to have a lot to learn about banning unruly jerks but they haven't gone overboard either. I suspect that a middle ground will evolve(hah!) for internet forums that tradeoff moderation versus freedom of speech in various degree. I hope most of us will be around to see it happen.
So very true. These people are not scientists, they are tyrannical ideologues. If they really had the facts, they would not be using such despicable tactics to force their views on others.
As much as your interest in psychoanalysis is important to you, my particular views are of no consequence to the errors which I point out. Your attempts to make me the center of attention are known as Ad Hominem. The points stand or fall on their own merits. They have been falling, at least the ones I choose to address. If you don't wish for me to comment on a particular thing you post, then don't post it.
If you can discern that my model of evolution is microscopically different from someone else's then there is no need to ask anything of me.
Finally, don't try to drag me into an argument in which I do not wish to engage. The only ones that I recall doing that are you and jennyp.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.