It's not about me. It's about your data.
BWAAAAAAHAHAHA! And do you consider this post to be an argument for anything?
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
Perhaps that is his point but it's not his argument.
Frankly, I don't think that anti-Pope GoreMMM even knew that was his argument.
That there are already theories to explain the development of echolocation is irrelevant. Gore3000 has made a habit of ignoring things that undermine his agenda. This includes ignoring segments of quotes so that he can pretend that someone's words meant something other than what they actually said.
BWAAAAAAAHAHA, that's my point! If he stated his actual argument, he would be shot down instantly ... not that he ever retracts his errors, misstatements, or outright idiocy.
I've posted my arguments, thank you. And they have been "proven".
To which the reply is, "You are a hypocrite".
Good enough for me.
Out for the weekend placemarker.
My point is very simple: if I want to build nuclear bombs, I hire physicists (without regard to their religious, creationist, or evolutionary beliefs).
If I want pharmaceutical researchers I hire appropriately qualified biologists, doctors, and chemists (and, yes, I would consider bizarre beliefs, like Young-Earth-Creationism, a proper discriminating factor).
And if I wanted Catholic Creationists (for whatever purposes), I'd hire Maciej Giertych.
Seems pretty simple to me.
BWAAAAAAHAHAHA! And do you consider this post to be an argument for anything?
Evolutionists have been saying that this is a scientific fact for many years yet, one has to wonder at how they could have said it was a scientific fact:
1. The genome of humans had not been sequenced at the time and the chimp genome is not sequenced yet so this comparison is not of the entire genome as we are led to believe.
2. The comparison was therefore made of just a small portion of the genomes of each. However, how can one be sure that the portion selected was in any way representative of the differences? The answer is that we cannot be.
3. It is a well known fact that the genomes of individuals of the same species differ sometimes by quite a large amount. With humans, the number given is about 1/4 of 1%, with chimps is it over 1 1/12% - just about as big a difference as between them and humans! So which chimp did they take this sample from? The numbers are clearly bogus.
4. There is another problem and that is how were the determinations made? By mere counting of DNA bases? Or was there some attempt at synchronization? Were codons (DNA triplets) used or single bits of DNA? How did they know what bases were significant and which were not since right now we do not have the vaguest idea what 95% of the DNA does and we knew even less the 10 or so years ago evolutionists have been making this claim.
For all the above scientific reasons, this 98% concordance is absolute bunk and indeed just fairy tale made up by evolutionists.
Such as:
"A circle is not an ellipse...."
"Wildly elliptical" planetary orbits
"1720"
Pakicetus, Ichthyolested, Ambulocetus, Rhodocetus ... success.
Worms that did not speciate
Probably not. But we have ring species (several), Madeira mice with different chromosome counts, Dobzhansky's fruit flies, bacterial cases every week ... You have a lot more evidence for what you profess to believe to undermine. Don't crow about being done until you're done!
Skulls that are replicas
It's a replica in one museum from real bones in another. What did your quibble prove, considering that gore3000 was denigrating our knowledge of Pakicetus's skull based upon the single specimen before him which had spectacular post-cranial bones but a lousy skull preservation? Your "victories" are small. You're a small, nickel-and-dime operator, a caviler, an intellectual cheapskate.
Programs that are idiotic
But which demonstrate convergence upon a favored ("fit") outcome.
Erroneous descriptions of idiotic programs
Silly nitpicks.
Admissions finally. The program did nothing as you describe. It merely constructed "TOBEORNOTTOBE" in sequence.
So you are saying that it is moral for someone to deny someone else what they have rightfully earned? Are you saying that abuse of office is morally okay?
Seems to me that a teacher's job is to teach, not to impose his will on others. But then, I am not an atheist so I cannot say what such a person considers moral.
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.
And not in phrases, as John Rennie described. Your victories are small. Your war of nitpick and obfuscation is against the evidence for what you say you believe.
The whole thing reeks.
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